Yesterday morning I had an unpleasant experience with United on my way to SFO when I was upgraded to business class, went to take my seat, and was rudely told I needed to get back to economy because I was never upgraded. If you missed the full story, you can read it here.
24-hours later, I want to follow-up with the incident and offer some of my reflections about what happened.
- I’ll first start by saying that I was definitely involuntarily downgraded. Once I had a boarding pass with a seat assignment in the front, I was considered a business class passenger.
- I do recognize that maintenance issues happen, and since I was the last person to clear, I was the lowest priority for the seat assignment in the event that one of the seats were taken out of service.
- I was not defiant in any way, and had no problem accepting the downgrade and taking a seat in economy, but the real issue wasn’t about me sitting up front or not, it was the way the situation was handled.
- Instead of acknowledging that I was a downgraded-passenger at this point, the agents chose to cover up their mistake and act in a way if I was never upgraded in the first place. They chose to brush me off, hurry me into my seat, and act in a way that does not exemplify good customer service.
In life, basic respect goes a long way.
For instance, if the agent said something along the lines of, “Ms. Aucello, we are so sorry but it looks like we processed your upgrade and then we discovered there was an issue with another seat. We understand that this is disappointing, but we have to accommodate another passenger, who is prioritized ahead of you. Since you are being downgraded, we’d be happy to offer x in compensation or give you the option to take a later flight if you have flexible travel plans today.”, there would be no issue at all, and frankly, there’d be “friendlier skies” on all United flights, and I’m serious.
Despite my upsetting engagements, I did have a pleasant flight with friendly service from the flight attendants on board, and I’m thankful for that. My reservation was still showing as “upgrade confirmed”, so I made sure to take some pics on board in case it ultimately came down to disputing if I was actually in economy or not.
When I landed at SFO, I went straight to the customer service center. I’ll be honest – I wasn’t expecting much, especially after feeling defeated by the interactions I had previously at EWR, but to say I was pleasantly surprised by the customer service rep who helped me is an understatement.
Kate Barnett at SFO was the most amazing United employee I’ve ever engaged with. Not only did she immediately understand what happened, I felt valued, understood, and listened to. She communicated with me from a very empathetic and warm place. Kate took her time to make my situation right not only as a customer service employee, but as a human, and that goes a long way.
As far as compensation, she issued me a $500 United voucher on the spot, which she explained was standard for involuntary downgrades for a typical trans-con route, and also encouraged me to reach out to customer care if I wanted to. We ended in a long hug. Believe it or not, my interaction with Kate restored some of my faith in United. There needs to be more Kate’s at SFOs in the customer service world and less people who don’t like engaging with others in a pleasant matter. It’s really that simple.
Other than Kate, I’m still waiting for a response from United, and I will follow up again when/if I do receive one. At the end of the day, I really don’t care about the upgrades or being compensated after the fact; what really matters to me is putting an end to the disrespect that happens on a daily basis.
The bottom line is that mistakes happen, but United needs to take a step back and really understand how to engage with passengers from a human level. I understand that gate agents have stressful jobs and may feel overwhelmed at times, but if you can’t handle working in a customer service position, it may be time to move on. After all, “fly the friendly skies” comes with a lot to uphold.
Thank you for all of your comments and support. Happy Friday and safe travels!
Great update! Thanks for letting us know!
Thanks for the update Angelina! Glad to hear that United does have good agents. I have been debating whether to move my business to other airlines and looks like I’ll have to wait for more data points.
This is what I love about your posts Angelina – you are fair, unbiased and tell the story. What happened is upsetting – but you stayed calm and just told the story. Then when Kate did the right thing you were able to tell that as well. Keep up the great work.
That’s the difference between a pmCO station and a pmUA station. I was so sad the day UA was taken over by CO. Most people just assumed UA screwed up CO when it was absolutely the other way around. Glad you got a voucher out of the mess. As a former 1k I used to get a lot of those when Tilton was running the show but matched to AA EXP where I never missed an upgrade. I remember being 1k and missed an upgrade due to the tens of dollars upgrades that CO instituted. My friend worked at UA and I saw 6 empty F seats go to zero after 24 hour mark and that was the last straw. Unfortunately AA was taken over by US and now run by a guy that charged for soda in Y when he ran the show. So I gave up status chasing and just booked the best F fare that suited my needs. I have to say it’s been pretty liberating not having to worry about upgrades or not having upgrade inventory on the flight I want. My upgrades are now always confirmed at booking :-)
The upgrades were going to get harder no matter who was running the show. The market changed. Enough of this pmCO pmUA bashing. It’s not constructive – time to move on – and as your AA experience showed it wasn’t unique to ‘pmCO.’
