Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Not the friendly skies


Let me preface today’s post by saying that I loathe United Airlines. I would rather walk than fly United. This dates back more than 20 years, when both domestic and international experiences with them were consistently nightmarish. They haven’t improved in the new millennium, either. Last year’s journey to GHC in Orlando had their systems and crews consistently balancing incompetence and inefficiency with surliness.

So I was prepared for similar on my flight to Houston yesterday. Maybe it’s setting the bar so low you could crawl under a snake with it, or maybe I hit them on a good day, but it wasn’t a completely appalling experience.

But I was interested by the number of opportunities UAL takes to try to upsell you.

Here were two screens from my online check-in process:


(I clicked past all the options, but it "offered" me a second chance to upgrade my seat.)


And on board, the live intro to the obligatory safety announcement had the chief flight attendant reading (badly) from a printed spiel inviting everyone to sign up for their affinity Visa card.

It must work. Just not on me. I may be forced by schedules to use them as transport, but I’m not giving them one more dime than absolutely necessary.





No comments: