Flight Change Nonsense

"tim (not at home)" kirjoitti
...


If the airline cancels it's the airline's responsibility to reroute me,
not mine,.

Of course. However, you slim your chances by buying "economy" tickets. The
very reason why they are "economy" is in their inflexibility. That's why
businessmen typically have the most flexible (and most expensive) tickets.
In such a case you described earlier, they very much are free to reach their
destinations by those flights they find reasonable (and perhaps
comfortable). These tickets are valid by most airlines of the IATA pool. At
the other end of the line of air passengers are penny pinchers who mostly
stick on the cheapest tickets available and to whom delays of a few hours is
not crucial (typically they are holiday makers and such). They have little
say about re-routing when they have to face it after missing a flight for
one reason or another. If they don't appear at the gate in time for reasons
the carrier cannot be cosidered responsible, they don't fly by their ticket
at all and typically are not refunded a penny.

I missed a connecting flight from Moscow to Singapore once because Aeroflot
delivered (or so I have reasoned) a winter time schedule to my Finnish agent
for the leg from Helsinki to Moscow. Well, because the flight was operated
according to the summer timetable (it was August then) I had no chance to
catch the second flight to Singapore, but the plane had been on it's way to
South East Asia for some time when I was supposed to arrive at Sheremetyevo.

I was a bit puzzled at Helsinki airport at first when I was peeking the
monitored departure times (my flight was to depart 1 hour later than what
was printed on the ticket). So, I marched to the Aeroflot office at the
airport to settle this annoyance. The best alternative was to fly via Peking
to Singapore. The leg from Moscow to Peking was operated by Aeroflot and I
was leaning on a broad seatback with plenty of leg room (no row of seats in
front of us). Yes, I had paid around (550 euros, 3300 markkas actually) for
a return ticket.

"Donald Newcomb" skrev i meddelandet
news:474c12b2@kcnews01...
"tim (not at home)" wrote in message
...
4 weeks ago, I booked a round trip LON to CPH with SAS for the second
week
in Dec, using my LH M&M points.

This weekend, I get a call from LH telling me that the flight is
cancelled
and I have to transfer onto an alternative

When one considers the massive unfunded liability represented by frequent
flyer programs, I consider it just amazing that anyone actually ever gets
to
fly anywhere using points. The airlines will have to find some way to
weasel
out of honoring their promises to their frequent flyer club members. If
everyone tried to use those points the airlines would all go TU overnight.

I had some points for SAS and used them without the smallest problem.
There's a standard number of points for interscandinavian trips so I found
out that the longest possible trips were Sweden-Norway.
So I got Stockholm-Tromsö,Stockholm-Bergen ,Stockholm-Kirkenes all
interesting trips. Was very close to find a Spetsbergen trip but the return
was inconvenient .

"Tchiowa" skrev i meddelandet
...
On Nov 27, 1:55 pm, george wrote:
On Nov 26, 10:17 pm, "tim \(not at home\)"
wrote:





4 weeks ago, I booked a round trip LON to CPH with SAS for the second
week
in Dec, using my LH M&M points.

This weekend, I get a call from LH telling me that the flight is
cancelled
and I have to transfer onto an alternative and they give me a choice of
the
last flight of the day (which potentially leaves me stranded in CPH
with no
onward connection to my local apartment) or an early flight requiring
me to
start at 5:30 in the morning (I know that some people do this happily,
but I
don't).

I protest that there are other flights with availability, but I am told
that
since I booked with LH I am only entitled to move on to a flight that
LH
still have an allocation on.

I think that sucks. If I wanted to have to choose from the crappy
flights I
wouldn't have booked 7 weeks ahead. My view is that it is SAS who have
cancelled the flight, so it is SAS that should rebook me from their
allocation and not bounce the problem back to LH.

Guess which airline will not be getting any more of my business whilst
I am
working here?

tim

That's what you get when you use a free frequent flyer ticket, you
think that they would want to treat a good customer well, but it's all
about money, and you didn't pay any for that flight.

