Friday, September 22, 2006

I just checked out of the Millennium Knickerbocker Hotel in Chicago. Just before checking out, I dropped by the business center in the lobby. The most prominent thing about this business center is a sign that says, “Print boarding pass here.” Terrific, I thought; I’ll be able to save some time at the airport. So I stepped in and started typing.

An attendant stopped me: “Can I help you?”

“I want to print my boarding pass,” I said, pointing to the sign.

“There’s a charge for that,” she said.

“A charge? How much?”

“Five dollars.”

I swear, some hotels would charge you for every toilet flush if they could. Five dollars to print a boarding pass when the business center computer already has a Net connection and the cost of a single sheet of paper is a couple cents? Please. That’s just greedy. Needless to say, I opted to wait until I get to the airport to get my boarding pass. And my view of the Knickerbocker’s concern for its customers has taken a hit.

Posted by Shel in • Hotels
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Monday, September 18, 2006

Some companies get online technology. Others simply frustrate their customers with it. Air Canada definitely falls into the latter category.

I’m flying Air Canada tomorrow morning to Toronto from San Francisco, so tonight I logged on to print a boarding pass. I got through all the data input and the boarding pass screen appeared. Instead of a borading pass, though, was the browser icon indicating a graphic file could not be found. Since I’m using a beta of Internet Explorer 7, I figured it was a glitch in the software, so I undid the check-in, fired up Firefox, and tried again. Same result. Again I backed out of the check-in and switched to my Mac laptop using the default Apple browser Safari. Same result.

It doesn’t do much good to let you print out a boarding pass if the boarding pass doesn’t include the, um, boarding pass. Quite a contrast to Northwest Airlines. A few weeks ago, a colleague was able to check in for his flight from his hotel room and choose a fax option that included a field for his hotel room number. Mere moments after completing the online transaction, the hotel delivered his boarding pass to his room.

Now I have to go to the airport and stand in line to print the boarding pass I should have received when I took the time to check in online. Get a clue, AC.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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Thursday, August 24, 2006

My colleague, Tudor Williams, and I finished our work in a suburb of St. Paul and headed for the cab that was supposed to be waiting at 4:30 p.m. He showed up at 5:05 p.m., which worried me since it was raining and my US Airways flight to Phoenix (where I was connecting on to SFO) was scheduled to depart at 7 p.m. and my courtesy call from Orbitz indicated it was on time. Fortunately, there was no line at all at St. Paul security, and I got to my gate in time to find a weather delay had the flight rescheduled for 8:45 p.m.

I stood in line to find out about rebookings. I could get to Phoenix but no further, I was told; there were no later flights to San Francisco. What about through Vegas? I asked. Nope. How about flights to Oakland or San Jose? Nope. What about a Northwest flight to SFO? All oversold. Could I get my boarding pass for my new 7:05 a.m. flight the next day? Nope, you’ll have to get that in Phoenix.

So I booked a room at the Phoenix Airport Hampton Inn and headed back to a restaurant to have a beer with Tudor. Later, we strolled over to the Northwest lounge (my Priority Pass card got us in). I was able to relax a few minutes before heading back to my gate, where the new departure time was 9:45 p.m. I shrugged and headed back to the Northwest lounge, sat with Tudor (whose Northwest flight to Vancouver was scheduled to leave after midnight), then wandered back to the gate.

I decided to try one more time to get my boarding pass for Friday morning, which would let me get to the hotel as quickly as possible and get an extra 20 or 30 minutes of sleep. As I waited, I heard the agent working out a flight for the passenger in front of me—to SFO via Vegas! I asked if I could do the same and noted that I had been told no such flight was available. the agent said nothing. I thought it might be that the Vegas-SFO flight was delayed, but that wasn’t the case—it was due to depart at about midnight, so I had plenty of time to get there and make that flight.

I was lucky to get on the Vegas flight, since both computers at the gate froze up and the agent couldn’t print me a ticket. However, a ticket was awaiting me in Vegas, where the flight was (of course) delayed from Chicago. I’m sitting in the terminal now, waiting for a flight that is now due to depart at 1:50 a.m. It’ll be 5 a.m. earliest before I walk through my front door.

