During the most recent New Zealand school holidays which ran from 30 June through 15 July, I took the kids back to the US to see their biological father. When he and I were negotiating the mechanics of a custody arrangement that allowed me to remove the children from America to live in another country, one of the things to which I agreed, was that I would be responsible to arrange and fund their return to the US once a year.
We left Auckland late Saturday night on the 30th of June and arrived in Los Angeles mid afternoon on the same day, which is always a bit of a mind screw. We had dinner with Dallas's son, shopped a bit and then retired to our hotel room since we had a 6:00am flight to Tulsa the following morning.
I woke up the next morning to my mobile ringing and as I stumbled out of bed and over to the phone, I had a vague, jet lagged-soaked, feeling of unease. I missed the call and one other thing registered as I glanced down at the face of my mobile. We'd missed our flight, too. It was 6:10 am.
Shit.
I freaked just a bit, woke up the kids and told them to HURRY, WE MISSED OUR FLIGHT!
My son, the voice of reason, said, "Why do we need to hurry if we have missed the plane?"
I didn't have a good answer.
I called United. The next flight out that they could get us on would be the following day, late evening. Even though it was the Sunday before the 4th of July holiday, I could not believe that between the two recently merged airlines of Continental and United, that they could not find 3 seats from LOS ANGELES to Tulsa. I explained that I didn't care if we had to go to the East Coast first or Chicago or Denver or Houston or Dallas or WHEREVER...we just needed to be in Tulsa that night since both the kids and I had obligations Monday morning. No dice. Nothing.
I had no choice but to secure tickets on another airline to the tune of $1600. I hated myself at that moment. Before that, though, I told the customer service agent that I needed to make sure that our return tickets were left intact and not cancelled. She said that in order to do that, she would have to check us in at Denver, which is where our original connection was to have been. I waited on hold while she did this for us. Twenty four minutes later, she came back on the line to tell us that we were checked in and that our return tickets were solid. I received emails confirming our check in at Denver.
So la de da, we get to Tulsa on the other airline and spend the next week, as planned. The following Sunday, we head back to Tulsa to spend the night before flying out the following Monday morning to Los Angeles. I have crappy travel luck. It's well documented and on Sunday night, my Spidey senses were tingling and I thought I'd better get online and check us in. Guess what? No record of us. Our confirmation number was no longer working.
I get back on the phone with United. Actually, I got on with their automated system that made me just a hair shy of homicidal. After slogging my way through the robot system to where it would allow me to speak with an agent, I was put on hold and told my wait time would be in the neighborhood of 8 minutes. Well, 38 minutes later, I got a real live person on the phone. She spoke with me for about two minutes, got the gist of the problem, put me on hold again and left me there....for another 18 minutes. She then came back on and told me that there was nothing she could do for me and had in fact, spoken to two different supervisors who suggested I show up at the Tulsa airport the following day and see what they could do for me there. I calmly told her that her advice was not acceptable and that I needed to speak with a supervisor since I had made all of the necessary provisions on the front end to ensure that this problem would't exist and oh, by the way, we were flying to NEW ZEALAND from Los Angeles and if it was alright by her, I didn't really feel like rolling the dice since that would be upsetting to my TWO CHILDREN.
I was placed back on hold. At the one hour and eight minute mark, I put my mobile on speaker and picked up the hotel phone and dialed United customer service again. After the whole series of questions by the auto system, I was placed on hold. I think it was at this point that I lost my composure. Then King, an agent based in the Philippines, came on the line and as I was telling him my story, I began to sob like a crazy person. I'm not sure how much sense I was making but I do remember quite clearly that at the end of my tale, he said, very firmly, "I am going to put you on hold again and I apologize. I will fix this. I promise." Back to the land of hold, I went.
In the meantime, back on my mobile, a female agent named Michelle based in Tampa, FL came on the line. "Are you a supervisor?" I asked? This was at the one hour , twenty two minute mark, who for those of you who are keeping track, will note that the original agent left me on hold for another twenty four minutes after I had asked to speak with a supervisor. Michelle told me that sadly, she was not a supervisor. I burst into tears, again, and through hiccups, explained what had transpired with her company over the better part of the last hour and a half. She was horrified and not in that fake, "I'm sorry you've had such a poor experience with us Mrs. X" way. This woman was genuinely upset for us. She told me to hang on while she took a look and also instructed me not to hang up either phone.
Back on hold, I went. About two minutes later, King came back on the line to tell me he had sorted out the kids and was working on me but that he would have to put me on hold again. I was so grateful, I could barely choke out my thanks. Then Michelle popped back into my mobile and confirmed the kids had been booked and not to hang up with King because it looked like they were working on mine. She put me on hold and went back at it, too.
Finally, one hour and forty four minutes after dialing United, King came back on the line and told me we were good to go the following day and then he did something remarkable. He apologized for the trouble that we had experienced. I found that impressive. After thanking him profusely and getting his ID details, I hung up with him. Within thirty seconds, Michelle came back on the mobile line to confirm that we were all sorted. She apologized, as well. Her compassion for our situation and the obvious stress it caused was really appreciated. I went to bed that night a mostly sane person.
In the end, it all worked out and we were able to catch our flight home to New Zealand but what stuck with me was the difference in talent on the other end of the phone. That first agent and was appalling. She didn't give a shit about us at all. She just wanted our problem out of her queue so she could move on to the next customer and keep her phone stats up. That one person, and her utter lack of problem solving skills, could have really buggered things had I just accepted her response. How is it that one agent can get it done while another tells you that even the supervisors think you're fucked?
I plan to write a letter because King and Michelle deserve to be recognized for their efforts and United should know what an ordeal it was to exercise our return tickets. In spite of King and Michelle though, I'm pretty sure that I'll exhaust my other airline options before I spend another dime with United.
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