[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.

[jimworcs]

Why do they do this?

Because they are operating a monopoly and have legal protection to do so... they know that the vast majority of flyers have no choice. The best solution is to push for re-regulation of the airlines by congress and for the break up of the complex monopolies they operate from in their fortress hubs.

[mars6423]

that sucks, mistakes do happen and you tried to resolve it as soon as you recognized it, at least it wasn't sold on a full flight than you would be sore outta luck

i highly doubt anything would happen, i see why they charged you the extra amount though, and i am sure everyone does, since ticket prices increase the closer you get to the flight, but i would say that if it was an obvious accident and that the person acted responsibly and swiftly that there would be little or no "punishment" charge, maybe a small charge would be more acceptable but nothing higher than $50 tops but preferably none.

mistakes happen and in many fields there will always be some form of consequence, but the $446 is too high for a accident that was resolved asap

its not just a US Air problem, it happens with any airline

i wonder if there is anything more orbitz can do to, they seem to be more helpful to customers but i dunno if they would/could have done anything

[Gromit801]

Well for one thing, Orbitz is the entity you need to deal with here, following your mistake online. You bought the ticket from them, not US Air, and legally US Air doesn't have to do anything. You may be their passenger, but you're not their customer.

Orbitz is a complete cluster **** when a mistake is made. They will do NOTHING to rectify a problem if it might cost them a dollar, and shift the blame to an airline. Most airlines will try to help when a third party transaction goes south, but their hands are somewhat tied by the fact that you didn't enter into an agreement with them. You entered into an agreement with Orbitz.

[PHXFlyer]

I was in the process of responding to this when I saw Gromit's reply. Had you (or your boyfriend) purchased the ticket directly from US Airways they would have had more flexibility to assist you with re-instating your ticket. What Gromit said is true to a point. Since you bought the ticket with Orbitz you are US Airway's customer but technically not until you arrive at the airport for your flight. Any issues involving ticketing must be resolved through the agent you chose to purchase the ticket through.

In the end it was your (boyfriend's) error for canceling the wrong ticket. He should have made darn sure he was canceling the right ticket before he hit "enter", "cancel", "proceed" or whatever button was required to finalize the transaction. Sometimes mistakes are costly. That's just life. In the future buy your tickets directly from the airline on the airline's website and be careful when clicking that mouse!

[Silent Bob]

Whoa, whoa Gromit, I wouldn't say Orbitz is a cluster anything, I'm sorry but I use Orbitz religiously (myself, my family and friends) simply because they do a MUCH better job and have more options when it comes to rebooking because of a delay or cancellation. The OP made a mistake, and in the end he has to pay for that mistake. US airways is not to blame for the cost of a higher ticket and neither is orbitz responsible for not charging the higher fare. had the OP simply paid attention to what he was doing, well we wouldn't be having this discussiom. You booked your ticket through orbitz, you should try and fight for your money back through them and them alone (doubtful you will get it back).

[Gromit801]

LOL Bob. Seems whenever I'm in line at the counter, or at the kiosk, if there's a dispute involving a third party, "Orbitz" is the name I most frequently hear.... coupled with a lot of explicatives. It's enough to keep me away from them.

[jimworcs]

Look, we can all make errors.. and perhaps it was reasonable to charge something for the error.. but to charge what they did was exploitative, no matter who's fault it was..

[PHXFlyer]

Originally Posted by jimworcs

Look, we can all make errors.. and perhaps it was reasonable to charge something for the error.. but to charge what they did was exploitative, no matter who's fault it was..

I wouldn't go as far as to say it was exploitative. They were merely selling him the ticket at the going rate. Same price you or I would have paid had we be buying the exact same ticket at precisely the same time.

[Silent Bob]

I hear ya Gromit, but I think protection wise, they seem to do a pretty good job. Once I was going to Vegas connecting on United thru Chicago from EWR. Their ORD flight cancelled and while everyone was bum rushing the gate agent, I simply called orbitz told what was happening (hehehe they could hear it too) and they booked me direct on America West (before they merged with USairs).

