[james2418]

While I must concede that Virgin America offers competitive prices, great amenities, and friendly flight attendants, I was horrified by my recent interaction with their customer service.

In July, I purchased two tickets for my fiancée and myself for a LAX-JFK roundtrip flight. This was a particularly important trip for me because I needed to attend a wedding.

About a week prior to our flight, my fiancée realized that she could not make the trip. I quickly called the customer service line. The representative said that we could cancel my fiancée's flight online after the representative split the tickets into two confirmation numbers. Following instructions, we cancelled my fiancee's ticket through her Elevate account.

The night before my flight, I logged into my Elevate account to discover that I had no ticket! To see if there was a mistake, my fiancée logged into her Elevate account and confirmed she had no ticket as well. Confused, we called the customer service line.

Lourdes answered and said that my fiancée had cancelled my ticket, therefore she had a flight but I did not. I asked, how is it possible that my ticket was cancelled through my fiancée's account? Could this be a glitch with the Elevate site or with the splitting of the confirmation numbers? Lourdes would not discuss these possibilities and only offered to refund my ticket with credit so that I could rebook at an enormously marked-up price.

I could not accept this. Having followed instructions on how to cancel my fiancee’s flight, I know that we did not make a mistake. In addition, couldn't my fiancee's ticket transfer to me? After all, it seemed like there was a mix-up.

Lourdes was getting impatient and I was frustrated, so I asked for the supervisor. After a long painful discussion, I finally reached the supervisor, but was completely shocked by what came next. Charlie picked up the phone and blatantly accused me of making a mistake. He threatened me with a very rude and completely unprofessional ultimatum: either accept a $30 increase in fare or credit refund or he would hang up.

Left with no choice, I accepted the $30 price hike and ended the call. Charlie was condescending and knew I had no choice the night before a major flight. However, what Charlie did not know was that I HAD a choice. If I knew things would turn out this way, I would definitely not have flown with Virgin America.

How can Lourdes or other employees value customer service if Charlie does not? The supervisor is supposed to set an example.

This was my worst customer service experience ever. Virgin America has much going for it… but it needs to seriously improve its customer service before it loses all its customers in this competitive airline market.

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Air Tahiti Nui is simply terrible mostly because of the ground crew. This is an inept airline and the chances of having a bad experience are very high and the only way is to avoid flying them.
A venemous employee at the check in counter raised every objection, warranted or unwaranted, for me and my baby. After losing half an hour to go to another counter to pay for the extra two bags which is legitimate, she now decided that a 12 lbs car seat that I bought for 25 $ from the US is another extra bag and I must go again with my child and lugguage to pay 75 euros for it. I told her it fits on the baby stroiller and not a separate piece. She now took the position that the baby stroller can not be used to roll the child to the gate and it is also a 4th piece of excess baggage that needs to br checked in. When I tried to reason with her that I checked the stroller at the airoplane entrance and without extra fees, she said this is not air tahiti and directed me to go to an air Tahiti employee. I did not understand why she ius not air Tahiti but I took her advise and went 5 counters away to somebody that maybe Air Tahiti employee. They were helpful and after asking some questions started to give me a tag for the baby stroller. The first employee saw what was happening, left the people she was checking in after me, and took the trouble to call the counter where I was and poisoned them against me so they withdraw the tag and gave me the same bull**** argument she gave.

At the gate to the plane I saw the same venemous employee who was the check in counter now at the airplane gate, who seem to be hired by Air Tahiti for the sole purpose of destroying their reputation and repulsing everybody away (as a part of the general ineptness of the airline they hire such staff). Here the problem was not with me but with an elderly sick disabled man. He asked her to mount first. She ignored him completely and refused to answer him or talk tyo him. After a couple of minutes he started shouting and cursing her loud in front of all the passangers. Another employee then attending to him and took him inside the plane for priority boarding. If I can help it never again Air Tahiti. You are simply a terrible airline.