Welcome to another Saturday! Hope the weekend is going great so far for everyone...cause that's what it's all about! And so today, our special guest writer for the Daily Disturbance is....hp07!!! So for our weekend reading pleasure...hp07 has written up a horror story of sorts about his most recent vacation and how things didn't go oh so well on his departure home

It's a little long, but terrible customer service experience can never be told in a few hundred words

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Where's the love??
Written by: hp07

DISCLAIMER: The following story contains tales of a shocking nature.
Times have been approximated and names changed to protect the not-so-innocent.
Over the 4th of July weekend, my family and I embarked on a vacation to Las Vegas.
The trip itself went well, but the journey home left much to be desired.
Our return flight was scheduled to depart Las Vegas at 6:55 pm on the 4th of July.
This meant that the four of us, my wife, 2 small children, and me, had to check in no later than 4:55 pm.
We arrived at the airport on time, received our boarding passes, and proceeded to our gate to wait for our flight.
Around 6:45, an announcement was made stating that there was a minor mechanical problem that would delay our
departure until 7:45. There was no apologies made, but we were assured that we would be underway shortly.
At 7:50, another announcement was made. This time, the news wasn't so surprising. We weren't going to make the 7:45
departure time. The flight was now delayed until 9:00. Now things started getting messy. There were over 172 passengers
waiting to board the charter flight, and many had to be at work in various cities and states the following morning. Others
had children accompanying them on the flight who were getting hungry and tired. Others, like me, had all those problems at
once. Again no apologies, just a "stay close to the gate, just in case."
At 9:30, the entire crew exited the plane and left the terminal. This, apparently, was the late announcement that we would
not be leaving at 9:00 afterall.
I took it upon myself to ask if we would be receiving meal vouchers or other compensation. The nearly inaudible airline
representative told me that it was best to take those matters up with my vacation package broker. Wonderful! She was
standing right there! Oops...She informed me that I would get better results if I talked to my travel agent about it.
Ahhh, the tangeled webs we weave. Ok, so my travel agent is in Missouri. She works on a military installation, and it
is now almost midnight Central Standard Time on Independence Day. Do you think she was in her office?
My wife and I bought dinner for ourselves and our kids, and the clock continued to turn. I began to get a little edgy, and
started hanging around the gate, eavesdropping for information. My edginess wasn't due to the fact that I was going to be
late for duty the next day. I had already called ahead and worked that out. However, after numerous phone calls to my
vacation package broker's customer service line and finally a point blank "what IS your job" question to the representative
there at the airport, I had deduced that her only job was to echo the information we were getting from the airline.
Of course, she volunteered none of this information unless you asked her directly, and she really wasn't authorized to
do anything else. I labeled her as being an oxygen thief, and relied on airline personnel from there on out.
At 10:30, I overheard another airline saying that they would control all of the gates until 11:30, so it wouldn't matter
if our airplane was repaired or not. We couldn't take off until after they were finished. This information I verified
with our airline, but they did not feel like making that public knowledge. Instead, their representatives left along with
the vacation brokers. All 172 of us sat in the terminal for nearly an hour before they returned to tell us that they would
have more information for us "in 20 minutes," and they handed out food vouchers. Yippee, unless you were weird and had to
eat before midnight. Yippee until you found out that 10 bucks doesn't go too far in an airport and that all of the
restaurants were closing in 30 minutes anyway.
Finally it looked as though we were going to get some answers! A man appeared, who presumably spoke Spanish fluently, and
stumbled through an announcement. We waited anxiously, and found out that "in 20 minutes" someone important would give us
more information. What??? Now it's almost 1:00 am on the 5th of July, more than six hours after our flight was scheduled
to depart, and the airline STILL doesn't know what's going on? I should back up for a moment. I TRIED to help them plan.
I really did. I asked them after the first delay, "What's the plan if it can't be fixed tonight?" The reply was,
"Oh, we try not to think that far in advance." I kid you not.
Surprisingly, someone did appear in 20 minutes. It wasn't anyone important, just the same, clueless airline representative
with our brokers in tow. Our flight was going to be delayed until morning - wait, it was morning already - and we were
being given transportation to the MGM Grand Hotel where we would be provided rooms for the night and return transportation
to the airport. We would find out what time our flight would leave after we had boarded the bus. The crowd cheered and
happily headed for the buses.
What??? At this point, I began to lose my patience. For me, it was a miracle that I had made it this long. I demanded to
know what time the flight was now scheduled to depart, since they hadn't managed to fix the plan so far. My poor little
ineffective broker tried to smooth things over. "You'll be departing at 12:30 tomorrow for sure. The plane is fixed now,
but the crew ran out of time. I know this all seems wrong, but it's the same way any airline handles this kind of thing.
We did everything we could." Ta-da! She had successfully moved me far past aggrivated, straight to furious.
All of the other passengers seemed to wonder why I was mad now, as we were going to stay at a plush hotel, blah blah blah.
As I did for them, I'll break it down to you the way hp07 thinks:

