I’ve previously harped on United Airlines for its less-than active, engaging participation on Twitter. But I’ve seen significant improvement lately, particularly since the beginning of the year.

United has stepped up its game in replying, helping and informing those who directly include @united in their tweets. And it’s a welcome sign.

Today, for the first time I’ve seen, United interjected a bit of humor and playfulness in a tweet. It was an ideal response to someone I follow, who if he doesn’t mind, I can call an #avgeek.

Jason Rabinowitz (aka @AirlineFlyer on Twitter) was at the Virgin America event in Newark today celebrating their new service and happened to tweet the following humorous observation, including an image. And United was quick to reply in kind.

While an airline’s target market is the high-yield business traveler, they need to be mindful of all of their customers and followers. And it was a pleasure to see United step back from a rigid corporate persona to engage someone in playful banter today. Well done, United.

Plus, I’ve seen United very quickly help passengers who need immediate assistance with flight protection in the event of a yet-to-be-realized airport “misconnect”, help with searching for fares and flights, and assistance offering post-trip issue resolution.

Mistakes still happen, such as oopsing on airport codes:

But heck, I make mistakes, too. I’m just happy to see United really following through on something they’ve known needed improvement.

My favorite airline in the Twitterverse remains American Airlines as they consistently engage and inform their followers in a fashion as United did today. Social media isn’t going away and Twitter has certainly exploded in both acceptance and participation as a medium to interact with a company’s customers. I’m glad to see United is finally taking it seriously (and humorously).

Related posts:

United Airlines Retweeted WHAT?

Some Airlines Understand the Power of Social Media, Some Don’t

Interview With the Head of American’s Social Media Team

I thought United retweeting an article containing questionable customer service and reference to “losing” an unaccompanied minor was bad. But today British Airways waaaay outdid United in retweeting the following expletive-loaded tweet:

I was visiting my parents today and on my laptop scrolling through Twitter before we headed to a pre-Thanksgiving/Thanksgiving lunch and nearly shouted, “Holy shit!” when I came across that tweet. I ended up going to British Airways’ official account page on Twitter to confirm it really came from them… and it did. Wow. I “favorited” it, took the screenshot and went to lunch.

Now that I’m back at home and catching up, I see British Airways deleted the retweet and sent the following out to its followers:

And Tnooz confirmed with a BA rep via email that an investigation is being launched. Me thinks someone who manages BA’s Twitter account might’ve been a bit tipsy Saturday evening UK time and wasn’t thinking before hitting the retweet button.

Related posts:

United Airlines Retweeted WHAT?!

Some Airlines Understand the Power of Social Media, Some Don’t

Interview With American’s Social Media Director

United isn’t known for its social media prowess. Particularly on Twitter where it has a minimal presence compared to other domestic airlines. Yesterday afternoon I saw a rare retweet from them that linked to a third-party article.

Intrigued, I clicked in to read the article. It was written by Peter Shankman, a well-known entrepreneur, author, speaker, etc. He observed an interaction between a distressed passenger and a United agent at LaGuardia recently and wrote about how this agent turned a potentially costly situation for the passenger into a customer service win – at the surface.

The short story is that a passenger turned up at JFK instead of LaGuardia for her flight. The United agent at JFK said there was nothing they could do and that she would have to go to LaGuardia. Knowing she’d miss her original flight, the passenger called United in the cab on the way to LaGuardia to be told it would cost hundreds of dollars in change fees to get on the next flight to her destination – money she didn’t have.

Upon arrival at LaGuardia, she pleaded her case with the United agent, who in turn generated boarding passes (she had a connection in Chicago) to her final (unknown) destination and waived “the fees.” The passenger was ecstatic and this is what Peter observed – a potential costly and disheartening situation for the passenger turned into a customer service success. And the customer was thrilled, going so far as hugging the agent and other random people proclaiming, “United is so wonderful, thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Not to take away from how this passenger felt, nor the observations Peter made, but for those of us with a bit deeper knowledge, this was mostly a customer service failure in my book.

There’s a thing called the “flat tire rule,” whereby if you present yourself at the airport within two hours of your originally scheduled flight, United will (at least they did pre-merger) allow you to fly standby without fees on the next flight. Doing a bit more research into who Peter is, I noticed Seth (BoardingArea’s The Wandering Aramean) brought this up in the comments on the original post from him, not the one United retweeted.

