[Esra]

I just wanted to share the complaint that I sent to both Lufthansa and United Air as they blame each other for the mistakes...

I am writing on behalf of my partner who is stranded in Germany not being allowed to board. We bought a ticket from the the internet both for him (Aykut Ogut) and myself (Esra Banguoglu). We decided to change our dates of return, changed his return from the 9th of March to the 12th of March and mine from the 4th of April to the 1st of April. We were told a change in dates was possible as long as we upgraded, so Aykut Ogut was quoted a charge $282 and Esra Banguoglu $ 309. This happened only after we spent about 4 hours on the phone with 5 different agents and 2 different supervisors and were told anything from 1) this ticket can't be changed...2) Can only be changed to if you upgrade to 1 st class and pay 8 thousand dollars to....finally the last scenario described above... by the way we had asked an agent in Istanbul at the airport if the ticket was changeable and was told "Yes" for a fee of 100 Euros....so contradiction and contradiction again and again. So finally after the very last quote of the above prices of $282 dollars for reservation # 27SK9Q...my partner flew out of LAX yesterday on the 12th of March and into Frankfurt today only to be told that he cant fly to Istanbul because he does not have a reservation, although he is holding an intinery, saying Economy class -Confirmed for flight LH 3344. So he had to pay, now mind you all of a sudden the price of $ 400 to step into a flight supposedly already confirmed. I talked to an agent at the counter from his cell phone in Germany, who was one of the rudest and most unhelpfull people, he did not listen to the problem for even 1 second and said "Its not my fault, it is the fault of United Air(does not make you look very good)...so anyway my partner paid now $ 400 to get on the plane, hoping he had enough on the credit card and would not be stuck at the airport. I called lufthansa here at Los Angeles...the 1800 645 38 80 number and was told by a very nice supervisor, she was at least kind the following.... "Upps, the rates department did not get around to charging the fee on the credit card"...I guess they are too busy for now and us customers just get bullied around in Frankfurt for it, with no idea as to what on earth is going on and very, very, very confused, because no one can explain the reason...no one in Frankfurt knew why and I had to find out from Los Angeles..."why"....Now I am flying on the 1 st of April and lets see together what happens to me.....flying with Lufthansa has been a very unpleasant & scary experience for us...from my experince as a customer, I feel like no one has a clear answer for things, when Lufthansa makes a mistake such as not having time to charge a rate from a credit card, no one is taking responsibility..till it too late and no one could explain at Frankfurt, what was going on..."too bad, not my fault, pay or do not fly" are not acceptable attitudes or ways of treating a passenger...having a lufthansa agent on ground in Frankfurt, shrugging his shoulders, not having enough time to listen to a passenger, he told me on the phone he had other things to do and then blamed it all on United Air...is the most unproffesional attitude, I have ever encountered in my travels. It even more gives the image of Lufthansa as an institution being and acting very confused. For me it is easy, not to fly lufthansa again but I highly suggest for your company to be trained in better communication skills with your customers, and more communication and precise training in terms of ticket change rules and inter-department information flow. Sorry it is the "United Airs" fault, sorry it is the fault of the "Rates" department are not acceptable answers or attitudes....I hope that Lufthansa can carry on it's journey with more expansion, dignity, helpfulness, trustworthiness in the future....remembering that the attitude, word, and face of every agent on the phone or ground is creating an image of a huge company in every second, to millions of people.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>