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Comment by linker3000 | Hacker News Reader

I asked United whether I could use their lounge at SFO as they cancelled my flight to Heathrow and I was going to be waiting the best part of a day for a flight to Dulles to take an alternative that would get me home 1.5 days late.

By the look on the faces of the two lounge receptionists, you'd think I'd asked if I could take a dump on their desk. "Other people have paid membership to use this lounge" I was told in a rather disdainful way. "Sure", I said, "would you like to put a value on the fact that I will never fly with you again then?", I replied...silence - they stopped talking to me and carried on doing other stuff as if I had suddenly become invisible.

No, I did not get to use the lounge, and no, I have never flown with United since - which also means that work colleagues who travel with me are also lost to them.

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I have a paid United Club membership. Those lounges are already pretty full a lot of the time, and one of the biggest reasons I (and many of the other members I know) pay for it is exactly the situation you describe. When something goes wrong with a flight, it's well worth the cost of the membership to have helpful agents, minimal lines, and a nice place to relax. It's not about the free mediocre food. Having a place to be during a disruption is one of the primary value drivers, so they're not going to give that away. And if they let in everyone who had a disruption, it would be quickly overcrowded.

There's no excuse for them being rude about it, but I don't think your expectations were especially reasonable either.

And a spot to recharge your electronics along with free wifi! Don't forget those parts.

What kind of airports are you people flying out of where the entire airport doesn't have free wi-fi and outlets (this is actually one thing about most airports that has gotten significantly better in the last 10 years), but is still large enough to warrant a United club...I feel like I've been seeing more and more of these exaggerations since the incident...flying on any American airline is kind of crappy, but complain about the right (real) problems. Otherwise, there's not chance of anything improving.

I recently flew between two NYC airports and LAX and did not encounter free wifi or plentiful outlets. They have outsourced wifi to Gogo (paid).

Some airlines will take over an entire terminal at an airport (e.g., JetBlue, Virgin America) and make it much better on both fronts. But in my experience that is not the norm.

O'Hare dosent have free wifi, presumably because they are being paid by one of those "30 minutes of wifi for $20" ripoff companies.

The kind where the FBO has decided to make a little extra money via a revenue sharing agreement for wifi.

I too do enjoy paying the bribe just to get an acceptable service! Oh, it's just like when visiting a poor post-Soviet country.

I am so glad that United officially incorporated this wonderful custom. No longer do I need to decide on the bribe amount on a per-case basis, I can now just pay once!

It's market segmentation. Most of the traveling public is cheapskates who will buy the lowest fare they see, no matter the consequences. This is an option for those who aren't purely driven by budget to pay for a better experience. I guarantee you that if United increased fares to hire enough staff to provide the same level of service you get in the lounge (with almost no line to talk to someone even in event of a major disruption), most people would switch to another airline.

It feels to me like you are trying really hard to justify to yourself and to everyone else paying $500 for the membership.

It is truly funny to see how instead of solving the root cause (airline shitty attitude to customers) you treat the symptoms (paying for the consequences of shitty attitude) thus making the root cause not only not going away, but make it actually worse since you are encouraging the airline to screw you.

United - You get what you pay for!

Contrast that to my flight to Edinburgh on Air France last year; we arrived slightly late and were directed to the wrong line, getting us to miss the plane, arguably partly because we were late, and partly because the wrong instructions. We were offered access to the lounge for the many hours wainting for the next flight, without paying anything for food, drinks and internet, while having only paid for economy class.

Same here with Lufthansa, economy class. We missed the connection due to a delay on the first leg. We were booked to the next flight two hours later (IIRC). We asked if they could accommodate our prolonged stay. They gave us a good amount in vouchers to spend at the airport, which we used to have a nice dinner (Munich airport has some proper restaurants). The two hours fly by in no time.

Despite the delay, we were happy customers.

Hello, mind sharing the good places at MUC? I think I'll be having frequent layovers there in the next few years.

Even better if they have good beer ;)

Not the OP but: http://onemileatatime.boardingarea.com/?s=munich+lounge

I've flown Lufthansa plenty of times, they're great, even economy.

