Tag: United

India with Tauck

I know, i know. I was supposed to finish writing about August’s fantastic trip to Canada, and maybe at some point, I’ll attempt to do justice to that wonderful country, terrific itinerary, amazing tour guide and congenial companions. Somehow time managed to slip away and sadly, inspiration never hit during that slippery time.

So here I am, at Newark airport, with an hour and a half until I board my United flight to Delhi, India.

This will be my first trip with Tauck. It is significantly more expensive than my usual travel company, OAT (Overseas Adventure Travel). However, the Tauck trip has a more expansive itinerary , made possible because travel between cities is mainly via air.

Just in case you can’t see the map atop this post, these are the areas we will be visiting over the next three weeks.

I’m lucky to have two good friends who were born in India. I asked both to review the itinerary and both gave it two thumbs up. They also informed me that traveling with a company known for luxury was the best way to experience India.

Our United flight departs at 9:20 PM and is supposed to land in Delhi at 9:30 PM tomorrow. No, I’m not flying for 24 hours (thank God!) It’s a 14 hour flight, with a nine and a half hour time difference.

Because I wouldn’t want to spend my arrival night sitting in the lobby waiting to check in the following day, I booked into the Tauck hotel two nights before the trip officially starts. I’m guessing I’ll need at least that amount of time to recover from the flight and time difference.

Almost ten years ago, I stopped in Delhi on my way to Bhutan just long enough to take a Bollywood class. I’m hoping to do that again and will compare the videos to see what the ravages of time have done to my body and my ability to shake, shake, shake.

Although I had hoped to use points to upgrade to business, that didn’t work out, so no lay flat seat for me. At least I was able to get into economy plus. I TRIED to get into Newark’s Polaris lounge, because it is so very nice. I thought that with gold status and an international destination, it was worth a shot. But without my boarding pass identifying me as a business passenger, I was sent to the domestic lounge. However, I learned something: passengers with gold status don’t need to pay or use United passes to get into the lounge. Your boarding pass is all you need.

Newsflash! I was standing in line, waiting to board and I happened to look up at the upgrade screen. Yes, Mol.S is ME! Yippee! Yes, it WAS at the very last minute, but I’ll take it.

Okay, so I missed out on the Polaris lounge, and my luggage may not be tagged as priority, but at least I got wonderful food and a comfortable flight. This trip is off to a GREAT start.

I hope you’ll spend the next three weeks traveling along with me! I may run out of blogging steam along the way, ( I usually do) but at least I’m starting out with good intentions.

The Skies May Be Friendly, But United Sure Isn’t!

Our 40th Anniversary trip starts with a multi-day adventure, known as “getting there”.

For the first leg of the trip, OAT’s proposed itinerary included a stop in Dubai, landing in Delhi after being in transit for 18 hours.  Not what I call ideal, particularly when I saw our return flight would depart at 4 AM.

Letting my fingers flutter over my keyboard, I was thrilled to discover that United has a direct flight between Newark and Delhi for about the same price, but only (!?!) 14 hours travel time.  Best of all, the return flight departed at 11:30 PM.  So, instead of sitting miserably at the airport, waiting to board that 4 AM flight, we’d leave the night before, and would be several hours into winging our way home.  Sweet!  Not only that, but for years, I had been hoarding frequent flier miles for an occasion exactly like this.  Business class, here we come!

EXCEPT

When I tried to upgrade on line, I got a message that we were put on a “waiting list”.  How could that be? The flight was five months out, and our flight’s seat maps showed only one seat in business class was occupied.  Clearly not a lot of OTHER frequent fliers had already upgraded on OUR flight.  I thought it was strange that the same seat was occupied, coming and going, so I did a little checking.  Seat 5D  was the only one occupied on every flight that I checked.  Perhaps reserved for a member of the crew?   Well, I was confident that a quick call to United’s customer service would fix everything right up.  Did I mention that I’m a hopeless optimist?

Here’s what happened.  The customer service rep confirmed that we were indeed put on a waiting list.  Okay.  When I asked how many others were on the list, he explained he couldn’t tell me for “security” reasons.  (Security??? I didn’t want to know names or home phone numbers.  Just tell me where I am in line so I can figure the odds of getting the bloody upgrade!)  He also was going to charge me $20 for the pleasure of speaking with him, but after we exchanged “pleasantries”, he thought better of it.

Those frequent flier miles that we accumulate, expecting one day to trade in to make a long trip both pleasant AND affordable?  Well, it appears that United reserves the right to let us know at the very last minute whether or not they are going to allow us to redeem the miles, perhaps because they MIGHT be able to sell the seat we covet for the full price. They just don’t know yet.   By the way, in addition to redeeming 140,000 miles, our roundtrip upgrades weren’t free.  We paid an additional $2,400 for them.  To me, that’s a whole LOT of money!  

United took our money and deducted the miles from our account, which sure felt like we had purchased seats, EXCEPT we couldn’t choose which ones they would be.  We will find out the day of the flight whether or not we get the upgrade, and where we will sit.  There is no guarantee that we will even be next to each other.  Normally that would not be a big deal, but 14 hours is a long time.  Call us crazy, but given the price we paid (in dollars and miles) we’d like to be able to choose who we sleep with.  If we don’t get the upgrade,  United WILL refund our money and will redeposit our frequent flier miles, without charging a penalty.  (Yes, the representative actually did say that.)  If we had paid for the tickets with a United credit card, would they also refund any interest?  I think we all know the answer to that one.

As luck would have it, at the end of December, I received an email “signed” by Sandra Pineau-Boddison, the Sr. Vice President of Customer Relations, asking for feedback on a United flight we’d just taken.  Now that I had a name, it wasn’t difficult to find her personal email, so I shared my tale of woe with her.  How about that?  FREE feedback from a long time former Continental Airlines frequent flier.  No need to hire a market research company or do a focus group to find out how they are doing.

So what happened?  Nothing.  After almost two months.  Not even an automated acknowledgement.  From the SR. Vice President?  Of Customer Relations?  That speaks volumes.

Let this serve as a precautionary tale to all you Mileage Plus Members out there.  United doesn’t care a bit about you or your miles or your loyalty.  Think about that the next time you book a flight or get a solicitation for a United credit card that offers points for “free” travel.

But if anything changes between now and our flight, I’ll certainly let everyone know.  Come on Sandra, do your job!