Cutover to Shares Mar. 3rd

PineyBob said:
I found this on Flyer Talk and needless to say that as a customer I'm scared half to death of what this may mean for me as a customer. So my question is this. How accurate is this information.

"Hello everyone this is my first post here and hopefully this will provide some insite into the number one fear in many dividend miles member's minds, I am not going to give my name out over this forum for fear of losing my job but I am a CSD Agent for the Winston-Salem Call Center of US Airways. In case you were wondering, a CSD agent is who you talk to when you request a supervisor or a waiver of a change fee.

While there are a ton of issues concerning the conversion to Qik (SHARES), I think that there are five prominent issues you all need to know about, 1) International Flights 2) Re-issues 3) General agent familiarity 4) Award Tickets and 5) Upgrade Availability

1) International Flights:
CARE (The system that operates off of SABRE and has been a staple of US Airways for many years) is an ideal system for international travel. It's what we've been using for years and has the ability to see availability for pretty much every major airline, with the exception of South West. Because every international PNR is queued for ticketing, very few errors occur and there is not a phenominal waiting period for OA confirmation of available space. Basically CARE and international work together just fine. What does conversion mean for international travel? A TON! Firstly, in it's current capacity, Qik (SHARES) does not have an international package and cannot see any of our Star Alliance partners, none of the west agents (The Phoenix and Reno offices) have any experience with international travel and it is currently impossible to reissue an international ticket in Qik. When you book online, the ticket is issued to 401 ticket stock (Old HP ticket stock) and the record is in Qik. Sometimes the records are reflected in CARE but most of the time they aren't. When you call the Reservations Office to make a change, we have to do the reissue in CARE which messes up the sync between the two systems often resulting in a loss of seat assignments and sometimes incorrectly reissued tickets that leave passengers with one way itineraries or no flights at all. All that US Airways has done in preparation for the conversion to Qik for everyone in the US Reservations officies is a boring little three day course called Qik Conversion class. Only ONE day is spent on explaining how Qik will process international reservations and I must admit it isn't pretty. Firstly, when re-issues are processed, they better be completely unflown or you will be transfered to the rates department. They better be in US Dollars or you will be transfered to the rates department. They better not contain open jaws or circle trips or you will be transfered to the rates department. The simple reissues that you are used to with the old US Airways will be gone, even for Chairmans Preferred passengers who will be transfered to rates for everything except the simplest of reissues. On top of that, when you book an international reservation we now have to book your flights segment by segment, which means that we can no longer just plug in White Plains to Moscow, now we have to figure out the gateway city for each individual international carrier that serves Moscow, get you domestically from White Plains to that gateway city and THEN figure out the applicable flights from that gateway city to Moscow. Will it price correctly? Maybe, maybe not. If it doesn't you are going to have to hold for rates to calculate the correct fare and store it. So do I expect the conversion day to go well for international passengers? In all due respect I implore you to not hold your breathe.

2) Re-Issues
Depending on who you've talked to lately you know two sides to our little domestic $100 change fee rule. If you have a lower fare on the old US Airways system than your original one, that amount is taken away from the change fee. For instance, if the original fare was $180 and the new fare is $150, that additional $30 would be taken away from the change fee leaving you with only a $70 additional collection to change your ticket. On the Qik (SHARES) system, you pay that change fee whether the fare is the same or five hundred dollars cheaper. Another sad thing is that ticketing on Qik is instant meaning if you hang up with an agent, decide five minutes later that you would rather not change it and call in, it's too late to cancel the previous re-issue request, you will pay the change fee and additional collection to go back to the original flight. CSD Agents may or may not waive it but chances are they won't because we are encouraged to follow the rules of the new system. As far as international re-issues go, the Qik system is so unequipped for international reissues that we are going to have to trick the computer and tell it that your destination is Mexico in order for it to price correctly. Did I also mention that if an agent makes an error and reissues your roundtrip record to a one way, that we will no longer be able to just void the new ticket and open the old ticket to fix the problem, we will have to wait for AT LEAST thirty minutes to get in contact with the west sides ticketing services department to decide whether they want to cooperate and do it or not. Not only this but if you decide to change to flights on any airline that isn't either in the Star Alliance (Including Air Canada and United), the agent will have to request you call back in 12-24 hours to make sure the other airline allows you the space. In CARE you can simply end and retrieve the record and receive immediate confirmation. This is true for both domestic AND international reservations. So when an agent at an old US Airways ticket counter accidentally marks your return flight coupon to USED on the day of departure, don't expect it to be an easy fix.

