Last week I wrote about the highlights of my 2010 travel year, be it great service on a flight, a great promotion, or a great credit card sign-up bonus. On a less positive note, I’d like to share some of the negative experiences and changes I’ve seen this year. On the whole it has actually been a really good travel year, so I’m having to dig deep to find the negatives!
Worst Travel Experience Change
Unfortunately for me, I’ll always remember 2010 as being the year where the airport security process became truly intolerable. It started with the full body scanners that we’re seeing at many US airports. While they’ve been around since before 2010, they really seemed to become widespread this year. At the end of the day, I could live with the full body scanners, since one could always opt out of them and receive a pat down instead.
Unfortunately towards the end of the year, the policy on that changed, and now the pat downs are much more “intimate,” to put it mildly. In fairness, I’ve quite been enjoying my private pat downs as of late (you can choose to have your pat down either in public or private). Given the tipping culture in this country, I feel cheap not tipping the officers! They carry my bags for me to a private room and provide me with a five minute massage. What could be more soothing before a long day of flying?
Hopefully 2011 will see a bit more common sense when it comes to airport security.
Worst Airline Rule Change
While I can’t blame them for this, 2010 was the year we saw United change their routing rules. As most of you probably know, I do mileage runs, whereby I fly for the sole purpose of accumulating miles as inexpensively as possible. United was always quite the mileage run friendly airline, in that on a domestic itinerary they typically allowed four transfers in each direction of travel. In other words, instead of only being able to fly the most direct routing between Tampa to San Francisco (via Denver), I could connect in Washington, Orlando, Denver, and Los Angeles, for example. That helped the miles add up pretty quickly!
They finally changed the rules when it comes to mileage running, and now only one or two transfers are allowed in each direction of travel on most domestic itineraries. It was inevitable, though it’s a change I would have rather seen later than sooner! Combined with the higher airfares we are seeing due to capacity cuts, it’s certainly making mileage running more challenging.
Worst Airline Meal Presentation
Doesn’t this omelet I had from Washington Dulles to Tampa in United first class just look appetizing?
Worst Hotel Stay
While the hotel has grown on me ever so slightly since, my first stay at the Andaz West Hollywood, back in May, was truly horrible. After a fairly late evening I finally made it to bed, only to be woken up at 6AM sharp by the workers at the hotel picketing outside. They were banging pots and pans as loud as humanly possible, chanting typical strike “phrases” (WHAT DO WE WANT? MORE MONEY! WHEN DO WE WANT IT? NOW!). Here’s a short audio clip of the picketing, and this was taken from my room using my iPhone (so it was much, much louder in reality).
About 30 minutes after blogging about the situation, the GM called me to apologize. He explained the challenges they were going through with their labor negotiations, etc. He offered me late check-out, since I had a redeye that evening, and assured me he would let the front desk know. Unfortunately not only was my key deactivated in the afternoon (which is normal), but the front desk had no clue about my check-out being extended, to the point that they seemed to think I was lying about being granted late check-out. It’s one thing for a hotel to make a mistake, but it’s unacceptable when the “apology” isn’t followed through on.
Worst Customer Service Experience
I’m actually surprised this doesn’t happen to me more often. Back in October I flew from Chicago to Tampa, and, as usual, attempted to board with first class. Before I could even hand the gate agent my boarding pass, she yelled “first class only” at me. I didn’t say anything and kept walking towards her. She said again “other line, this is first class only.” She kept berating me until I made my way up to her, at which point I simply said “don’t assume.” It amazes me that in this day and age, gate agents would still so confidently make assumptions.
Worst Travel Media
2010 saw the first “reality” show we’ve seen centered around flight attendants here in the States. “Fly Girls” revolved around the lives of Virgin America flight attendants that lived in a 1.5 million dollar “crash pad,” seemed to get picked up by attractive billionaires on every flight that invited them to their yachts, etc. As painful as it was to watch, I’m embarrassed to say that I saw every episode. I’m proud to say, however, that I forgot all their names.
Worst Travel Mistake
Despite having taken hundreds of crack-of-dawn flights, I’ve never actually overslept… until this year. Back in February I had a same-day mileage run set up which looked exciting, in that every flight was oversold and I was confirmed in first class the whole way. Unfortunately, though, I overslept, and by the time I woke up I just dropped the ticket and spent a lazy Saturday at home. While it wasn’t the end of the world, I pride myself in being punctual and not missing things, so it was frustrating. Fortunately it hasn’t happened again since.
Those are about all the negatives I can come up with. Yeah, ultimately the merger between Continental and United isn’t good for consumers, though only time will tell just how bad it really is. Yeah, airlines are adding fees just about everywhere, but the airlines are finally profitable again, which is in the best interest of consumers at the end of the day. If 2011 is like 2010 (at least as far as travel goes), I’d be one happy camper! That said, I realize my experience may not have been yours – what do you consider the worst travel experience of 2010? Share yours in the comments.
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