Customer Service; the Good and the Ugly
We are not rich people. You might look at the places we go and the places we stay and think that we are more comfortable than we are. We learned a secret a long time ago, and that secret is to live UNDER your income. We live under what we can afford, we pay our bills in full, and we pay attention to small leaks that can add up to big financial leakages over time.
First, the ugly. Today I checked my KLM Flying Blue mileage, and they only gave me 25% of the miles I earned flying from Pensacola to Johannesburg and back. That should have been a huge number, but 25% of that number is very very low. I did some exploration on KLM and learned it has to do with a lot of factors, including type of ticket you buy.
To me, that’s just sleazy customer service. A person who buys a ticket should get the full mileage. If you want to give bonuses for higher levels, then do so, but give me the miles I earn, don’t swindle me with a fraction of the miles I flew. It leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. Honestly, I don’t think Delta is all that much better, but I may switch my frequent flyer program to them because now I am flying Delta more often. I had thought because they were all “Sky Team Partners” that the miles were all the same, but I was wrong. And try booking an award ticket on one of the partners – they have wires and mirrors and a series of hoops to jump through, and you get to the end and the answer is not only “No” but then they have the gall to ask “Can I help you with anything else?”
I promise you, I am very polite, but when they ask that, I tell them “You didn’t even help me with what I asked help for!”
Here is the good. I paid as many bills as I could before I left, including some significant travel costs associated with the Grand Canyon / Mesa Verde Trip , but when I got home, I found a letter from the credit card service company, with the check my bank sent, saying that there wasn’t enough account information on the check to credit it. I could see the last five numbers of my account on the check, which I believe many banks are doing to help protect client privacy and exposure to identity theft, so I sent the check back with the account number and today I called and complained, and especially that they had charged me an interest charge, when I had paid the bill in full, they just hadn’t credited it to my account.
They credited the interest charge immediately, no argument. They were pleasant and helpful, and I felt like they were on my side. In a time when banks are not our friends, I had a positive feeling toward our card provider.
I smile when I hear AdventureMan in his office, talking with medical claims people – when we had a recent vaccination, a very expensive one, I was re-imbursed and he was not. He is taking on the bureaucracy, slowly and patiently, to make sure he gets that money back. He is also seeing what can be done about getting re-imbursed for our yellow fever immunizations. It takes a lot of patience and persistence, and it pays off. We laugh that we are becoming those old farts who have enough time to make those phone calls.
Little drops of water . . . and paying attention. Battling bureaucracy, trying to make the most of opportunities . . . that’s how we manage our lush lifestyle.
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No! I am horrified about the miles! I doubt Delta does the same (United certainly doesn’t) – it seems like a policy that would have American customers foaming at the mouth. I can’t imagine receiving less than the miles I had actually traveled – how infuriating.
KLM is infuriating in a lot of ways. Every now and then, I would come across an enlightened, customer service oriented KLM agent, and she was always helpful at a time I needed help. Most of the time, however, the ones at the transfer desks seemed all about how spiteful they could be saying “No! That can’t be done!” Like they had this “day of travel buy an upgrade” policy, but when I would want to do it in Amsterdam, none of them had ever heard of this policy. Yeh, right.
Part of me is sympathetic, seeing all the people coming to them, many of them demanding and arrogant and entitlement oriented. It might make you hard of heart.
The mileage thing, though, is shocking. The flight is brutal, and it is like 8,000 miles one way. To only get 2100 miles is like being slugged below the belt. The whole Sky Miles / Flying Blue partnership is one big disappointment.
Earlier in the year I tried to cash in all my miles to buy four business class tickets for the Atlanta – Johannesburg flight. Delta kept sending me to KLM; KLM kept telling me Delta would not release any seats to them. Just one big runaround; it was discouraging and disgusting! And those poor flight attendants work like dogs these days, so many people to take care of, pushing those carts up and down the aisles, and expected to peddle duty free items, too. It is no longer an exciting career.