{"id":24557,"date":"2011-12-16T00:07:51","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T07:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=24557"},"modified":"2011-12-16T00:07:51","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T07:07:51","slug":"not-so-early-bird-southwest-airlines-email-receipts-suck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/16\/not-so-early-bird-southwest-airlines-email-receipts-suck.html","title":{"rendered":"Not-so-Early Bird — Southwest Airline’s email receipts suck"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
I like Southwest, but this was not a good experience<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

So we purchased our tickets back in September with Southwest for flying back to California for the holidays. \u00a0Southwest changed in the last year or so from a purely “first check-in, first on” with ticket queues, to the ability to buy “Early Bird” seating for an extra $10 — the Early Birders being auto-checked-in first at 24 hours ahead of the flight.<\/p>\n

That was three months ago, and when the day of checking in approached, we knew we’d done something with purchasing Early Bird check-in for our travel. \u00a0But was it for both going and returning, or for just one leg, and, if so, which leg?<\/p>\n

Margie looked at the email receipt, and … well … it looked like we’d purchased it, but it didn’t say if it was for both legs or one leg (and then for which one). \u00a0But Margie recalled hearing that purchases of Early Bird status were for both ways, and it would have made sense for us to book it on the flight out because the night before the trip would be Zany Packing Mania Time …<\/p>\n

Long about half an hour ago, I asked Margie if she’d checked her mail to see if she’d gotten notification of our flight. She hadn’t. \u00a0She went online, walked through the check-in, and … we were in the mid-Bs.<\/p>\n

WTH?<\/p>\n

So there were 70-odd other folks who also had Early Bird who had managed to get in before us? \u00a0Or …?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
This is not the rep that Margie got on the phone. As far as I know.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Margie called Southwest. And got … a not very helpful lady as her Customer Service Representative. \u00a0And after about half an hour of very reasoned discussion from Margie’s side, here’s the conclusion:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. It turns out that, on the email receipt, there is in fact, in small gray lettering, something that says the Early Bird is $10 per person per leg. \u00a0So it was, actually, purchased just for one leg. \u00a0Apparently for the leg coming back (which also makes a certain amount of sense, too).<\/li>\n
  2. But the email receipt doesn’t, in fact, say which leg the EB was purchased for. \u00a0Neither does going online and looking at the reservation. \u00a0Apparently (Margie was told) the screen that popped up at the purchase did, in fact, specify it. \u00a0But that was 3 months ago, and she didn’t print it out (since, of course, an email receipt was coming).<\/li>\n
  3. Apparently the Southwest CSRs can’t actually tell which leg you booked it on, either. \u00a0All she could saw was that the number was the number.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So there are two problems going on here:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Southwest’s email receipts and online review of reservations suck. If you can’t actually identify what you purchased, it’s not a very good receipt.<\/li>\n
    2. The Southwest CSR’s focus was not on making the customer happy (or at least expressing sympathy toward the customer’s plight), but in explaining how it was not Southwest’s fault but actually Margie’s for not remembering what was on the screen three months ago.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The Early Bird functionality is a convenience for folks who, for whatever reason, can’t reliably be at a keyboard exactly 24 hours before their flight. \u00a0On the other hand, it’s another crack in the facade of brutal fairness that is the Southwest boarding model’s great strength — that everyone has the same shot at getting where they want to go. \u00a0(It’s minor compared to the other recent Southwest innovation of letting you pay extra for premium seating, which is reserved at the very, very front of the line; that smacks too much of money-enabled queue jumping.)<\/p>\n

      Margie did get a number to call to discuss further Southwest’s inadequate email and online receipt processes. \u00a0Of course, they’re only open during normal business hours.<\/p>\n

      Harrumph.<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a>Generally, I’ve liked Southwest. \u00a0While the boarding process does have something of a cattle car aspect to it, it’s also fair and clear (and there’s never any concern that someone whose seat row hasn’t been called yet is queueing up and getting boarded ahead of you). The flight crews tend to be friendly as well.<\/p>\n