It’s great that the United agent at LaGuardia generated confirmed boarding passes for her instead of making her go the standby route. That’s to be applauded. What concerns me about United retweeting this particular article is:

1. The JFK United agent definitely could have mentioned the flat tire rule at the minimum and perhaps even tried to rebook the passenger on one of the West Coast or Dulles-bound flights out of JFK with a connection to her final (unknown) destination. That would have been excellent customer service.
2. The phone agent could have also saved the passenger some worry and advised about the flat tire rule.
3. Peter brings up in his story the situation where United “lost” a 10-year old girl recently traveling unaccompanied. That story has been blasted across the news this week. Was it wise of United to retweet an article mentioning it?

I’m obviously writing this totally separated from what actually happened. There are a lot of unknowns. Did the JFK agent try to rebook her? Were the next flights out of LaGuardia wide open and the agent empowered herself to avoid the standby requirement? How late was the passenger? And so on.

It’s still a heartwarming story for the casual observer and United scored a win with this customer. But I don’t think United – an airline with a damaged image and terrible operational performance lately – should have retweeted an article mentioning that the first agent this passenger encountered said there was nothing they could do, as well as further coverage of the unaccompanied minor situation.

That’s just me.

Related posts:

Some Airlines Understand the Power of Social Media, Some Don’t

Interview With the Head of American’s Social Media Team

Another Hilton Social Media Success Story

I previously posted just how impressed I am with the folks running American Airlines’ Twitter account. They’re active, responsive and professional, yet also know when to throw in some personality and have fun. If you follow @OneMileataTime and @AmericanAir, you’re in for an occasional treat of playful and hilarious banter.

I finally got around to interviewing Jonathan Pierce, American’s director of social media communications, for my Road Warrior blog on CNBC.com and invite you to take a read of the full Q&A session. An excerpt:

Q: Why do you allow your team to have fun and add personality to their replies, particularly on Twitter?
A: Our team is focused on providing exceptional customer service, responding and inspiring customers to fly American with practical travel advice and assistance, all with a human touch. Given the evolution and expectation shift in how our customers are engaging with us, we are moving from communication to conversation. I have a team of fun, fresh, innovative thinkers – their personalities naturally are expressed into our social communities. There’s an understanding of when it’s appropriate to insert personality, compassion and understanding into the conversation.

Learn more about American’s social media strategy, customer insights and plans for the future by reading the full interview here.

I just spent the past 45 minutes catching up on tweets and “chatted” with fellow BoardingArea blogger AAdvantage Geek back-n-forth a couple of times (as well as VeryGoodPoints… hi Stacey!). Anyway, AAdvantage Geek congratulated me on my Executive Platinum status and hoped to see me soon in flight when lo and behold:

Now this wouldn’t have happened, of course, unless American weren’t already following us both. But it did and it reminded me that I need to get back in touch with my contact there at American’s social media team to do an interview I have been planning for my blog on CNBC.com. Why do I want to interview them? Because they understand the power of social media interaction with customers.

How cool is it that a large airline empowers their social media team to have a personality and a bit of fun? It’s soooo refreshing and it certainly left a lasting impression on me. And this isn’t the first time American has done this, either. I’ve had other interactions with them, as well as witnessed hilarious back-n-forth dialogs with OneMileAtATime, among others. All this while providing what I consider to be the best active response to customers in need on Twitter – and at lightning speed no matter the time of day.

As far as airlines that don’t get it? Err… I’m looking at you @united. Besides the admittedly interesting “plane chat” series they conduct once a month, I rarely see an active presence on Twitter from United. They do occasionally reply to customer questions, but not to the level I’ve seen from American and Delta.

At this year’s Frequent Traveler University in April, a representative from United’s Customer Experience group fielded questions from a large group of frequent flyers and United was shocked to find out how many people use Twitter. From Wandering Aramean’s summary:

So, I’m hoping United will take note and if there’s ever a time they could benefit from creating a positive brand awareness in the mind of a customer via social media, it’s now.

United Airlines hosted another “Plane Chat” series this week on Twitter where they bring in a few people from one of their work groups to answer questions related to that department’s function. Previous chats were with reservations agents, pilots and the aircraft scheduling department. This week, the Onboard Product team was featured and I was keen to participate for a couple of reasons.

