Screw United Airlines

Thought this would be relevant to this thread:

United Airlines forgets toilet paper on 10-hour flight

 

One thing to remember with regard to US carriers vs. some international carriers... many of those international carriers are either owned by those other nations or subsidized very heavily whereas US carriers are generally taxed at extraordinarily high levels and get no special government treatment (outside what any large corporations get). Those foreign carriers often represent a way for foreign governments to show off their country to people all over the world and, as such, act as sort of ambassadors for those nations. That's why they are so awesome: The governments that own them are using them as advertising for their country.

To be clear, not all national airlines do this. British Airlines come to mind and you can't dispute airlines like Virgin that try to do a good job as a private company.

But the vast majority of flyers on any US airline will have this experience: They will get on, leave on time (or within 10 minutes of on-time), get to their destination, get off the plane and leave. Most of these people will never go online and say "I got exactly what I paid for". You mainly hear the people who have genuinely been screwed or who had unrealistic expectations. And when you fly something like a billion people a year you are going to have some unhappy people.

 

Yeah this is true. Back in the early days of flying, it was an experience only for the upper class, and people in the US would dress up for flights and receive nice meals and great service on board. Then the industry dynamics hit them in the face -- it's extremely hard to make money in the US airline industry, as the entry costs are not high enough to keep new competition out. In addition, there is excess capacity in the industry (hence all the mergers over the past decade) which serves to drive down prices. All this results in a hyper competitive battle for profitability, which in turn results in reducing passenger amenities and a diminished customer experience.

Some of the state-backed carriers don't face this as much, nor do countries where it's harder to start a new airline, which increases cost of entry into the industry.

 

Bigtexx European vacation

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What a gem.

 

Wird Kelly auf der Reise gekommen?

(although she's well past her prime)

 

I am probably jinxing myself, but we have had nothing but positive experiences on Delta and we probably fly 16-20 segments per year. The few minor issues we have had are remedied quickly and accompanied by travel vouchers and miles.

 

Their FA are insanely gorgeous...but their selection process would get a company sued into bankruptcy in the US.

 

Good post.

Do you ever fear you're less wealthy than somebody else yourself, river oaksish guy?

 

Has anybody done the Chase Southwest Visa promo with 2 roundtrip tickets (50000 points)?

 

Yeah, I just signed up two weeks ago. You have to spend 2k in 3 months to get the 50K miles (enough for two roundtrips) which is reasonable for me. I think the signup period's deadline is July or August.

 

My mother flew to Laguardia on Saturday, her luggage did not arrive with her. My dad went to Newark on Monday, also no luggage

 

I'll be honest... United is my domestic airline of choice, and I have the Chase/United credit card because of this. I haven't had any issues with them outside of the occasional delay that you can't really avoid on any of the airliners, and I fly fairly regularly. Hopefully that holds true on my upcoming flight next month, but I can't really complain up to this point.

 

I was actually looking for somebody who has had it. I've looked at some flights on Southwest and the point value of the flights for 2 round-trip tickets to say Houston-Little Rock is nowhere near 50k points. Do you get to keep the leftover points to use toward another trip or must you use all 50k on 2 round-trippers?

 

I have the card too and I have to argue with united any time I want to use it. What a pain in the ass

 

No - you get the points. I have no idea why they advertise 2-free-trips when you can get much more out of it. If you use the cheapest fares, it's really just $800 worth of tickets.

 

they probably are devaluing their points, lol

 

You know it won't be good. The elite one pass members must be hating it nowadays