      But their CSRs (and their system designers) need a bit of remedial training.<\/p>\n

      (As an amusing side note, do a Google Search on “customer service representative<\/a>“. You have never seen such a group of smiling, young, smiling, vibrant, smiling, stock footage people with phone headsets on. They do not look like the picture above (where I appended the word “bad” to that search string.)<\/p>\n

      Oh, well. \u00a0On the bright side, tomorrow we fly. \u00a0And mid-Bs isn’t horrific (and, given it’s a few hours after the 24 hour trigger, it probably means the fight will not be too terribly full).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      So we purchased our tickets back in September with Southwest for flying back to California for the holidays. \u00a0Southwest changed in the last year or so from a purely “first check-in, first on” with ticket queues, to the ability to buy “Early Bird” seating for an extra $10 — the Early Birders being auto-checked-in first … Continue reading “Not-so-Early Bird — Southwest Airline’s email receipts suck”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35,26,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-big-business","category-travel","category-writing-and-language"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/cattle-car.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":39253,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/10\/20\/southwest-airlines-customer-service-fail.html","url_meta":{"origin":24557,"position":0},"title":"Southwest Airlines customer service fail","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 20-Oct-13 3:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Southwest is known for being customer service oriented and eager to please. \u00a0Which makes today's tale of flight woe particularly irksome. \u00a0I mean, if this happened on United, I'd (unhappily) expect it ...1. Margie is a Southwest frequent flyer. In fact, she's 4 points from making \"A-list\", the automatic \"you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25012,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/01\/more-southwest-early-bird-check-in-madness.html","url_meta":{"origin":24557,"position":1},"title":"More Southwest Early Bird Check-In Madness","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 1-Jan-12 12:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, maybe not madness, but ... After the pre-holiday episode, we were attentive to the Early Boarding that should have been working for our \u00a0flight home. \u00a0Our flight's at 10:55a, but we didn't want to take any chances of forgetting in the New Years Day rush. 10:53: Fire up the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/southwest-airlines-300x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":15685,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/09\/02\/southwest-airlines-is-evil.html","url_meta":{"origin":24557,"position":2},"title":"Southwest Airlines is Evil","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 2-Sep-09 1:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Okay, that's too harsh. But it's kind of sad to see them moving from an egalitarian \"all passengers are equal -- check in early, get on early\" philosophy to ever-creeping fee transactions that, essentially, let people pay to be queue-jumpers. DALLAS, Sept. 2 \/PRNewswire-FirstCall\/ -- Don't race. We'll save your\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":39752,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/11\/17\/southwest-airlines-joins-precheck-program.html","url_meta":{"origin":24557,"position":3},"title":"Southwest Airlines joins PreCheck program","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 17-Nov-13 10:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Sweet. There are three reasons why I travel United on my business travel instead of Southwest: (1) I'm already (for this year) a United Premium Frequent Flyer, so might as well enjoy those perks while I can; (2) My company's automated travel agent makes it easier to purchase United than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8520,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2005\/10\/20\/this_week_on_ai.html","url_meta":{"origin":24557,"position":4},"title":"This week on Airline …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 20-Oct-05 9:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"Southwest will start service to Denver next year. Huzzah! Southwest will enter a market that is already super-competitive: Denver-based low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines and United Airlines both have major operations...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15588,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/08\/14\/saving-the-airline-animals.html","url_meta":{"origin":24557,"position":5},"title":"Saving the Airline Animals","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Aug-09 7:58pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Republic has won the bidding for bankrupt Frontier Airlines, beating out Southwest.\u00a0 Republic improved its initial $108.75 million offer, removing pre-closing conditions and receiving antitrust clearance as part of submitting what was deemed the best offer for the bankrupt Frontier. The other suitor, Southwest Airlines, said its refusal to remove\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Big Business"","block_context":{"text":"Big Business","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/big-business"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/frontier.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}