Ridiculous Customer Service

[C-GGGQ]

I’m flying from Winnipeg to Quebec City through Toronto. My flight is delayed leaving Winnipeg for no real reason just slow boarding and even slower loading (which seems to be more and more frequent as I travel). When I land in Toronto I’m greeted with an email and text from Air Canada telling me my reservation has been changed. I’ve been bumped off the connection to Quebec city and rebooked for 6:30 pm tomorrow. Well works not gonna be happy because I was supposed to fly, but nothing I can do. I head to customer service to see if there is an earlier flight tomorrow. I am told they can’t help and to call reservations.
Ok well can I get a hotel room?
No. We have no hotel rooms available in Toronto. You can book your own room and submit for reimbursement.
Ok so I book a hotel and go to grab my baggage.
“You’re baggage will follow you to Quebec.”
Yeah but I want my clothes and stuff
“sorry”.
Ok head to hotel and call AC. Wait on hold an hour. Can I have an earlier flight?
“Sure we can do 9:50 or 3:30”.
I’ll take 9:50.
“Oh you’re already checked in. You shouldn’t do that if you want to make a change. It makes it harder.”
I didn’t check in I was supposed to be in Quebec and I just got an email with a new boarding pass for tomorrow.
“They must have done it for you at the airport”
ok.. whatever.
“You have a checked bag?”
Yes
“is it with you?”
No.
“I can’t rebook you if you don’t have your bag. Its illegal.”
But they refused to give it to me?
“Never leave without your bag”
again.. they refused to give it to me and you already rebooked me once from today to tomorrow without my consent and without my bag. So how come you can’t fix it without my bag!

[digits_]

I am curious to see how they will handle the reimbursement of the hotel room.

[I WAS Pez]

Yeah, that's brutal. Customer service everywhere has gotten worse. I note that since the start of COVID, a lot of travel related customer service is significantly worse....with hotels and rental cars in particular....

With AC, I seem to spend a lot of time defending them as being the best / one of the best airlines in North America, from a service offering perspective.... and then am disappointed by something new.

When traveling for work, I frequently have to check a bag, either because it has a Leatherman or something in it, there's some piece of gear to check, or because I have two bags which must go as carryon. Of course, as has always been my practice, whenever possible, I don't check a bag, but it's sometimes required. I tallied this up for an angry email to customer relations a while ago and in.... I want to say something like 5 of 8 times I'd checked a bag in the preceding 10 months it didn't show up at destination. Priority tagged, as well...which seems to reduce the chances of things showing up. They always delivered it within 24 hours, but still, that's just abysmal.

One thing that really does matter if you want to get where you're going and not be treated poorly is fare class. I make a point of never booking the cheapest fare class - 1 or 2 steps up (Flex or Comfort with their current fare class branding, which actually map to many different actual fare classes/rules) - with that you really shouldn't ever get bumped for overbooking, at least not before many others.

Last was a new one for me.... Booked a last minute flight for work from YUL to YQT through YYZ on a Tuesday evening, with overnight connection, continuing on to YQT in the morning. Had to check a bag. Did so at YUL, and didn't specifically ask for the bag to be short-checked..... In my experience, they usually do that automatically on overnight connections. My mistake for not explicitly confirming and checking the baggage tag. Got a text 20 minutes later from AC that for my convenience, my bag would be available in YQT. I was at the airport quite early, so this was still almost an hr before flight. Went to lounge desk. Was assured that this was an error and that my bag would definitely come out in YYZ, etc. OK. Waited like an idiot at YYZ before going to baggage desk and being told that of course it wasn't coming out and would be available at destination. I was very grumpy without fresh clothes the next day. This one was mostly my fault as I should have confirmed with the agent when checking bag.... but the whole thing still left a bad taste in my mouth.

Also, what's with the cabin configurations on C-Series and some of the other recently reconfigured airplanes putting the Y seats with decent seat pitch around the exit rows, rather than at the front of the cabin??? That's been annoying me lately.

[flyingcanuck]

short staffed + lots and lots of new hires = its only gonna get worse

[CpnCrunch]

Near the end of COVID when everyone started flying again, WJ was atrocious. As well as all the cancelled flights, it was just impossible to get through to customer service via any channel. I think they just threw their hands up and completely ignored the millions of requests that had built up. But in the last year they have improved a lot, and the phone support slot reservation system works really well, and you can usually reserve a slot within 15 mins, or worst case within an hour. At least that was 6-12 months ago and I haven't had to contact them since, so I don't know if it's gotten worse.

I try to always book the flexible tickets now, so I can change them easily if I need to. Just beware that with WJ if you cancel a flexible ticket they don't actually give you a refund any more, just a travel bank credit.

And yes, use carry on bags whenever possible. I take either a backpack or roller bag, and a smaller hand-carry backback, and that usually works for anything up to a week with summer clothes. When the checked-in bags go missing, it's just incredibly frustrating and time consuming and nobody seems to really have any idea where they are.

[C-GGGQ]

Yeah that reminds me I have a damaged baggage claim with WestJet from February when they ripped the handle clean of my brand new luggage and had no one at the desk just a QR code to file a claim. Nothing since and when you go to the site to look it up there is nothing that tells you status just “yep you filed alright” lol

[Jet Jockey]

I just love the airlines... Keep it up folks because it is the best guaranty I will always have a job as a corporate pilot.

[Little Star]

short staffed + lots and lots of new hires = its only gonna get worse

They pay $17 an hour. What do you expect the turnover would be like?

[rookiepilot]

Is it time for the normal thread reminder that everyone only wants low fares and shouldn’t complain?

[helicopterray]

I had a flight from Saskatoon to Edmonton last night. It was delayed an hour leaving, no explanation given.
Problem is, I had connecting flights from Edmonton as did a few other passengers around me.
The FA asked if passengers could remain seated at landing so we could try and make our connections.
However, it took somewhere like 15 attempts before the ground crews could line up the ramps. Some got tired of waiting so they rushed the gate. We all missed our connections. Got hotel and meal vouchers, rebooked for the next day.

[C-GGGQ]

I suspect part of the problem is the sheer amount of gate checked, carry-ons that are required due to the flights being full. Also, though I have never seen slower ground crew in my life. This coming from former ground crew at Pearson, I watched one person slowly walk up the jetway stairs grab one roller bag walk down put it on a cart walk all the way back up and do that over and over and over for at least 10 to 15 bags, then drive the cart 10 feet over to the belt and then slowly put them on the belt.