[MelGullickson]

Oh, where to start. The easiest way to show how terrible US Airways Customer service was recently is by the thread of emails. My boyfriend sent the following email on Monday.

Dear U.S. Airways & Orbitz Customer Relations Representative, I am writing to express tremendous dissatisfaction with a recent experience I had with U.S. Airways and Orbitz. Upon reading the account outlined below, I feel confident that any reputable business concerned with maintaining a strong and loyal customer base would quickly see the insanity of its initial decision making and immediately move towards a reversal of the decision.
Several months ago, I booked a flight on Orbitz from Dallas/Fort Worth to Detroit for Labor Day Weekend. The flight was booked through Orbitz.
Not long after booking this flight, I was asked to attend a corporate meeting that coincided with my trip to Detroit. The corporate meeting was meant to include spouses and significant others. As a result, I booked a flight on U.S. Airways through Orbitz for my girlfriend, who lives in Las Vegas, to fly from Las Vegas to Dallas.
On 8/31/09, I attempted to cancel my originally scheduled trip to Detroit through Orbitz online. Unfortunately, once I gained access to my account, I inadvertently deleted my girlfriend's upcoming trip to Dallas in lieu of my trip to Detroit. Immediately upon viewing the on screen confirmation of the flight cancellation, I realized the mistake and quickly got on the phone with Orbitz in an attempt to restore the exact same itinerary that had just moments before been deleted.
After spending over twenty minutes either on hold or speaking with an Orbitz representative whose communication skills seemed greatly inadequate for a customer service role, the call was disconnected. I immediately called back determined to quickly resolve the issue. After spending an additional sixty-eight minutes on hold and/or speaking with ineffective communicators, I was finally able to re-book the same exact flight that was inadvertently deleted less than 1.5 hours prior (all of which was spent on the phone trying to fix it). The final result of my error was a tremendous amount of frustration, wasted time and an outrageous additional charge of $446.00 to book the same exact flight that was accidentally cancelled.
Politely and rationally, I attempted to reason with Orbitz about the insanity of being charged this incredible increase in fare for a simple mistake. Orbitz simply shifted all responsibility by claiming U.S.
Airways' rigidity in its policy, as well as their own inability to do "anything further to assist me."
If I would have cancelled this flight outright, or booked a different flight, then I would've been fully prepared to accept any penalties or fare increases associated with the change. However, in this case, nothing whatsoever changed about the scheduled flight or itinerary except for the fact that I made a mistake, which I acted swiftly to resolve.
This experience was incredibly frustrating. I am asking for a refund of $446.00, which represents the fare increase above and beyond the initial cost of my airfare the first time it was booked. I do not think this is unreasonable. However if this is not resolved quickly and satisfactorily, then I will personally boycott U.S. Airways and Orbitz forever and use every ounce of influence I have to persuade others to join me.
Please feel free to contact me to discuss this matter. I can be reached at 702.---.----
Sincerely,
Nick Summerville
nsummerville@nealrichardsgroup.com

And here is their VERY canned and ridiculous response:

Dear Mr. Summerville:
Thank you for contacting US Airways regarding your concern with our ticket prices. I apologize you felt these ticket prices were unreasonable and hope the following information will be helpful in understanding our approach to determine pricing for our various flight routes.
We offer a wide range of fares in each market. The volume of customers, competition with other carriers, and the cost of providing service are all factors we must consider when determining fares between cities.
Ticket prices are also based on the date of travel, time of travel, and the advance purchase date. Our automated system always quotes the lowest available fare based on the selected itinerary.
Regretfully we are unable to refund any portion of the additional collection made for your girlfriend's ticket. These charges reflect the difference in fare between the original booking and the new booking.
We appreciate you choosing US Airways when considering your future travel needs.

Sincerely,
Northey Edd
Representative, Customer Relations
US Airways Corporate Office

We will never fly them again - which is too bad for them since we used their airline constantly for the Vegas Dallas route. To put it in perspective, the $400 they are not refunding to him (when we had already spent $300 on the first flight) is the price of another ticket. We likely would have spent much more than that in continued flights with the airline (We have purchased 3 flights in the last few months alone). So by not refunding the price of an accident, they are losing on thousands in potential ticket purchases. Congratulations, US Airways, on an absolutely moronic business decision.