I will only fly United if no other airline is available. I am a 1k flyer close to having 300,000 miles with United. I fly between two and four times a week for business.
For the first time ever, I was running late. I fly out of a small airport in Colorado Springs. After I checked in, I walked to the security line. It was the longest line that I ever saw. I only had 20 minutes to get to the gate. Under normal conditions, I would have easily made it.
I asked the TSA if I could cut through the line since I was running late. They said that someone from the ticketing counter could walk me up to the front of the line.
I went back to the ticketing agent. There were a total of three ticketing agents, one of them being Patrick (the manager) I asked one of the ticketing agents if she wouldn’t mind walking me to the front of the line. (this is a total of five minutes round trip). She asked Patrick and he said no.
She was helping a 1 million miller at the time. He told her he wouldn’t mind waiting since he had been in this situation in the past. She said she couldn’t because her manager said no.
In fact, Patrick was standing next to the ticketing agent and over heard the conversation. He added to the conversation saying “it is not our fault he (me) was late”. The 1 million miler told Patrick that this was extremely poor customer service. He said they were too busy to walk me down to the security line.
Patrick “never” looked up when addressing myself, the other customer or the ticketing agent. This in itself is extremely rude.
It is important here to know that the ticking line was not very busy at all. Patrick was helping another person from the 1st class service line. I decided to wait until both passengers in that line were assisted. Once they were both done and gone, I walked up to Patrick. He asked what he could do for me. I asked him to find me new flights and rebook my ticket. He took my ticket and proceeded too. This would take at least five minutes.
When I mentioned that he could still walk me to the front of the line in the time he books me new flights, he said he was a ticketing agent and will not walk me up. I just grabbed my tickets and went to the front of the line and asked customer if I could cut.
The people in that long line were extremely nice.
I spend over 50,000 a year on airline tickets at United. They lost a loyal customer due to the extreme frustration caused by Patrick in Colorado Springs.
I flew out again this week with another airline. I stopped to speak to the manager of the ticketing counter but she was not in. I left my phone number, frequent flier number but she never called back.
Guess my measly 50,000 dollars a year is nothing to this company.