Should I be impressed?

I received a telephone call on Sunday night from VS. We are flying to New York, staying a few days and then flying down to Fort Myers with Continental and then flying home from Miami next month.

The purpose of the call was to inform us that the time of the Continental flight had changed by about an hour and a half. She apologised for any inconvenience and hoped it was ok? As it was fine we never went further so I am not sure what would have happened if it wasn't!

I was so impressed at the personal contact and that they took the time to telephone.

We have had our itineries change before when flying BA and we have never, ever been telephoned. The change has come up on MMB and once by e mail.

I just felt that with all the cost cutting going on, it was very impressive to receive a personal call ensuring we were fully informed.

[buns]

All credit to VS[y][y]

I have recently discovered that an upcoming flight with Delta has changed significantly - no call, Mail or even E-Mail[:(!]

I have therefore cancelled and gone with another carrier[}:)]

buns

[honey lamb]

Continental recently changed my flight (and flight number) It was however a separate ticket but a quick call to Continental in Dublin re-assured me that I was on another flight which suited me equally and what is more, my seat request was still honoured even though there was also an aircraft change.

American airlines seem to change their schedules at the drop of a hat.

[Neil]

Nice to see VS doing this. Plus it shows another benefit of booking all flights on one PNR with VS when possible.

A very good move by VS and as Neil highlights a benefit of being on one PNR.

I agree with HL although IMO all legacy carriers have this horrid habit. I have been checked in and waiting to get on the plane for 'canceled' to appear on the departure screen on more than one occasion due to last minute schedule changes.

I recently discovered a change to my January itinerary on UAL, originally we were on UA954 which leaves SFO at 12:30pm and arrives LHR 6:30am. When booking a ticket for a business trip I noticed that 'My Itineraries' on the UAL site listed a flight SFO-ORD-LHR for January. While the opportunity to enjoy the new seats would be nice, I don't want to jeopardize a vacation with bad weather in Chicago.

But there was no communication, no email, no phone call. Yet very often they do communicate such changes so don't know what happened.

Once I noticed the issue I called and was booked on the 7pm flight, I was a bit concerned because we are flying on XF, but according to seat maps they have no seats sold at this time.

It's a bit much rebooking you onto domestic first from international. Really poor UA behaviour [n].

Be a nice one for VS to have email / SMS notification set up for lots of things, changes, missing API information etc. I find this especially useful with US airlines, although the usual message is 'your flight is delayed'!

quote:Originally posted by napamatt
I recently discovered a change to my January itinerary on UAL, originally we were on UA954 which leaves SFO at 12:30pm and arrives LHR 6:30am. When booking a ticket for a business trip I noticed that 'My Itineraries' on the UAL site listed a flight SFO-ORD-LHR for January. While the opportunity to enjoy the new seats would be nice, I don't want to jeopardize a vacation with bad weather in Chicago.


Yeah, UA cut one of their LHR-SFO flights for the winter schedule, keeping the morning departure from LHR, and the late evening departure from SFO.

Now means there is only the BA operated LHR-SFO afternoon flight.

It's part of the reason why I'm flying out to LAX on Air NZ in November - I don't want to leave until later that day, and I like not having to keep myself awake - I much prefer just flopping into bed when I get there!

Mike

VS do seem good at this, when my family came to visit from the UK over the summer, they booked connecting BMI flights from MAN to LHR and then VS on to NYC, all through Virgin. They actually received 2 sets of calls from Virgin, one to tell them the BMI flight had been changed to 2 hours earlier, and was that ok....and then I think it was a few weeks later, to tell them the BMI flight was back at the original time. They thought it was a nice touch to get a personal call.

quote:Originally posted by napamatt


But there was no communication, no email, no phone call. Yet very often they do communicate such changes so don't know what happened.



Are you set up to receive notifications on your profile? I know i am not, I'd rather check things for myself once in a while, but I seem to recall the option of having them bug you with all the changes they constantly make [:)]

quote:Originally posted by napamatt


It's a bit much rebooking you onto domestic first from international. Really poor UA behaviour



This rebooking/schedule change nonsense is one of the least savory aspects of US airline scheduling. Really annoying. That said, in this case UA have set their schedule up with two flights in newly re-fitted 767s, SFO-ORD onto ORD-LHR, so you get their new F (or J) class on both flights. The cost is that you leave about 3 and a half hours earlier to get into London at the same time, but you do get to fly on the latest cabin instead of the 777s - not so critical if you are in X/NF, but in C it's a pretty significant difference.