The story behind my bump earlier in the week...

Wow. That's horrible.

Were the Red Carpet Clubs closed? How about the Customer Service Counter across from the D Terminal RCC?

maybe you should not volutneer for a bump wihen flying with your mon

@ Matthew -- The RCCs had just closed. I went to the D customer service counter first, and they told me to go to C20 customer service to get VDB compensation issued.

If mom always comes first, why did you take the VDB?

Perhaps in the 30 minute wait the service director completely forgot about you and thought that you were a different passenger.

It's all your fault, you should've flashed your 1k status at the beginning.

Or better, flash your status in the middle of the conversation and watch her force herself to change her manner, fun~ 🙂

Not take crap? Are you kidding?

What maybe said.

I had a similar experience at ORD this spring (on a short segment run; cxn canceled; brushed off by multiple gate agents who were doing NOTHING that took priority; and generally advised to run back and forth between terminals). Finally found one GA who took her job seriously and got rebooked.

I'm only a lowly 2P, but you better believe I sent UA a blistering letter -- including names, physical descriptions, gate numbers, time sequence, etc. -- and received a conciliatory response w/compensation (which was perhaps more than necessary). Too bad ORD service is still so poor.

If "sitting at the airport for nearly 90 minutes" gives you a nervous breakdown, there's seriously something wrong with you.

You need some perspective dude 🙂

Being a gate agent is a very tough job and they don't get compensated for the issues they resolve for their customers.

Like you Lucky, I always try to be nice to them. Even thought I am a 1K, I don't tell the gate agents that I am a 1K. Whenever I give them my Mileage Plus number or my name, they already know that I am a 1K and treat me accordingly. And I always thank them for their hard work.

To clarify, mom had no problem bumping. She waned to bump. She had an issue with sitting around for 90 minutes afterwards being ignored. She runs her own business and believes in good customer service, and hadn't ever seen this type of customer service before.

@ mrpickles -- She definitely hadn't forgotten about me. I sat across from her the whole time looking at her, and she kept looking at me.

Sorry to hear about the bad service lucky. Perhaps next time you should not do a bump when with your mom as it is probably more stress than is worth it.

"Look, I understand gate agents have VERY tough, stressful jobs, given their salary. Everyone blames everything on them, even if they weren’t involved in any way."

Hey if they don't like their jobs they can find another one. They took the job and knew the salary and "issues" that come with the job. I would hardly say that their jobs are tough or stressful as I did the job in college. You never have work to take home with you, and nothing keeps you up at night wondering if your decision will ruin your company.

They are the face of the company and as such get to deal with the decisions the company makes. They need to understand that the customer paying their salary has a reason to be upset by a decision their company made to oversell the flight by 26. Granted no one needs to be cursed or called names, but then again the customer shouldn't have to suggest routings, additional airlines, etc because of lazy or bitter employees. If you hate your job that much, leave.

What was the ethnicity of the 2 rude gate agents? Just curious.

"I would hardly say that their jobs are tough or stressful as I did the job in college. "

The difference is that they are NOT in college, and, more often than not, have been doing it for years. As a former check in / gate agent, I can assure you that it is MORE stressful, and much more poorly compensated, than my well-paid desk job (secured after a completing an MBA).

The part that bothers me the most about this whole story, though, is the systemic failures that occur at the airlines that no one is inclined to fix. That is a result of years of cost cutting, shabby terminals, and poor communications equipment (have you seen the computers and phones behind the gate and check in desks?).

There's no excuse for staff rudeness (unless the passenger is rude first), but it is kind of understandable.

I wish they would record all the conversations of customer service at the airports for monitoring purpose, like on the phone. United agents frequently abruptly switch their attitude according to the elite status of the customer. Is that how they were trained, so people are motivated to keep their elite status and feel powerful??? 🙁

Totally agree with Left Seater. If any of us did our jobs as poorly as these people we would be fired. Nobody forced them to take jobs at customer service "professionals". It's unfortunate that these bad apples give a bad name for the many of the great front line staff that United has.

It's not a matter of not doing bumps no matter who you are traveling with. No one should expect the bump process to be this frustrating when you're in essence doing the airline a huge favor by not forcing them to IDB.