Oh well, I don't have lounge axx yet.

You may have been eligible for compensation under EU rules. This can be EUR250-400, depending on the delay and distance.

Some vouchers or access to the lounge, with the passenger then not bothering to claim compensation, is much cheaper for the airline.

http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights...

Something similar happened to me in CLT with US Air (now part of American) back in 2013. My family and I (3 of us) had 1st class tickets from a podunk east coast airport -> CLT -> SFO. They cancelled the 1st leg for their own reasons (not weather), and then rebooked us on another flight that got into CLT 40 mins later. We ran to the gate of our SFO flight, but they'd sold our first class tickets out from under us, and rebooked us on a flight 12 hours later.

We felt that, as full fare, 1st class passengers, delayed for 12 hours by non-weather reason, we should have access to their lounge. Nope. I'm happy to say I never flew with them again.

They can do that? You never missed the second leg flight.

I wonder if that is grounds to sue.

Oh don't worry, I tried to use my Club Pass which united mails you as a benefit for paying for their stupid credit card. They said no, we have to save space for actual club members. And this is the least bad "United screws me" story I have.

I think United is making some super duper Platinum club now where only business class people can get in. I imagine it's like Club 33 or something.

From the article:

“Despite the negative experience, we hope to have your continued support,” the rep concluded. “Your business is especially important to us and we'll do our utmost to make your future contacts with United satisfactory in every respect.”

Seems like they prefer a certain skill level of employee: low.

Well...

How many people were on that flight with you? If you have the right to go in the lounge then everyone else does, and obviously that's not going to work. In addition, the lounge is for those who pay for it, not for those whose flight gets cancelled. If I paid for it and all of a sudden the lounge is full of people because a flight got cancelled I wouldn't be happy.

It's your right to never fly United again, but I don't think the staff was unreasonable.

Also, there is no way to know if they were actually rude, or if you were rude first because they cancelled your flight and you asked in the wrong way.

The receptionists were likely not United employees, they were contractors with some Sodexo-type rent-a-body company. Overworked, underpaid, why would they care about someone else's first-world problems?

The agents at the lounges are United employees. Usually much better and more helpful employees than those st the gate, which is one reason I find it worth paying about $500 a year for a membership. When things get messed up, they can fix it more quickly and easily (and there's rarely a line).

Calling it a first-world problem is being a little dismissive about the situation. He/she was going to arrive 1.5 days later to his destination because of a flight cancelation. Politely asking to use the lounge as minor compensation is not an unreasonable ask. If it can't be done, it can't be done. I'm sure the OP would've been disappointed but reasonable with a different response. Something like, "I'm sorry your flight was delayed and that it's caused so much disruption to your schedule but unfortunately the company has set very strict rules on who can use the lounge."

Furthermore, if we're going to compare 'worlds,' those people working behind the counter aren't the only overworked and underpaid workers. A lot of people in the world are working in far worse conditions than behind a counter at an airport... and for less pay. Even in other low-paying jobs, I don't expect every employee to be so visually and verbally disdainful to a customer for asking a question.

The choice of words was deliberate. On one side of the counter is the OP, with a stable, well-paying job, on the other side is the on-contract employee working one, possibly several jobs that won't pay much about minimum wage. The US are a pretty harsh country to live in when you are at poverty level. Of course there are people who have it worse than a front-desk guy at an airport, but that doesn't change the fact that that person didn't have it good.

There is an overwhelming sense of superiority here on HN when it comes to the proletariat.

They will decry working conditions (if it could mean they would be subject to those conditions), but willfully ignore the gap between themselves and laborers.

>would you like to put a value on the fact that I will never fly with you again then?

As if we're supposed to expect that someone who acts like this even asked the employees nicely. The employees should be scared they'll lose their job if they don't do exactly what I say!

Clearly they are trained to avoid responding to argumentative people if possible. This makes sense to me. Not that I would ever fly United now.

Right, you can't use the lounge just because your flight was cancelled.

Sorry, but you're the one with the out of line thinking here.

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