I should have just stayed in the hotel in Phoenix; I would have gotten home only four hours later.

Who ever said business travel is glamorous?

Posted by Shel in • Cabs • Planes
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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

My flight from SFO to Minneapolis-St. Paul yesterday—connecting in Phoenix—included two delayed flights, one delayed at both the departure and arrival end.

I arrived at SFO at 6:30 a.m. for a 9 a.m. flight. It was my first flight since the terrorist arrests in the UK, and having heard tales of long security lines and multiple checkpoints, I decided not to take any chances. As a result, I cleared security in about 20 minutes. The only difference I could see was that TSA agents were yelling, “No gels or liquids” in addition to their usual patter. I couldn’t understand why I was able to buy bottled water at a vendor inside the terminal. Agents for boarding flights were announcing, “If you’ve purchased food or beverages in the terminal, you’ll need to finish them before boarding; they’re not allowed on the plane.” However, nobody checked. It would have been ridiculously easy to slip a bottle of water in a bag and carry it on.

Anyway,  had a lot of time to kill before my flight on America West…or is it US Airways…or is it America West? All the signs and announcements proclaim “America West is now US Airways,” but Orbitz pulled up America West fares, I printed my boarding pass from the America West website, and the planes are still America West-branded. The gates all say US Airways, the fllight attendants wear US Airways uniforms, and the video safety announcement is from US Airways. The merger appears to be half-assed.

In any case, at about 8:40, with the plane at the gate, no agents had arrived to board the flight. I toddled on over to another gate and asked. “Oh,” the flight attendant said, “I heard on the radio that flight is delayed, so there are no agents at the gate.”

“Nobody has said anything to the passengers,” I noted.

“Well, that’s because the agents haven’t come to the gate,” she replied. I just stared at her until she said, “I guess we ought to change the time on the board and make an announcement.”

“I guess,” I said.

Fortunately (funny how that makes perfect sense), my flight from Phoenix to Minneapolis was also delayed half an hour. So when we arrived in Minnesota, our gate was occupied. By the time the gate cleared and we could taxi, though, we found we had to spend another 45 minutes sitting there because President Bush, who was in town for some political something-or-other, was ready to leave and Air Force One was getting geared up for departure.

This is my first business trip in a few months. I’d nearly forgotten how much fun it is.

Posted by Shel in • Airports • Planes
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This blog has been silent a long time, which may lead some to believe it has been abandoned. In fact, I have just been lucky enough to spend a nice, long block of time off the road. But my calendar is virtually full of travel between now and the end of November, so you can expect a substantial number of posts in the months ahead.

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Monday, July 03, 2006

Sheraton Hotels & Resorts has relaunched its website with social networking features, providing space for travelers to share stories, tips, and pictures related to their travel experiences. An article on Eye for Travel quotes Sheraton marketing veep Chad Weitzig: “Our new site reflects the way people shop and research travel today.”

Posted by Shel in • Hotels
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Tuesday, May 16, 2006

I spent 15 minutes this morning standing by the shoe shine stand downstairs at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC, right under the sign that listed the stand’s hours beginning at 8 a.m. When I finally went upstairs to find out what was going on, I was told that the stand opened at 9. “He’s an independent contractor and he changed his hours,” I was told. Fine. Change you freakin’ sign. This came just hours after I went downstairs to the gift shop that was open until 11 p.m. At 10:40, it was closed. I was able to get the hotel to open it up again, but sheesh. Posted hours should stand for something more than an estimate when customers count on them.

Posted by Shel in • Hotels
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Wednesday, April 26, 2006

What does “high speed” mean to you? For the $11 or so per day the Chicago Hyatt Regency for high-speed access, I expect it to be, well, high speed. Trying to make Skype calls from my hotel room with the ethernet cable jacked in, I got audio I could barely translate. It wasn’t any better listening to my voice on the other end of the line, according to my wife.