Not sure why everyone is so focused on what YOU supposedly did wrong (why shouldn't you go for the bump with your mom, etc.?) – the attitude and laguage of the service director was just inexcusable. The whole "J.C., what do you think I can do to help you?" strikes me as particularly egregious and offensive. Personally, I would complain about that.

Grr, "language" not "laguage" ...

Also meant to add that I wonder how much age plays an occasional part in dismissive and rude service. Or maybe I'm just cynical based on my own experiences. 🙂 I frequently notice a difference in how I am treated based on the initial "You look under 30" impression versus the subsquent "Oh, you have status/are a regular customer/etc." discovery.

Some people might find this passive-aggressive, but I generally have my iPhone ready in hand to record any such incident like that (you can usually see it coming). It's surprisingly effective in extracting either a good response on the spot, or later on from corporate.

@Joe

These jobs should be lower paid than your MBA level job. The point of saying I did the job in college was to say that if a teenager can do the job, there isn't anything difficult about it. You never had reports or presentations that required you to work on them from home, etc. When the clock struck 4, I was gone and never thought about it again.

As for stress there wasn't any even knowing I would be buying 25 people off of a flight from AUS to ATL almost every day. Not because the company oversold the flight, but because the fully loaded 727 couldn't get airborne on a 100+ degree summer day with the 8000 foot runway at the old AUS airport. You put a smile on your face and offered those affected options. Zero stress unless you hated the job. I didn't hate the job and loved the free travel, but aspired to make more money so I left. I didn't just complain about the job, the customers, the pay, etc.

So... how often would you experience something like this from a Southwest GA?

Seems like you sold your moms soul for a bump.... You need some perspective.....

AJ, I'd be careful about using the iPhone to record a conversation (if that's what you mean). Incredibly, in 12 states you cannot record your private conversation (phone or f2f) without the consent of *all* parties; in many cases, it's a felony to violate this prohibition. (Federal law -- 18 USC 2511(2)(d) -- and the law of the other states requires only the consent of one party, which would be you.)

For a decent overview, see http://www.rcfp.org/taping/

@James said 'What was the ethnicity of the 2 rude gate agents'?

Why should that matter?? I think lucky's age is more of a factor than anything else.

Welcome to the world of the non elite flyer. I heard the "jesus christ" from an FA on the way back from DUS to ORD a few months ago (wasn't me, someone else apparently ticked her off). This was in E+ by the way.

What I find especially strange about your experience is that are SO many people without work who would do anything - MBAs included. So everyone with a bad attitude could be fired and replaced.

As for the FAs who think they want to be safety pros and provide no service at all? They may eventually get their wish. I'd be just fine with replacing them all with air marshalls trained to do safety function and protection, it even makes some sense.

Ouch! While I hate to be one of the DYKWIA types, I think I would have mentioned my 1K-ness earlier in this case. Kudos to you Lucky for your patience.

My IAD experiences (including inside RCCs) have consistently been less-than-stellar for any kind of irrops.

Sounds like typical UAL customer service. BTW I think you should differentiate between true gate agents (who are at the gate) and the CSRs who man the terminal help desks. I think the latter are more akin to the CSRs who work the checkin counter, with similar bad attitudes.

Honestly Lucky I think that you have been spoiled so long as a 1K (and RCC member?) that you probably don't realize this is the face of UAL as far as the vast majority of customers are concerned. All you needed to top it off would have been a call to the ICC. Not very pretty, is it?

What I do find interesting (and sad) is that your status basically didn't get you any special treatment here. You had to wait in a horrendous line along with everyone else (my sympathies). Personally that would be a dealbreaker for me as I can't stand waiting due to insufficient resourcing or incompetence of others.

Contrast this to my recent VDB on Southwest with my family in tow. The GA was assisted by a manager, who personally issued all 3 VDB vouchers on the spot after rebooking us on a flight of our choice the following day. No line waiting, he told us to go off and get some food, and everything was waiting when we returned. You need to ask yourself, why couldn't UA do that? You experience was at ORD, not some podunk outpost where UA only has 2 employees on duty.

I probably would have politely waited at the gate, since you ended up waiting anyways.

@unavaca WN is no different. There are bad apples working for every airline.

I think it's wrong the agent treated lucky like this.
He's a 1+mm with an average of 300k butt in seat annually, that is lots of high revenues we are talking here. That ga was a union worker I am sure and need to realize how valuable he is.

JOSH