First, if you haven’t already figured out by reading my blog, I collect amenity kits and this department at United manages that program. With the merger, I soon expect to see new amenity kits rolled out even though the current version featuring Murad products must still have a while to go contractually. Here was my first question (and pardon my typo… it should read “improvements“:

As expected, I received a “corporate” unrevealing answer:

Ah ha… but then the same rep came back and asked:

I couldn’t help myself and responded:

To which I received a reply of:

Okay, time to switch gears. The Onboard Product team also handles everything related to cabin interiors – from seats to upholstery to WiFi to in-flight entertainment – anything inside the cabin is their domain. I’m an airline geek to the max, so with the upcoming overhaul of United’s premium service 757s that fly exclusively from New York’s JFK to Los Angeles and San Francisco, I asked about buying a pair of the Business Class seats once they start the refurb:

Now before I reveal their response, let me share that there are many like me who actually want used airline seats in their homes. There are websites out there like this one and this one, and you can also find listings on Craigslist. The “President” of this uber enthusiast group is Anthony Toth who spent $50,000 to recreate a Pan Am 747 nose section in his garage. I’m not (so) sure I’d go to that level. A pair of p.s. Business seats would be my dream acquisition. Anyway, here’s United’s response:

Yes! You can believe I’ll be contacting them later in 2012. My reply:

Then I decided to try “KF” again and come back to the amenity topic. United’s 100,000-miler 1Ks (me) and Global Services members get alcoholic drink certificates in their membership credentials each year. Drinks run probably $7 now, but I’d like to use them for (almost) similarly priced snack boxes if I’m stuck in coach, so:

I was happy with their reply of:

Continental Airlines currently sends out their similar certs with the option of either a drink or snack box, so given the new United is basically Continental managed, I think my desire will be fulfilled. I donated all of my current United certificates at the 2011 Chicago Seminars, and one “lucky” person is going to get very drunk.

The last open question posed by the Onboard team was:

Here’s my response and it remains one of my favorite movies (… and I flew a lot that month):

If you want to participate in future chats, first be sure to follow @united on Twitter and then look out each month for the hashtag of #unitedplanechat.

Back in August I posted about a targeted offer I received in the mail offering instant Hilton HHonors Gold status and the opportunity to earn bonus points and airline miles after completing five stays. The mailer included a new Gold card and account number with additional verbiage, “If you’re already a HHonors member, please contact Hilton Reservations and Customer Care so your account can be updated to qualify for this offer.”

As a Gold already, that’s exactly what I did. It took two phone calls as the first agent seemed overwhelmed in trying to find the offer code and after more than 30 minutes, the line “mysteriously” disconnected. The second agent was far more proficient, merged the accounts and assured me this promotion was active on my existing account. Here’s the promotion info:

• Instant Gold through March 2013
• Complete five stays between July 1 and October 31, 2011 to earn 25,000 HHonors points and 5,000 airline miles
• Activate by October 31, 2011

Additional information necessary for this promo failure turned success:

• The letter was dated June 27, 2011 and mailed USPS Standard mail (the cheapest bulk method).
• I received it on July 29, 2011
• I called that night and merged the accounts as mentioned above
• The letter did not state registration was required before a qualifying stay (and believe me, I read the fine print thoroughly)

I completed my fifth stay October 10^th and expected the bonus points to hit immediately as Hilton’s system seems to do in my experience. Nothing, so Wednesday night I called and spoke with agent April who after researching and speaking with “upper management” (a call center supervisor), came back to say, “you didn’t register until July 29^th, so your earlier July stays don’t qualify.”

I explained the USPS Standard mail delay and the fact the letter nowhere mentions registration was required before the first stay. She responded, “Sir, we’re not responsible for the mail and you don’t qualify. We can’t override the system.” It’s pointless to try to rebut with the rationality of the situation, so I thanked her and hung up.

Instead of doing the “call back and try another agent” frequent flyer tried & true method, I decided to test social media outreach. Here, then, was my tweet after that failed phone call:

Surprisingly that late at night, a mere 15 minutes later Hilton responded:

I had gone to bed by then, so Thursday morning I DM’d my account number and brief explanation and within moments:

Not 20 minutes later my phone rang and I spoke with representative Jonathan. I never supplied my phone number on Twitter, but he was swift enough to get it from my account. After a brief conversation bringing him up to speed on the above, I emailed him the promotion letter in question.

After about an hour, Jonathan called me back, apologized, mentioned the 25,000 points have been added to my account and the 5,000 airline miles will be processed. He further asked if there was anything else he could do for me. Now THAT is excellent customer service. I thanked him for the expeditiousness of the outreach and quick resolution and wished him a pleasant day. I later tweeted:

I am highly impressed with Hilton’s social media responsiveness and my issue was resolved with incredible ease via that medium. Call center agents are always hit or miss no matter the industry and I always cringe when needing to call one. Their necessity will likely never go away, but I’m happy technology has advanced to the point we can sometimes bypass the irritatingly inconsistent call center experience.

Well done Hilton HHonors!

(Hmm… did my blog have anything to do with it?)

