What is it with customer service lately? You would think that with the economy having problems, consumer confidence down, and companies hurting in general that they would be making more of an effort to keep their customers, not trying to piss them off.
Credit card companies have taken the extra step by charging you more for less. But recently, I’ve had two experiences that could have been better.
When we went to Japan we stayed predominantly in Hilton hotels. We could have chosen other hotels, some costing less money, but chose Hilton to keep accruing points. Besides, the hotels are nice. At any given hotel in Japan I noticed that they didn’t have my Hilton Honors number. They were willing to put in, but I didn’t have it on me, either. In the states this isn’t an issue since I always have my laptop and can easily look it up.
When I got back to the U.S. I sent in a request to get my points. It was denied because I booked through a third party, or it was a discount, or a foreign country, or the moon was full, or any other number of bullshit reasons. I wrote them and tried to politely explain that I wasn’t interested in playing games and defining what a “stay” was. I explained that I slept in their beds, spent my money at their hotel, and as far as I was concerned that was a “stay” regardless of whatever ridiculous conditions they wanted to wrap around it. They responded back with another denial – and more ridiculous citing of rules. I wrote them back and reiterated my first email with a follow up of my money being important to me, I would hope that their customers are important to them.
They finally relented and gave me the points, but really…should I have had to write them three times to get it? No. It should have been a simple one time request. They could have informed me of the rules and permitted the request. That’s poor customer service in my opinion.
The second issue came with United Airlines. I was on a return flight from a trip and ordered a couple of jack and cokes (herein referred to as “cocktails”). They don’t take cash anymore so I had to pay with a credit card. The flight-chick was having problems with the machine and even told me it was trying to overcharge me. The drinks were supposed to cost $6.00 ea. I had my drinks, got my receipt and came home.
On my recent bill I had a charge for $12.00 (2 x cocktails) and another for $24!!! That would be a grand total of $36.00 or six cocktails on a sub 2hour flight – I would have been pretty hammered and probably would have had problems getting off the plane.
You also can’t call UA, so I sent them an email on one of their stupid form thingies. I was nice, explained the discrepancy and asked for a refund of $24 on my credit card. Guess what? DENIED!!! They gave me a $100 voucher for my next flight. WTF? I was not happy – and I had to think “am I cutting off my nose to spite my face?” but, no. It was there are multiple issues here. The primary issue being that they charged me for goods and services I did not receive. The secondary issue is that most of my flight funds are from work, but drink funds are from me. This didn’t put money back in MY pocket. And last, but not least, I shouldn’t be forced to spend more money to get a refund for something I never received in the first place.
I wrote another email to them explaining theses points. Bottom line – if they are going to go to credit card transactions only then they are going to have to deal with these types of events.
A representative called me and we discussed it. She was very polite and in the end I got my $24 back (to show up on a future cc bill) and she gave me the $100 voucher for my troubles. Kudos to her for taking care of the situation, but I still wish that it would have been made right from the start.
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