Sometimes I wonder if it is worth being a Premier Platinum member of United Airlines. They decided to change the flight I booked several months ago and re-routed me via Chicago. I do not want to fly via Chicago but since United treats Houstonians badly, they just sent me an email telling me that I had to take an extra flight to Chicago. They stopped flying at 1pm to Houston, from New York. I told them that I would suffer waiting an extra 3 hours at EWR rather than fly to Chicago and asked them why they removed my wait list for first class, without re-instating it in my account. You should watch out for their hand slight tricks. I would have preferred to fly via Washington, not Chicago, but they refused to let me, without paying a few hundred dollars extra. As usual, it’s a one way relationship. They can change my flight after I paid for it but they won’t accommodate my preference.
They sold me a flight taking up 3 hours less of my time, then a week before departure, they changed it and told me that I would have to pay hundreds of dollars more to fly a similar time schedule via IAD.
They say that Houston is a HUB, but it is really, just a gateway to South American flights, and if you don’t fly to S. America, you pay some of the highest airfares to other destinations. The City of Houston taxpayers paid for the fancy Airport dominated by United but now Houstonians don’t have much competition at the airport. Even the Latin America flights are going to be directly from Newark like the new flights to Argentina.
United Tweeted that they are increasing the flights from several cities, but not from Houston.
On May 1st United tweeted “We’re providing agents with creative solutions to get our customers where they need to go” Yes, their creative solutions are not overbooking but now they are removing whole flights that passengers have paid for and squashing those passengers on other, longer, more inconvenient flights.
United are no longer in the classy Airlines category. Continental Air was a cut above other airlines but now that they have merged, United has decided to downgrade to provide similar service to the low cost airlines (without the low cost). They have what they call “Basic Economy” tickets which are subject to loads of restrictions including,: NO seat selection or upgrades, no group or family seating, no normal sized carry-on bags and no flight changes or refunds. Certain MileagePlus and MileagePlus Premier® member benefits are not available. So is it worth getting elite Status if you don’t get benefits and have to pay more than the average price?
United is increasing the number of flights from San fran (SFO) and 8 cities, and using larger aircraft, BUT NOT TO/FROM HOUSTON TEXAS. Texans pay more and get less service now because there is no competition out of Houston.
ReplyDeleteI avoid BOS airport, in account of the staff that like to make problems out of nothing. They close the airport at night so even if you have a delayed flight, and you planned to stay within the secure cleared area, you are told to go out of the airport, into the cold. Then you have to trash all your liquids, you bought in the airport, when the airport re-opens.
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