Here are a few more noteworthy news items from the airline industry in the past week:

• Airlines have wholly embraced Facebook and Twitter as important marketing and social media portals, and some are expanding it to include flight searches and bookings like Delta Air Lines has already done. Taking it a step further, though, is Malaysia Airlines who this week launched an expanded application within Facebook.  It includes seat selection, check-in, and the ability to see if any of your friends are on the same flight. In a sort-of related news item, you can now stay in touch with Frequently Flying on Facebook and Twitter.
• A former United Airlines flight attendant is suing the carrier alleging they fired her for being French and gay, instead of the officially recorded reason of “misusing company travel vouchers.” Apparently her supervisor told her that it is “not right to be gay,” which sounds preposterous to me that such a viewpoint would exist in the airline industry. I think we would have heard by now of similar suits from the (dare-I-generalize) ranks of other gay flight attendants at United if this were true. Interesting, to say the least.
• The Airbus A380’s image is taking more unjustified hits with news stories surfacing that several Rolls-Royce engines have had additional problems. Qantas had a couple of flights in February with power loss and oil leak issues on their Trent 900 version of the RR engine. Also being reported this week, Singapore Airlines has confirmed five cases of oil leaks on the same model Trent 900 engine. Qantas is in negotiations with Rolls Royce to determine appropriate financial compensation for the hit the carrier is taking on its overall image. No word if Airbus itself is also seeking any type of damages for similar reasons.
• Emirates is now the world’s third largest carrier in terms of available seat miles (ASMs) behind Delta Air Lines and American Airlines. ASMs are calculated by multiplying the amount of available seats by the distance flown. This actually doesn’t come as too much of a surprise, as Emirates is taking delivery of more A380s and the average stage length of its flights from the carrier’s Dubai hub are far greater than the other carriers’ figures. Larger airplanes on longer routes pushes them up the list here, but look for the combined Continental Airlines and United Airlines to overtake Emirates once officially merged. The carriers are currently 6^th and 4^th respectively.
• Once the largest operators of Boeing 747 aircraft, Japan Airlines retired its last Queen of the Skies on March 2^nd, marking the end of a four-decade relationship with the bird. The carrier has been struggling financially in recent years, and is now relying on the reduced capacity and more fuel efficient Boeing 767 and eventual 787.

I have an upcoming trip on United Airlines that I booked and ticketed as Continental Airlines codeshare flights (i.e., flights sold as Continental flights, but operated by United). The pricing and routing at the time I booked it made it advantageous to do it that way directly on Continental’s website, and now I’m noticing just a couple of minor differences in the way things appear on both the United and Continental side.

First, as soon as I purchased the reservation on Continental, an identical record was made for me in United’s system and visible under my reservations. The unlimited domestic upgrade requests were automatically entered given my elite status, and now that I’m within the 100-hour window to flight time, all but one of my segments has cleared as a 1K. As most frequent United flyers know, when an upgrade doesn’t clear at the window, a duplicate segment then appears in the reservation noting the upgrade as waitlisted. After that non-upgraded segment’s window came and went, the upgrade notification just completely dropped off, and no waitlist notification appeared. I called United and was assured that there is a waitlisted segment, but it just isn’t visible to me online. As for the upgrade, I’m pretty certain I’ll clear. I’ve noticed that United doesn’t make as many advance NF- or NC-bucket upgrade seats available until departure day for those domestic flights assigned with 800- or 900-series flight numbers. Those are usually the domestic portion of an international feeder or continuation flight, and often have higher-yield and full-fare business & first class traffic. My flight in question is of the 900-series & still has at least 9 first class seats available for sale, so I maintain my confidence in getting the upgrade.

Another issue that presented itself was once the upgrades cleared, I could not view and select seats online. When clicking into the seatmap, it would just show the economy cabin, even though the upgrade had confirmed. As each of the segments cleared, I had to call to get my preferred seats, and the agent acknowledged this was also due to the fact they were booked as Continental codeshares.

The last minor thing I noticed on the Continental side was the posted mileage they are showing for Chicago to Denver. United currently grants 888 miles for the segment, whereas Continental is showing 901 miles. Since I’m actually flying on United metal, I’m sure only the 888 will post. The higher number did ring a bell, though, so I looked back at my lifetime mileage printout I received from United earlier this year and noticed the amount credited by United used to be 901. Sometime in the late-90s or early 2000s, United made the adjustment since the 901 figure was more applicable to Stapleton Airport which closed in 1995.

Stay tuned to FrequentlyFlyin on twitter, and I’ll reveal there if and when my upgrade clears for that last remaining segment in coach.