Ah Greg, the reality is that mergers of two different cultures is very difficult. I side with the thought that pmCO introduced a poor customer experience culture. THe reality is that also happened to AA. I had my experience with US airways employees treating me absolutely horribly. This was not the AA culture but the US culture. I hope UA’s top management is thrown out as this is really the problem. It’s not those employees, its how you manage the company. I think southwest has shown us this year after year. I think there is also plenty of examples from the international carriers. Right now the American carriers are an embarrassment. I hope there is changes coming.
did your friend get his regional upgrade back, given the involuntary downgrade?
Go Kate! I would still follow up though!
Agreed. We all know that stuff happens but what matters is how it is then handled. UA seems to have fallen into a mode of barking at customers, rather than treating them as people. Fortunately, as you pointed out, there are still staff who do a great job but far too many are plain rude while the great majority seem to be cold and off-hand.
The American style of informal service only works if staff are friendly – it all falls apart if they are not and, with UA nowadays, I’d far rather interact with robots than humans.
$500 is more than fair and you’ve come out ahead. Well done. Just make sure that RPU gets redeposited. And $500 is the exact amount listed in policy for a 2,500 mile flight.
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/united-airlines-mileageplus/1736028-downgraded-first-business-class-united-questions-compensation-etc.html
OMG seriously did you want United to hold your hand the entire flight also ?!? You are a grown adult and you are a reason as to why people must have things “sugar coated” when something goes wrong.
Did you have an economy seat to begin with? You got an upgrade but due to a broken seat (which I’m sure you would have wrote how horrible it was) so united move do you back to your ORIGINAL class of service. Don’t see a problem… Landed in SFO and went immediately crying to a poor employees who’s under pressure by socia media, management, and her life at which you got a $500 voucher (WOW!!!) plus your still looking for more .. Come on wake up there is so much more in the world to worry about and fix than you been “downgraded” !!! Wake up
Dan, I think you missed the point of the post. And my assigned seat was not the broken seat. I feel I handled my situation the correct way by visiting the customer service center at SFO. The $500 voucher I received was standard compensation and I’m happy with that. The issue is not about the downgrade. I did receive a formal apology and phone from United executive offices this morning.
You definitely did not read the whole post. Pathetic. Angelina was in the right and United screwed up.
Dan, you are a complete muppet, and if you were in her shoes you would be singing a different tune. So do us a favor and shut your trap. She was explaining the difference between a surly and unhelpful FA and the fantastic CSR in SFO. She was trying to show how UA does have good employees but you got all hung up on the compensation and downgrade part which isn’t even the point of the post. You sound like sour grapes or a complete clown, I’ll let you choose but either way, you didn’t get the point of the post at all and that isn’t even up for debate. You lose! GOOD DAY SIR.
Excellent “end of the story.” Thanks for the update!
You found a United unicorn in SFO
The difference in fare is $1,000+. United got off cheap with a crappy voucher.
The $500 is actually standard compensation for the downgrade based on the distance of my flight and the RPU has since been refunded. If I did purchase a full-fare business class ticket and was asked to downgrade, I would have definitely requested a refund for the difference in my fare.
I think gate agents are sometimes low in the food chain. They were not always properly hired/trained with low pay. I think a lot of problems arise from that.
As you pointed out, What is most troublesome is the deliberate lying. If airline personnel would simply be honest about flight delays, seat downgrades etc I think they would find people would understand and cut them some slack. But to lie to your face – that is unacceptable and UA should terminate those employees (assuming that is no longer corporate policy). You were downgraded and the GA or FA should apologize and acknowledge they screwed up – not pretend that it never happened
Sorry that you went through this. I’m flying United from EWR to SYD via SFO this summer. I’m going “Plan B,” which you have summarized in an earlier post. Even if there are business class seats available, I’m not very confident that the United reps will be able to figure out their own procedures.
Congrats on a successful resolution. Maybe the other agent will get some better training.
I never understood why people who don’t like dealing with people take a job that involves customer service. Of course, this could also be a symptom of the whole unpleasantness and frustration of flying these days and the general lack of politeness in the general population. Whatever happened to good manners?