3) General Agent Familiarity
Corporate Headquarters has designated the Winston-Salem office as the specialty office housing the Preferred Department, International (Although the bulk of those calls are still handled in Mexico City), Chairmans Preferred Department and International Groups. This is great for us because it means job security and since a large segment of our employees are old Piedmonters, we are generally friendly and cooperative. Unfortunately the old school agents present the biggest problem with conversion. The median age of an employee in the Winston-Salem office is 45 and the vast majority of them couldn't tell the difference between a hard drive and a mother board. While friendly, patient and great in CARE the vast majority (Let's say 90%) can't even book a simple reservations in QIK. They are all frightened to death by conversion and are constantly on the line with CSD agents to do the simplest of functions. Since they take the bulk of the calls because they are the bulk of the employees, the conversion is going to make the average phone call last thirty minutes and even something as simple as seat assignments may take a long period of time. Many of the new hires are able to adapt and handle QIK quite well so they won't be much of a problem. They aren't as used to CARE as the seasoned employees and will be your biggest asset after conversion. However the majority of reissues in QIK prove problematic and they will be on the phone with the CSD's here in Winston and those in Phoenix and Reno for at least a month after conversion to get them done. It may seem like it's been an awfully long time for conversion and it's long overdue, but US Airways' training department has done a poor job training it's employees because the majority of them don't know much about it themselves. This combination has produces very little education and will lead to many problems in the forseeable future. I won't even go into the problems that Mexico City and Manilla will have because the little educated agents here in Winston are the ones training them. My personal suggestion? If you get a Mexico City or Manilla agent on conversion day, ask to be transfered to Phoenix or Reno immediately.

4) Award Tickets
One of the many issues that have frustrated the majority of agents is the fact that the availability in QIK and CARE differ greatly. I would say on an average of twelve times a day I am presented with CARE showing award seat availability and QIK not even showing a revenue seat available. The only way to really fix it is to book in the system that currently shows availability. If it's in CARE life is easy, it always comes back confirmed and we can ticket and set you on it's way. For QIK, it STILL considers US Airways another airline and can very well shoot those seats back with an unconfirmed status. The only way to fix the problem is to call our inventory department but there are many of them who, like the rest of us, haven't been trained in QIK properly and have difficulty confirming those seats. On top of that it is expected that at conversion we will still not have the ability to see Star Alliance flights so there may be an extended window where booking a Star Alliance award seat through reservations is literally impossible. You may be asking yourself, well why not book them in CARE? Well on conversion day CARE will be deleted from EVERY SINGLE AGENTS computer so we can't do that. We will be wholly dependent on this system that is antiquated and unprepared to run an airline the size of US Airways.

5) Upgrade Availability
The same problems presents itself with Award Availability that it does with award seats, the availability is often incorrect and can more often than not mean that a passenger doesn't get the upgrade that SHOULD be available to them. The savy agents knows to check both systems and manually override the upgrade, unfortunately as I explained under agent familiarity, savy agents don't exist in large quantities. Supposedly this will be fixed with conversion and we certainly hope so, but I wouldn't count on it. Encourage the agent you speak with to contact inventory services especially if you are a Platinum or Chairmans Preferred member calling for your status upgrade. The only other major issue with upgrades are how the queues work. In CARE, we can add the upgrade request and as soon as the upgrade seats become available, you are upgraded and your ticket adjusted accordingly. In QIK, the system does a random sweep once daily. So what does that mean for you? A base member could call in and upgrade with miles on the day you are supposed to get your upgrade and take that seat you should have gotten because QIK is to primitive to constantly sweep availability for that upgrade. If that sounds unfair to you, then you aren't the only one that thinks so. The majority of the agents, including myself, agree with you entirely. When I asked our training department if that would be fixed, I was answered with "There are no plans to do so." How's that folks?

__________________________________________________ ____

The reason that I write this is not to encourage you to leave US Airways and switch to another airline, but to educate you ahead of time to know why the agents you will speak with are going to be VERY frustrated and seemingly inept in their job. Please don't blame the agents, it isn't our fault that US Airways would prefer to save money than to properly train it's employees or keep a system that works. They would rather take the cheaper option and let Customer Service suffer in the long run. My main suggestion on conversion day is to do EVERYTHING you can to get in contact with an agent in Phoenix or Reno because they have been operating on this useless system for years and knows it's quirks later. If I have the pleasure of speaking with you on the CSD desk then I will do all I can to help. Just please be prepared to share this knowledge with everyone you can. I also suggest that you contact Customer Relations and let them know what a disservice they are doing to their customers by converting to this system. I warn you that times are going to be tough and I want you to understand I do this because I truly appreciate each and every one of our passengers. Thanks for reading my ramblings and I hope that this opens your eyes.

Signed,
Annonymous"
Click to expand...
Barbell put that in your pipe and smoke it
 
BuffaloJoe said:
And then again, you might be excited about what won't happen!
Click to expand...

Well since I will be departing out of LAX its a US/HP mixed station with a connection in PHL which is also a mixed US/HP station which means I'll probably be fine, but I think we'll see the excitement or the regret of the new SHARES as we travel throughout the system. I just hope my upgrades go through and stay put/ get migrated into the new system.
 
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