Are we still taking care of our elite members ?

[freedom]

Recently I've become concerned with the treatment of our companies elite members ....

I was listening to an individual tell me about an elite member who is never going to fly our airline again due to poor service ...the service failure started at check in and continued on board the aircraft. ....

I also overheard a conversation regarding a policy that affects our elite members. ..there was a lengthy debate about if the wording of the policy does or does NOT favor them in the event of Yada Yada situation. ..(in situations where there's any doubt about something that affects our elite members I always lean towards whatever would be best for them in my limited capacity )

Because I work in fleet I keep my mouth shut when it comes to these things ...but when I'm hearing about the poor treatment of elite members from different people from separate departments it concerns me ....

I know for a fact that we've got people in the clubs bending over backwards for our guests but are the rest of us working as hard as we can to ensure they have the best possible experience when they fly with us ?

I'm not saying that I think folks are purposely neglecting them...it's just with all of the summer flex ops, weather across the country ,packed planes and endless lines of customers it's easy to lose focus on the vital friendship that we should always be concentrating on maintaining. ..

 

[dfw gen]

that's usually what happens when you don't take care of the people that are supposed to be taking care of the vip's.....service declines, moral goes down and poof! you are now officially integrated into usair!

 

[autofixer]

American West 

 

[1AA]

Piedmont, PSA, Allegheny, Mohawk, Empire, Lake Central, Trump Shuttle. Did I miss any?

 

[700UW]

Piedmont, PSA, Allegheny, Mohawk, Empire, Lake Central, Trump Shuttle. Did I miss any?

AirCal, Reno and TWA.

 

[autofixer]

You missed the point.  

 

[1AA]

You missed the point.

Seems like plenty of that is going around.

 

[1AA]

AirCal, Reno and TWA.

Nope, didn't think I missed any. BTW Mr 700 you forgot about TransCaribbean.

 

[La Li Lu Le Lo]

that's usually what happens when you don't take care of the people that are supposed to be taking care of the vip's.....service declines, moral goes down and poof! you are now officially integrated into usair!

Call this man hammer because he nailed it.

 

[eolesen]

Can't blame the merger for what was already happening, folks.

I stopped flying AA as a premium customer a couple trips after my millionth flown mile (about 20 months ago). That was prior to the merger, but I'd already made my decision to spread my wallet share elsewhere.

What's interesting and a bit disappointing is that after I stopped flying, not once did AA reach out to find out why someone went from six years of Exec Platinum to not even flying AA anymore. For a company who relies on repeat business, you'd think they'd pay better attention to retention. Other companies (Avis, IHG) noticed, and followed up. AA didn't.

 

[dfw gen]

That's the new AA.

 

[USFlyer]

What's interesting and a bit disappointing is that after I stopped flying, not once did AA reach out to find out why someone went from six years of Exec Platinum to not even flying AA anymore. For a company who relies on repeat business, you'd think they'd pay better attention to retention. Other companies (Avis, IHG) noticed, and followed up. AA didn't.

 
Same here.  I was Chairman's Preferred from 2000 through 2010.  I wasn't honestly surprised, but most companies notice when repeat customers suddenly change their business.

 

[Life_Platinum]

I  have been an EXP for a good number of years and this is the first year that I have joined my wife as a lowly Platinum-Between us we are approaching 9 Million BIS miles in AAdvantage .  As a Platinum, I have been disappointed that I had a 3 hour wait for AA to call me back for me to book 2 tickets to Europe two days ago, and the Platinum desk is a far cry from the treatment I received as an EXP.  However, on board I have received superb service, as well as from the club staff where we are Life Members. In the past year, we flew DL to Venice and EVA to DPS from JFK in the front of the aircraft as AA does not serve these routes. Nor were we able to book One World and Qantas for a trip to Australia, and had to go to Asiana's 380.   In the past, I would have not chosen an alternative to AA, but my difficulty in obtaining frequent flyer seats at 331 days out has made me concerned.  I am undecided if I should qualify for EXP this year.  Our recent trip to Hong Kong was a disaster when we had a mechanical out of DFW as well as poor management of the 777-323-we spent 2 nights in Forth Worth as we could not get a seat to Hong Kong with the mechanical. When we did, we had to fly AA to NRT where we flew CX in the back of the bus-they offered us admission to their club (which we already had 2 ways of entry) if we were to stay for a few more hours.  On our return, we got stuck in DFW at the airport for 2 more nights.  All in all, we are experienced travelers and understand that problems do happen, but it has been exceeding difficult for us to find seats using over 5 million miles we have in our account.  Some of the 767-323s such as the planes that are on the route from MIA to Uruguay are very tired with over 112,000 hours on their airframe, as they are the highest time 767s to date. Even the Super 80s are in far better shape than some of these 767-323 with far less hours and are up to 12 years younger. 
In summary, it is not as easy to fly AA in the last 15 months as it had been previously.  

 

[IORFA]

It is very unfortunate to hear these stories and I wish they weren't true. However, full throttle to the bottle Doug and Hector Adler are clueless to what they are doing when it comes to customer/onboard service. The maintenance issues with the 767 is out of control. Their fix is to delay the retirement of 2 planes and use them as spares until the head honchos in MTX can figure out a solution. At this point all they do is blame it on past management not doing the best they could have done. Regarding elite members leaving and/or lowering their travel on AA, that is why these programs exist. To one, reward the loyalty and two, use their travel and buying habits to maximize profits for the company. If they notice high value customers are changing their habits, they should be inquiring as to why and that should be an easy set of information to harvest.

 

[jimntx]

Last week I worked (and have to work it again this week) a nonstop flight, block time: 3 hours, 49 minutes.  Because the flight departed at 8:25 pm (25 minutes outside the "dinner hour"), I was catered with hot nuts and those awful warmed over cookies for F/C.  Every single F/C revenue passenger made a comment in the "Is that it?" category.  We are not winning any new friends with that flight.