#1 - "It's company policy..." Regardless of how anybody else does it, wrong is wrong. Furthermore, all representatives
were equipped with both land line and cellular phones. This means that at any given time, they could have reached out and
touched someone who could have made a difference for the good of the 172 passengers left basically screwed at the airport.
#2 - Meal vouchers. Those are especially nice if you've just tossed out your empty Burger King bag. If I was going to have
to provide meal vouchers for that many people, I'd try my best to make sure that I handed them out after they'd already
eaten, and just before everything closed.
#3 - The MGM Grand Hotel. Ooooo...ahhhh... Ask yourself, if you owned a 4-star hotel and had 172 empty rooms at 1:00 am
on any given day, would you cut me a discount if I filled them all before 2:00 am? Wow, thanks airline! I do appreciate
the opportunity to wake up my children, drag them and my luggage back to a hotel in the wee hours of the morning, and get
a couple of hours sleep instead of a full night's rest just so you can get a discount.
#4 - Crew time. Now wait a second. I'm not a math whiz, but I think I can figure this one out. The flight from Las Vegas
to St. Louis takes three hours. So the flight crew ran out of time? Would that have been around the time they LEFT THE
TERMINAL, or was it shortly thereafter? Let's give the airline some slack and say they ran out of time at midnight, how
about that? So midnight=12. 12-3 (for flight time)=9. At 9:00, the plane had a 0.00% chance of taking off that night,
so WHY DID WE HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER 1:00 AM TO GET A HOTEL ROOM? Oh yeah, see #3 above.
In the end, we were given meal vouchers for breakfast in the airport. These were for $5.00. Believe me, I bought four rolls
and four drinks from Cinnabon, and they cost me over $25.00. I guess I owe another thanks to the airline for giving me those
other vouchers so late. I didn't need them for dinner, so they covered breakfast.
I finally landed in Missouri at 6:30 Central Standard Time, 20 hours after my flight was originally scheduled to depart.
And what did we, the passengers, receive? Free pretzels and a Coke during the flight.
So tell me, has customer service seriously gone THIS bad? Please tell me that the experience is NOT the norm...

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Fortunately I've never been placed in that situation...it definitely sounds like it's the suck

Hopefully everything else went well and Thanks for sharing your experience with us hp07!!!

See you guys next saturday!

FINALLY someone calls to tell us that we have $1000 worth of vouchers for our next trip. This seems a little backwards, since it was flying with them that caused the problem in the first place, but I'm gonna' go with luck and humor them.

Damn......what a Trip
What no pictures of the day in Vegas.... I am glad you made it back home.... (Safe)
Nice little write up.....

Daaaamn..........that suked big time .........great write up though.....

Don't they say what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas? Something must have happened.

Dang dude, that sux hairy sweaty......umm, yeah.
One thing I can say in the defense of the plane's crew though (not by any means saying you shouldn't be pissed), is that that flight was not their only one for the day. They are only allowed by law to be at work for a certain period of time because people's lives are in their hands.
Trust me, the airline's employees (most of them) would side with you if they knew they could get away with it.

godfoot has a point there id rather wait till morning than have a pilot who's too tired to fly the plane safely... although that does suck hardcore...

Quote: Originally Posted by 4rm4g3dd0n godfoot has a point there id rather wait till morning than have a pilot who's too tired to fly the plane safely... although that does suck hardcore...

Yeah, but WTF is that the ONLY flight???......C'mon damn airlines should have an alternate..........

We had the same problem except it was a tighter situation... See we were in cancun and this delayed crap happened. When you are in a different country you cant just leave the airport and get a hotel. Our plan departed at 3:30 and they played Mean Girls with the volume up on the intercom. Anyways I feel for ya man. I know what its like to be stuck in limbo where no one has the answers and time isnt your friend. Great write up.

Yeah, being in the military, I know about crew time and the limitations of a pilot's work day. Understandable completely. I didn't mind waiting until I had a rested pilot. The part that got me was the fact that the crew time ran out HOURS before the passengers got a room for the night.

As for alternate flights. Nope, we were told, "Yeah, you can use another airline...if you want to pay for it."

BA - Sadly, it was a family trip. Nothin' happened in Vegas.

hey at least they didn't lose your luggage

Quote: Originally Posted by Belgianwaffles hey at least they didn't lose your luggage

lol, there ya go...way to look on the bright side

Ahhh...I've just returned from Texas, and the trip went well. The flights were perfect. When I arrived in San Antonio, I picked up a Ford Focus from Enterprise. Imagine my disappointment when I learned that they're the same size in Texas. Humph.

Fortunately, the guards at Sam Houston pointed out that the registration on the vehicle had expired in May. So Enterprised delivered me a replacement, with a free upgrade. 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo. Now that was more Texas-sized!

Anyway, American Airlines have restored my faith in air travel. That should last until October, when I cash in on those FunJet vouchers to Vegas again.