So I ran a speed test using a local Chicago server, and found I was getting downloads of 100 kbps. For $11-plus dollars. That’s an outrage. I also have to record the podcast tomorrow morning using Skype, but the operator assures me I should be fine because in the morning, fewer people will be online. Having said that, she also suggested I try the WiFi instead of the ethernet line.

If a miracle doesn’t occur and I find myself with healthy download speeds in the range of at least 4-5 Mbs when the morning rolls around, I’ll be asking for my money back. 100 kbps I can get by using my Treo 650 cell phone’s Bluetooth connectivity.

Posted by Shel in • Hotels
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It seemed my day of travel to Chicago would be flawless. I took BART from Concord to SFO without incident. My flight on United boarded on time and, because my upgrade cleared, I had a seat in the last first-class row on a Boeing 757 (my favorite plane for 3-4-hour flights). I got my meal choice. The flight went without incident (I was even able to write an entire chapter of the book I’m working on) and landed exactly on time. I took the Blue Line from O’Hare into the City and it took only 20 minutes to walk to my hotel, the Hyatt Regency, from the Clark/Lake station.

But trouble awaited. After standing in a fairly long check-in line, I was greeted by the front desk clerk, LeRon, who spent a few minutes looking me up on the system only to inform me my reservation had been canceled—and the hotel was sold out.

I explained that I had not canceled my reservation, that I was a keynote speaker at a conference at the hotel the next morning. LeRon vanished into the offices behind the front desk. I called my contact with the organization hosting the conference, who said she would call the hotel conference manager with whom she was working. It wasn’t necessary. LeRon came back with a room—a junior suite. I’m not sure if that was a gesture to make up for the inconvenience of the cancelation that should not have happened or if it was the only room available. It turns out somebody had mis-entered my name (I was Sheila Holt), and when no such name matched the list of conference attendees, the reservation was dumped. But the hotel made it right quickly, and LeRon was a model of front-desk efficiency and graciousness. It should be so at all hotels.

Technorati Tags: Hyatt

Posted by Shel in • Hotels
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Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Note: This post contains some material that appeared in the last post!

Somebody needs to be fired. No; firing isn’t enough. Somebody needs to be hurt.

I’m writing from the Bloomington Marriott Hotel (across the street from the Mall of the Americas, but I’m not here to shop; I have a meeting down the road with a client tomorrow.) I booked my flight here on Orbitz; the ticket was booked by USAir. The trip involved a connection in Vegas. So far, so good.

I was unable to get my boarding pass online; the system told me to check in at the airport at the terminal of the airline operating the flight to Vegas. That was United (actually Ted, which I’m surprised is still flying); it was a codeshare flight with USAir. I got to the United terminal and used the kiosk to print my boarding passes. I should have known what kind of day I was in for when only one boarding pass printed out—the one for the SFO-Vegas leg.

I visited the Red Carpet Club, where a concierge made a heroic effort to get my Vegas-Minneapolis boarding pass, but he was thwarted at every turn. I shrugged and figured it would be a minor hassle to get the boarding pass at the gate in Vegas. I should’ve known better. We arrived in Vegas at the D gates. The only way to the B gates, where I needed to be to make my connecting flight, was to exit into the concourse. In other words, I had to get my boarding pass at the ticket counter and go through security a second time.

The kicker: I had less than an hour to make my connection.

The kicker to the kicker: None of the kiosks were working at the USAir/AmericaWest counter. I had to stand in line. By the time I got to the counter, the ticket agent was pessimistic about my chances of making the flight. “My flight was not late,” I said. “Somebody authorized this as a legal connection.”

The ticket agent’s response was to shrug. She did call the gate and let me talk to the gate agent, who suggested I run. If I didn’t make it, the next flight was four hours later, and it connected through Phoenix. Oh, and by the way, she said, we only have middle seats left.

I booked this flight some time ago. I wasn’t assigned a seat then? And even if, for some mysterious reason, that wasn’t possible, if I could have gotten my boarding pass online last night or at SFO this morning, I probably could have avoided the middle seat.

