"Fly with US???"

So here I was, at midnight, trying to book a flight for my mother... I searched all the usual sites, and discovered some new ones as well, when I found a flight that was priced at half of what I'd been finding everywhere else!!! It was on the US Airways site, which I had never been on. Naturally, I jumped at the opportunity to book it, and it SEEMED like everything was going well. They even had an option where you could select your seats on the flight!?! I hadn't seen that before on any other site and was impressed. So I filled out all the necessary information, and waited for the verdict...

Purchase... that's the make it or break it point. And unfortunately, after I waited the fifteen seconds for the page to load, I realised that it broke. I got a message telling me that part of the billing information was incorrect. So I entered it again. Reviewed the entire page for things that might have been changed. Made sure it was all ok. Then pressed Purchase again.

Maybe the site had something against me. Maybe the American site had something against Canadians. Who knows!?! The point was that the problem was obviously not going to get fixed any time soon. So I took the next logical step, which was to call the internet support number that showed up on the site after I got the error message.

Talk about frustration. I'm in a hurry trying to book the flight to get on with my life, and here I am stuck on the phone listening to why I should fly with US Airways and where they fly and all kinds of other information which was adding to my aggravation. After waiting on the phone for 20 minutes, I FINALLY spoke to a human being. She asked my name and where I wanted to fly to and from. Then she asked me if she could put me on hold for a moment. That moment lasted about 10 X 60 moments. And then, after waiting on hold for 10 minutes, the line disconnected and I was faced with a dial tone.

At that point, I was past frustrated. I was seeing red. I hung up the phone and redialed. Again, the informative voice of the US Airways lady blasted through my speaker phone. Half an hour later, I was greeted by a man's voice on the other end of the line. I advised him about what had happened before. He got right to the booking.

*sigh*

Aren't we surrounded by enough lies and manipulation? Why do some websites feel it's ok to lead us into thinking that we are actually going to get a decent price for something when it's all just one big joke? The internet support guy on the line tells me he can't find the booking I was working on and quotes me a price that is $300 USD MORE than what I had tried to book. I was in shock. I expressed my disbelief and went over all the information I had on my screen to make sure that he was booking the same flights, and he confirmed that everything was the same apart from the price. His excuse was that "most probably, the rate that was showing on the site was no longer available." What??? If it was no longer available, what the hell was it doing on the site???

After trying to book the flights online AND THEN waiting AN HOUR to speak to TWO people who could not help me, I was thinking to myself "Why the hell would I want to fly with you???" The site didn't work properly, the internet support people were NOT supportive, and the slogan for US Airways still rang in my head: Fly With US!

Let me just end with this. What ever happened to good old fashioned customer service? What happened to prompt responses (it was MIDNIGHT EST, can't imagine how long I would've waited had I called during peak hours)? What happened to going the extra mile to help out the customer to the best of our abilities? What happened to publishing the right prices for the flights in the first place?

All in all, it was such a frustrating experience that I am seriously re-thinking booking any flights in the future with US Airways. Although they mention that they are trying to improve services, they're going to have to make a hell of an effort to gain the clients that they are probably losing because of such a seemingly poor track record in such a competitive industry.