American Airlines definitely treats me worse when I credit to Alaska

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Elite or Bust.

I currently hold top tier status in both airlines. Over the course of this year I’ve mixed and matched the how I credit my flights. My goal at the beginning of the year was to hit top tier in both airlines. Travel plans changed and now I’m shooting to hit AS Gold and AA Gold. I figured this way I’ll still get 100% bonus when I fly partners of AS, and get eensy weensie teeny weenie benefits when I fly AA. What’s been interesting to me is how differently I’m treated when flying American, but crediting to Alaska

Let’s take yesterday, my birthday

My girlfriend and I were flying on the 5pm flight from Indianapolis to Los Angeles and arrived at the airport at 4:17.  I needed to check a bag as I had birthday presents from my parents.  43 minutes prior to departure. I understand that the “rule” is you must check-in 45 minutes ahead of departure in order to check a bag, but we were out to lunch and lost track of time. Gary Leff also wrote an article about a “3” minute grace period.   No grace was given to us. In fact, as if the stress of arriving later than we wanted wasn’t enough…

The clerk insisted we must fly the following day as there was no time to check the bag. Wait, what?

Not only did she say this, but it was how she said. Curt and gruff. We were in the priority line, and even though we didn’t have EP on our record locator we did have MVPGOLD75. Both of us.

I probably should have mentioned my status on AA, but time was crunched, I was little taken aback, and didn’t really want to get into some situation so close to our flight – a few hesitations on her behalf and we would miss our flight.

Luckily, my mom had come in with us for this very situation.

I didn’t think it would matter for 2 or 3 minutes, but only once she confirmed that my mom would take the bag did she even proceed with checking us in, which is kind of ironic as both of us were already checked in online and could have just gone straight to the gate, but needed to process our pet. Yep…had I known we would have encountered a rude rep I probably would have tried to take my checked bag to the gate, shown my EP status there, and hoped for the best: a gateside check.

Ultimately, I pulled a few things out and gave my mom the bag.

When my girlfriend inquired about adding TSA Pre the agent complained that there was no time, we were late, and continued huffing and puffing until she processed it. Because of TSA Pre we got to the gate as they were boarding group 4 ( our group with AS status).

What I’ve noticed the most this year is the varying difference in attitude and friendliness when dealing with me as an elite vs a general member.

Treatment and attitude shouldn’t vary from irritated and gruff to friendly. I’m a paying customer, and should be treated respectfully no matter what my status. I’d expect an Elite to experience customer service whereby the rules are massaged a bit, and to feel that your loyalty is appreciated through expedited, priority service. This would be in addition to the guaranteed benefits that the status brings.

Next year I’ll be significantly further down the totem pole.

As competition increases I’ll be looking to pivot even more of my travel to other airlines because of experiences like these. I understand rules are rules, but we were treated as absolute nuisances…AND IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY! Lol – not that it should matter that much, but of all days…

If this were a stand alone experience then I’d write it off to someone having a bad day. And, it very well could have been just that, but it’s happened to me a few times now.  When my status isn’t present – I’m not treated well. In fact, even on this flight from Indy to LA I was given a hard time about getting my free food while in coach – this is an advertised perk of Executive Platinum status. You don’t need to have it on your ticket, only show your membership card. Thankfully I knew that the AA magazine has, in fine print, a section whereby it states this benefit otherwise I would have been denied it – simply because I was crediting to Alaska.

 

 

Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.

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12 Comments

  • jay September 8, 2017

    Sadly, expecting corporations to care is laughable. Sadly laughable because this is not a corporate/ business issue as much as it is a human decency issue.
    The individuals who work for a company have a personal choice to be either polite or rude. The company does not instruct them to be rude, if anything the company wants them to be nice to customers. But if the individual employee is a nasty _____ then they will be rude to customers for as long as they can get away with it. Only if there is direct supervision to ensure this does not happen then rude behavior will be dished out by the scum humans who happen to be employees of the company.
    I travel the world and experience wonderful service from people because they are nice human beings even though they are not supervised and have the choice to be rude but instead choose to be nice to others.
    Unfortunately the airline unions protect the scum and therefore they can continue to be rude and nasty with impunity. Unions empower and protect their members who want to provide the lowest level of service and rude service. Sad.

  • Jeff September 5, 2017

    If you fly a lot of domestic travel don’t expect much difference from United or Delta . Stick to LCC’s which are eating the legacies for lunch.

    • Miles September 5, 2017

      Jeff – no doubt. Also looking to pivot as much business to Alaska/VirginA

  • A September 5, 2017

    I ran up to the skycap 47 min prior to the departure, told him I only had a few minutes to check the bag, and asked him to hurry. (The cutoff is 45 min prior to departure.) I offered him my boarding pass and ID. He only took my drivers license and took forever to locate me in the system, by which point I was beyond the cutoff. He pointed at the computer which didn’t let him check me in (there may have been an override function somewhere), asked me “what do you want me to do,” and directed me inside. Ended up getting rebooked on a flight 2 hours later, which was really lucky. This was with United at SFO.

  • Elijah September 5, 2017

    The point is not about your being late. Since it was your fault, you shouldn’t/can’t complain about the rule. But you can definitely complain about rude service. Frankly, your status should be irrelevant to this post. But as an elite myself, I totally get the fact that when airlines are rude to you, it’s even more shocking and unacceptable. My brain asks: How much money do I spend with you each year, and you want to be rude to me?

    Now more than ever, why do airlines tolerate those employees being rude, short, or huffy?

    • Miles September 5, 2017

      Elijah – My sentiments exactly. Thanks for reading!!

  • Chris September 5, 2017

    I love the entitleness of this post. The rules are there for a reason. If everyone is going to lounge around and check in late, at their leisure and with total disregard for the airline, don’t expect to be treated well. Even with my status I make sure to follow the rules like everybody else. If I break the rules, I apologize and understand their position, I don’t whine like a spoiled brat expecting everybody else to accomodate me.

    • Miles September 5, 2017

      Chris – Yet you write a paragraph whining about my post…

      • Mark September 5, 2017

        What if the gate agent agreed to try and check you bag and the bag didn’t make it on your flight?

        • Miles September 5, 2017

          Mark – I suppose I would have had to go to back to LAX to pick it up. AA has an app feature whereby you can track your bag now so that would have been a help. The bigger problem is if they said they couldn’t do it – I would have been screwed! The biggest complaint I had was the attitude of one particular representative upon check-in – We knew we were running late, there are many ways to handle the situation, and looking as if you’re gonna scorch the earth doesn’t leave anyone with a good customer experience. That was the aim of my post – not that I was in some way entitled to better treatment or that the rules didn’t apply.

  • Jake Ryan September 5, 2017

    You arrive 43 minutes before flight time and expect the red carpet rolled out to you? And the reason you were late was due to your own inability to manage time. You sound entitled and whiny,

    • Miles September 5, 2017

      “Jake Ryan” haha look who’s talking. Thanks for reading, you can get our posts direct to your email by subscribing

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