Friday, June 17, 2011

Take on the Airline Bump

while on my trip through Asia I got a disturbing call from my airline about a flight i'm taking from Korea to China.

I knew I was in trouble after she said the prerequisite "this call may be monitored for quality assurance" and then said "can you please confirm that you recognize that the call will be taped? "
Anyway after a few pleasantries the representative told me that because of an airplane change, the flight will not have a business class but the good news is that they got me a seat in coach.   Obviously i'm not thrilled to sit in the cargo-hold with a bunch of Chinese day laborers but what really gets me is that when i asked if I was going to be getting a discount I was met with a big fat NO.  
Explain to a laymen how exactly this works.   Man buys business class ticket, Airline finds out they don't have business class on flight, Airline bumps man down to coach and there is no effort what-so-ever for some kind of compensation so man pays business class fare to sit in the middle seat for 3 hours to shitsville China.    

it's funny that when you ask for an upgrade, airlines will allow you to buy an upgrade using miles or cash but when you get a downgrade you get nothing back at all.  It is like the concept of cancelling a doctor's appointment within a 24 hour period and having to pay anyway while a doctor can have you wait in his lobby for 2 hours or just cancel outright with no repercussion.

Of course I don't have many choice being that i'm in Asia and there is exactly one flight out of here to the city in China I will be travelling to, so they have me by the nut sack.

I really wonder if I get credited with business class miles for my frequent flier amount.

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