United’s Computers are Bad, Virgin America’s Flights are Discounted, and Your Travel Now Earns Bitcoin (Bits ‘n Pieces for January 11, 2014)

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About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Unrelated to United’s pilot scheduling issues, they were unable to see the same award space in their telephone booking system as they could see online (and I could see through Aeroplan) this week.

  2. I agree with the “United arrogance” comment – it’s a terrible confluence of incompetence and arrogance that customers universally hate. However, do you have a source for the “losing 100k customers a month”? I really find that one hard to believe – mostly because I have no idea how you’d quantify it. Is their load factor down and overall capacity the same? So they aren’t selling tickets? Or is there some survey where people state “I will never fly United again in my life” and then it’s extrapolated? Basically everything I’ve read says that leisure travelers (75% of domestic) pick on price (part of why UAL can be arrogant to some class of passengers). And as a business traveler, I’ve got to pick based on schedule and price – and since I don’t fly out of LAX anymore I can’t just say “never United again.” Who are these > 100k people a month?
    Anyway I’d love if the “losing customers” but was true – maybe they’d stop the dickish behavior. I just don’t believe it – people will fly them despite the insult.

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