I quit using any of my frequent flyer miles because of an incident
with BA in Chicago years ago. Because of a snow storm I was told that
I would have to wait at the earliest 5 days before leaving. As I had
to be back at work, I talked to an agent on their 800 number who
recognized my last name and mentioned that he knew my daughter and had
lived down the street from us years before. Therefore, I probably got
better service, and managed to catch a BA flight to London from
Houston that would connect with my on-going flight home from there,
the necessary flight from Las Vegas to Houston at my expense, and
getting a last minute ticket isn't cheap. I just felt lucky to get
home on time, and after realizing how horribly they treat you on a
free ticket, I than just gave my mileage to the rest of the family to
use if they wanted it. The actual cost of such a long delay and
making alternative travel arrangements can be many times the value of
the ticket if you had purchased it in the first place. I haven't
flown BA since!!!!!

OK, my turn for a FF nightmare.

About 15 years ago I got a free FF R/T to Bangkok from Delta. While I
was in Chiang Mai I got in a car accident (tour bus rollover). I was
banged up, but OK. A lot of internal pain. After a day in a Thai
hospital I decided I wanted to go home to SF to see my doctor. I went
back to Bangkok and checked into a hotel because it was too late to
get a flight home. This was on a Monday. I called Delta on Tuesday
and told them the situation. I had a flight on Friday but wanted to
move it to Tuesday. The lady in the phone asked all the right
questions (did I have my hospital release, etc.) and I could hear her
typing over the phone. She said there were seats available. She
started making the booking change and then stopped and said "I'm
sorry, sir, but you're on a frequent flyer ticket. The FF seats are
all full. We can sell you a ticket (full fare, of course) on the
Tuesday flight but we can't let you use your FF ticket.". Capacity
control.
---------
Seem to be an insurance problem.
My home insurance pays for all such problems including repatriation

In article , not at home\
wrote:

"Doesn't Frequently Mop" wrote in
message ...
On the particular moment of Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:06:41 -0000 in
relation to Mary's disappointingly immaculate rumpy pumpy, "John"
put forth:

I'm 50 years old and never flown anywhere and I'm not bothered if I ever
do
(started to "go abroad" for holidays 17 years ago but prefer the
convenience
of driving into europe - you get to bring back an entire bootful of booze
)) but it always rankles me that people who fly often get the chance
(via
points, frequent-flyer miles or whatever) to fly more, so that people who
have to fly a lot for business (paid for by the company) then get the
"perks" or "bonus" of flying privately for pleasure.

As an ex-consultant who did an awful lot of travel, I can tell you it
can really suck, and getting a few frequent flyer points would be a
tiny compensation. Once you have those points, you then of course need
to use them, and the airline isn't interested in making it a
comfortable experience.

I agree. It was hard to find acceptable flights to use them on. But once I
have done that, ISTM that I am a normal passenger entitled to the same as
anybody else in these circumstances.

tim



I believe in my State the airlines should be arrested, FF miles awards
are nothing more than a lottery and the State has a monopoly on that.

jay
Tue Nov 27, 2007

"Markku Grönroos" wrote in message
i.fi...

"tim (not at home)" kirjoitti
...


If the airline cancels it's the airline's responsibility to reroute me,
not mine,.

Of course. However, you slim your chances by buying "economy" tickets.

you assume wrong.

The very reason why they are "economy" is in their inflexibility. That's
why businessmen typically have the most flexible (and most expensive)
tickets. In such a case you described earlier, they very much are free to
reach their destinations by those flights they find reasonable (and
perhaps comfortable). These tickets are valid by most airlines of the IATA
pool. At the other end of the line of air passengers are penny pinchers
who mostly stick on the cheapest tickets available and to whom delays of a
few hours is not crucial (typically they are holiday makers and such).
They have little say about re-routing when they have to face it after
missing a flight for one reason or another.

I'm not missing the flight, they are cancelling it.

(God knows how they know that they need to do this on two weeks notice, but
that's not really relevent)

tim

"Doesn't Frequently Mop" wrote in
message ...
On the particular moment of Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:14:56 -0800 in
relation to Mary's disappointingly immaculate rumpy pumpy, Go Fig
put forth:

In article , not at home\
wrote:

I agree. It was hard to find acceptable flights to use them on. But
once I
have done that, ISTM that I am a normal passenger entitled to the same
as
anybody else in these circumstances.

tim



I believe in my State the airlines should be arrested, FF miles awards
are nothing more than a lottery and the State has a monopoly on that.

Anyone know what he's on about?

Which bit?

He thinks that spending FF awards is a lottery

and that a private company running a lotter is illegal.

Whether you agree with his first point or not, I think that the meaning of
the second is clear.

tim

On the particular moment of Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:14:56 -0800 in
relation to Mary's disappointingly immaculate rumpy pumpy, Go Fig
put forth:

In article , not at home\
wrote:

I agree. It was hard to find acceptable flights to use them on. But once I
have done that, ISTM that I am a normal passenger entitled to the same as
anybody else in these circumstances.

tim



I believe in my State the airlines should be arrested, FF miles awards
are nothing more than a lottery and the State has a monopoly on that.

Anyone know what he's on about?
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:25:16 GMT, Craig Welch
wrote:

"John" said:


"Tchiowa" wrote in message

Craig is right. Your Socialist dream is a nightmare.

Most regular flyers don't *earn* the privileges. They are on business, being
paid a monthly salary or whatever by their company.

Really? I'm not ...

Even when they're sat in
their seat on the aircraft (a seat paid for by their company, btw) they are
"on salary" or "on works time" so if, as you say, the airlines give better
treatment to help get their business, any "privileges" should be given to
the company, not the individual person flying.

OK. The company then passes on the benefits to the employee, as it
has the right to do.

Mostly companies have simply ignored it in the past, but tehre
are now moves to treat it otherwise now. It could even be taxable
income.


--
************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

On Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:09:10 -0000, "John" wrote:

I live about 300 miles north of London and recently had to travel there for
a 3-day training course that had an 08.30 start on Monday morning, so I left
home at about noon on Sunday and drove there, arriving at about 6.30pm.
Because I used my own car rather than public transport I claimed 40p per
mile and, because I was travelling on a Sunday (and therefore outside normal
working hours), I was on double-time, meaning that instead of my usual
£25/hour, I was on £50/hour for the 6-and-a-half hours I was on the road.

You get double time for travelling to courses? Sweet.

DaveM

On Nov 27, 7:34 pm, "John" wrote:

Most regular flyers don't *earn* the privileges.

Really???

They are on business, being
paid a monthly salary or whatever by their company.

So? They are still flying. When I fly on business I choose the airline
I use. I decide what trips to take. I organize all of this. It's my
time.

Even when they're sat in
their seat on the aircraft (a seat paid for by their company, btw) they are
"on salary" or "on works time"

Wrong. Salaried people get paid the same regardless of where they are.
If I'm on a plane or sitting at home on my sofa, it's the same.

so if, as you say, the airlines give better
treatment to help get their business, any "privileges" should be given to
the company, not the individual person flying.

There are some companies that agree with you. Some, including the US
government, requre that their employees "turn in" their miles so that
the company can get the benefit of the free trips.

Either way, company or passenger, the benefit goes to the person or
entity that earned it. Not to someone else.

It still strikes me as being grossly unfair that someone should get free
flights to use personally for pleasure, merely because of the fact that they
have to fly a lot because of the job they do.

Wow! What would you call "fair"?

I fly a couple of hundred thousand miles a year. Business Class for
the most part. Full fare. The airlines want my business. Since I
choose the airline they compete to get me to choose them. So they give
me perks in order to get my business. What could possibly be unfair
about that?