I grabbed my boarding pass and ran. Of course, my suspenders that did not set off the alarm in San Francisco did in Vegas, so I had to go through the whole wand/pat-down scene. From there, I ran to the gate. According to my watch, I had missed the flight. When I got there, I found the door hadn’t even been opened yet. Turns out the maintenance crew was running late cleaning the plane!

Somebody might tell me that this whole scenario happened because of the United codeshare leg of the flight. However, a few weeks ago I had the exact same situation: I flew from College Station, Texas to Houston on American (a codeshare with USAir), then flew USAir to Philadelphia. In College Station, the American Airlines kiosk printed both my boarding passes.

Somebody might also tell me that this only happens in Vegas. (More than one official at the airport told me that.) But whoever authorized the 58-minute connection knew I’d be in Vegas and kniew I’d have to get from the D gates to the B gates in under an hour. Whoever authorized the connection, that’s the person who needs to suffer.

I wish I knew whom to blame. My money’s on United. Whoever’s actually at fault, though, I am still furious seven hours later.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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I’m flying this morning from SFO to Minneapolis, connecting in Las Vegas. I booked it all through Orbitz and am flying on a USAir ticket. The first leg is a codeshare on United’s TED to Vegas, and the Orbitz documentation told me to check in at the United terminal (specifically, the terminal where the carrier of the airline flying the first leg is located). So I did—and got only one boarding pass for the first leg. At the Red Carpet Club, the concierge tried valiantly to get me the second boarding pass, but the system wouldn’t let him. So with an hour to connect to a flight in a different terminal, I have to stand in line at the counter and get a second boarding pass.

A few weeks ago, I had the same situation, flying American from College Station and connecting to a USAir flight in Houston. At College Station, I was able to get both boarding passes, even though it was an American terminal printing out a USAir boarding pass. Not today. Just another example of how the paying traveler just doesn’t matter to the travel industry as long as they get your money.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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Friday, March 24, 2006

As I mentioned, I’m on a flight from Philly to Los Angeles. I thought I was lucky, getting a seat in the exit row. Sadly, I’m just across the aisle from a guy in a suit who has removed his shoes and socks and propped his feet on the magazine pocket on back of seat in front of him. Every time he yawns, he groans at decibels that overwhelm my iPod and the Shure earbuds jammed into my ears.

This year, I will surpass 1 million true miles on United, and United is hardly the only airline I fly. Yet I have simply not grown accustomed to the notion that there are people who don’t give a damn about the impact of their inappropriate behavior on the fellow passengers who are forced to spend hours in close quarters with them.

The guy in the middle seat next to me (I’m in the aisle) is huge and snores, but he’s done everything possible to leave me room. I don’t mind him. But Mr. Noisy Smellyfeet across the aisle? That’s another story.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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I’m on a United flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles, the final leg of my current week-long business trip. (I’m meeting my wife in LA; we’ll attend the wedding of a friend’s son on Sunday, then drive back to the Bay Area on Monday.) This 5-1/2-hour flight is my first opportunity to make a few notes about the trip.

Wednesday was the hellish day. I awoke at 3:45 a.m. Mountain Time in Denver to make a 6 a.m. flight to Dallas, connecting from there to College Station, Texas (home of Texas A&M University). I was delivering a talk from 2:45 to 4 p.m. and then catching a 4:50 a.m. flight from College Station to Houston and then from there to Philadelphia. By the time I got to Philadelphia and my hotel room, I’d been awake 22 hours and taken four flights for a total of about eight hours.

Most of it was uneventful, but the flight on American Eagle from Dallas to College Station included an incident that concerns me. I’ve been through it before, and it has always concerned me, but this is the first time it happened since I’ve started this blog.

We were about to take off when an American Airlines mechanic boarded the plane, took the microphone, and announced that the plane was overweight. Four passengers would have to get off. This on a Saab commuter jet that was not completely full. There was one volunteer with “flexible travel plans” who was willing to take a later flight and earn a $200 travel voucher, but everybody else had to be in College Station. Their need to be there was the reason, after all, they had bought a ticket on this flight. American sold them the ticket without overselling the flight.

