[Dsears3]

No, I did not do it for $35.
I did it because I have been a Customer Service professional for over 25 years, and no matter how little I am paid, nor how busy I am, I NEVER give a blanket No to a customer. (especially when they are right!)

I stayed on the line that long because I feel that strongly that this is NOT good policy NOR good customer service. (I wouldn't have done it if having one line on Speaker Phone impeded my ability to work)

This system and pricing is WRONG- it is deceitful; it is Bait and Switch.
The lower price STILL exists. You don't find out about the higher price till after you go through almost the entire change process.

There is no place in the procedure nor in their Terms and Conditions to state that Change Fares are not the fares noted in their current pricing.

Not one Spirit Customer Service extension nor number was working yesterday- nor today. I assume this is not new from what I've read of others upset with lost luggage or cancelled flights.

If this is how they treat reservations, and how they train their customer service personnel, can you imagine how much better their maintenance staff and crew are trained?

I agree that society today gets what it asks for:
low prices in exchange for automated voice mails systems, ATMs and inferior merchandise made in non-regulated countries.
BUT UNTIL we start to bring this to the attention of the people at the top of these corporations, why should they stop worrying about the bottom line.
It bodes well for NO BUSINESS, from Walmart to EXXON to go for the lowest standard of service.

FYI:
One of the messages I left at a random extension- Marketing- called me back. She started giving me the same "that's the price", "can't do anything about it", until she finally listened and tried to do it herself.
She couldn't explain the discrepancy.
She immediately said she'd pass me to a Customer Relations Manager.

This manager just called and apologized for the error- he said it was a programming mistake- and put in for a $209 voucher (it was for two tickets,not one). While I had to pay an additional $120 fee for the change, I'm not rich, so that $89 is important.

I told him that I appreciated what he had done, and accepted that it was a computer mistake, but hoped that the Reservation Agents and Customer Relations were instructed that saying No, with no option for redress is not a good way to run a business.

He agreed, and said the woman who called me was actually the head of Customer Relations, and while we were speaking, she had just sent out a memo to that effect.

So you see: professionalism and customer service are critical, being a good consumer works. Not just for me in this one incident, but MAYBE just MAYBE, they might even improve their customer responses, whether in the Phillipines or in their South Florida main office.