Jim, I agree that Orbitz could have done a much better job in how they handled things, but in the end it was not an agent error, it was a costly mistake by the OP, but one that needs to be taken up with orbitz, no matter what their response is. From a customer service standpoint I am sure they could see when the op made the mistake and when he made the phone call to recitify that mistake, and given the time difference re-instate the ticket, based on tha info. Were they exploitive? I don't think so, remember this is not the OP booking a flight, making a mistake, and then trying to fix it. This is the OP who booked a flight well in advance, actually deleted the flight, and now trying to fix it but the cost of that ticket had already gone up.

i hope both sides can come to an agreement, doubtful, but you never know.

[azstar]

This would have been a simple thing for either Orbitz, or US Air to resolve if anyone who works at these organizations had any knowledge of ticketing whatsoever. Unfortunately, they don't so they ping pong people back and forth hoping they will just go away. All Orbitz OR US Air had to do was rebook the same flights, in the same class of service (A,B,C.. X, Y, Z, whatever the original inventory was) in the original PNR and poof... the e-ticket would have matched the original reservations and everything would have been resolved with no additional payment required. E-ticket would have automatically revalidated when flights were rebooked.

[jimworcs]

And the reason they didn't do that was simple... they are exploitative and wanted to make a money grab and make the customer pay

[azstar]

Originally Posted by jimworcs

And the reason they didn't do that was simple... they are exploitative and wanted to make a money grab and make the customer pay

I'm not sure the front line employees really care about getting more money from the passenger. I think too many of them are uninformed, untrained, lazy, not very bright, unmotivated, you name it. It's just easier for some of them to constantly say "no" to everything. That way, no one can accuse them of doing anything incorrectly if they don't do anything at all. It's endemic in the airline industry.

[The_Judge]

I can tell you as a frontline employee, I refused many times to collect extra charges, especially for luggage and sometimes for change fees. The money did not go into my pocket in the way of a raise or other benefit. It went directly to the greedy upper management in the way of bonuses for reaching goals. I, towards the end, would have no part of it to the glee of many passengers. I'm sure it screwed other employees later on as the customer would probably say, "well, they didn't charge me before". Don't care.....I left.

[jimworcs]

That is how it works.. the good get it and get totally fed up of having no discretion and treating people like crap and leave...

and we are now left with greedy rapacious and arrogant management who are focussing on bribing congress to continue to protect their monopoly and stupid, sadistic and power hungry morons who take their simple pleasures by telling customers lies and levying totally disproportionate "penalties"

[azstar]

In the airline industry there is no incentive to be any better than the worst employee.

[wkharris2001]

I didn't read in the first post where the OP called US to correct the error they called orbitz. orbitz is a travel agency and if the same class of service is not available their hands are tied......

I disagree with what everyone is saying about entering the agreement with orbitz. when orbitz issues a ticket they issue it onto an airline ticket stock, not an orbitz ticket stock, in most cases it is the first carrier, or the carrier with the most interest or higher fare in the ticket. this was more than likely issued onto a 037 ticket stock (all US tickets start with 037) so since it is now ticketed on US ticket stock, the agreement is now with US airways.

as azstar stated all that US reservations had to do was simply book it back into the PNR so that the ticket and the reservation matched no harm no fowl. unless the same class of service was not available, and the frontline agent got a supervisor that would not help or would not overbook the correct class of service citing that "us airways didn't do it it's not our fault" (which did happen to me a few times when i worked for delta res) once a supervisor documents a record it's hard to get the situation rectified

bottom line the OP should have called US airways and just had the itinerary reinstated. I don't see why US didn't just reinstate the itinerary other than the agent was either lazy or just unwilling to help. people make mistakes and airlines should do more to help them out for simple mistakes.