Since three more people had to deplane in order to bring the plane down to its required weight, the mechanic came back on and read off three names. These three were forced to get off with no consideration for the hardship they might face by not getting to their destination. One of the trio was on the plane with two colleagues who all had to be at a meeting at the same time. The other two opted to get off the plane and rent a car. By that time, the check-in process, security screening, and boarding cost them two hours they could have spent on the road. I wonder if they made it.

Of course, if weather or mechanical issues led to a delay or a cancellation, none of us would have gotten there. That’s the risk we all take when we fly. But that wasn’t the case. Fortunately, I wasn’t one of the three. But what would it have meant if I had been? I would have missed my speaking engagement, which would have cost me my speaking fee and my reputation as I put the conference organizers—who charged for the session—in a bind. I would have missed my flight to Houston connecting to Philadelphia, and if that kept me from Philadelphia, it would have cost me a consulting engagement. Would American have compensated me for the hardship? Hardly.

I understand the plane couldn’t take off at its original weight, but why couldn’t the airline know that in advance and deal with it by limiting the number of tickets available, leaving those who couldn’t get tickets to find alternative transportation well in advance? At the very least, they should have chartered a bus to get those passengers to College Station in the 3-1/2 hours it takes to drive from Dallas. They didn’t, as far as I know.

I despise the airlines, a troubling situation considering how much business I give them.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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Tuesday, March 21, 2006

I’m in Denver on the first leg of a five-day trip. I fly tomorrow morning to College Station, Texas, then tomorrow evening from there to Philadelphia. On Friday, I was scheduled to fly home to San Francisco. However, it turns out I need to go to Los Angeles instead, where my mother and other family live (and where I lived until 11 years ago); some family demands arose that require my presence back in LA.

I booked this entire series of flights on Travelocity, so I started there. I talked to two people—and was put on hold twice—before I was told I could make the change. To do so, though, I had to be transferred to the Reissue Desk. It was while I was reading my trip ID number to the Reissue Desk rep that the call was cut off. I had to start over. This time I was told by the Reissue Desk rep that I couldn’t make the change because I was already on the trip. He offered no advice about what I could do to accommodate my need to get to LA.

The flight to LA is on US Airways. It took three transfers at US Air to get to somebody who spent 20 minutes looking at my reservation before telling me United had booked the reservation so they would need to make the change. So I called United (where I have Premier Exec status). That was a 25-minute call. Fortunately, they were able to get me onto a United flight to LA and use the money I’d spent on the original ticket to pay for the new one. In fact, the United-LAX flight was $137 less than the US Air-SFO flight, so after the $100 change fee was factored in, I’m still getting a $37 refund.

So in the end, after nearly two hours on the phone, I was able to change my final destination. But it shouldn’t have been that hard. If my plans change, why can’t the people who shuttle you (supposedly) to where you want to go accommodate that need? I came this close to arriving in SFO at 10 p.m., going home, getting up at 6 a.m. and going back to the airport for a Southwest flight to Burbank.  Even though the outcome was what I wanted, it was aggravating getting there.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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Thursday, March 09, 2006

Among the airlines I fly a lot, Southwest is near the top. For jaunts up and down the west coast, as well as trips to Phoenix and Vegas, Southwest’s schedule and prices are hard to beat. Because I stand in the Southwest boarding queue so frequently, I can state with certainty that the gate agent always reminds passengers before starting the boarding process that Southwest has open seating.

So yesterday I take a window seat on a flight from Portland back to Oakland. Moments later, another passenger takes the aisle seat. We’re both sitting comfortably, relaxing, when somebody else boarding the plane stops at our row, looks down at his boarding pass, and says to the guy in the aisle seat: “You’re in my seat.”

“What?” my rowmate says.

“Right here,” he says, tapping his ticket. “I’m in 14C.”

The seated passenger is befuddled. Behind us, another passenger says, “Our gate is C14. On Southwest, you just sit anywhere.”

The guy holding the boarding pass appears dazed for a couple seconds, then says, “Really? Cool!” and bounces on toward the back of the plane.

I only note this because it was a first: A Southwest passenger insisting that somebody was in his seat.

Posted by Shel in • Planes
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