US Air Hates Me

US Air hates me. Here's why:

In late March, my fiancee and I had round-trip flights on US Air to Ohio for the weekend to do some wedding planning. At 11:30 the night before we were going to leave, we got a call telling us her grandfather had passed away. This was a Thursday night, but the funeral wasn't going to be until Tuesday. After talking it over Thursday night and Friday morning, we decided to change our flight plans and instead of flying up Friday night, to drive up on Sunday. That just left us with the task of getting our flights changed... I dreaded this process, and with good reason.

Since moving to Charlotte, I've been a consistant flyer of US Air for about five years. I have just over 50,000 miles with a silver preferred membership. I only mention it because I had hoped it would make the process of changing flights easier. It did not.

While I was at work Friday morning, Jen called US Air directly and spoke with a very nice lady about changing the flights. At this point, we hadn't made our plans final, but the customer service rep told that she had flagged her record for a bereavement waiver and that we could both get our flights changed free of charge if we called back. I wish it had been that easy.

We talked it over on the phone and I decided to come home early so we could get things taken care of. The first call to US Air was a nightmare. The gentlemen we spoke to had a thick accent and seemed friendly enough at first. He told Jen that he couldn't waive the $100 change fee for both of our tickets, only hers. The reasoning was that I was not immediate family and the bereavement waiver did not apply. I got on the phone with him and tried to explain that we had already been told they would both be changed. He still politely refused. I eventually spoke to his supervisor to make sure they would not change my flight without the fee. I did remind them that I had a preferred member status and did they take that into consideration? Of course not, they were strict about their policy. Sorry, have a good day. By the time I got off the phone with them, I was in a fury.

At that time, I just decided to change the flight and eat the $100. I tried to make the change online with Expedia but there was some glitch in the system that wouldn't allow it. I then called Expedia and spoke to a native English speaking lady that was very helpful. However, she wasn't able to make the change either so I was left with no other choice than to call US Air back.

The last thing I wanted to do was get back on the phone with those guys but here's the funny part of the story. I called them back, explained the situation again, and had my flight changed for free within five minutes. After trying for two hours, one five minute call and it was done.

I'm grateful they changed my flight without charging me $100. What I want to know is why did they have to jerk me around about it? In spite of getting what I wanted, I'm a seriously disenfranchiased customer now. The moral of the story is that if the person on the phone won't give you what you want, call back and talk to someone else.