Dear Mr. Duchesne,
Over the last little while, your company, Aeroplan, has managed to consistently annoy me. But the other week, Aeroplan raised the stakes and made me angry enough to write this little rant. I’ve had over two weeks to cool off, and I still feel like something needs to be said. Aeroplan has crossed the line from merely nickel-and-diming, and into anti-consumer behaviour, in my books.
Before I get to what brought on such high dudgeon, let’s talk about the minor annoyances, shall we?
First, your e-mail policy. Since January 2009, Aeroplan has e-mailed me 66 times. That’s at least once a week, and sometimes two, or even three times. And the year’s not out yet. Even my own mother doesn’t e-mail me that often. I fly two or maybe three times per year. Do you really think I enjoy updates from you 3 times per week? I’d opt out, but I like to see my statements every now and then. Although I don’t understand why you feel the need to both e-mail and snail mail them to me.
Second, your Classic vs. Avenue rewards redemptions. These days, if I want to fly at the base rate of 25,000 points for a cross-Canada flight from Vancouver to Montréal, my best options seem to be flights that stop in Calgary, then Winnipeg or perhaps Ottawa, often landing me a full day later than my departure time. Those aren’t rewards, those are punishments. I looked into going to Montréal this summer, and the non-stop or single stop economy fare would have cost me 85,000 points using Avenue rewards. 85,000! You might as well call them Dead-End rewards. I only fork over those kinds of amounts on business class. Which is exactly what I wound up deciding to do, using more points than I should have to. Maybe the rewards cost so many points because you are wasting so much money mailing me paper statements on top of all that e-mail. Next you’ll be telling me that you have plans to “upgrade” your rewards program so that Classic rewards take me through stops in each province, with an overnight in Saskatoon and a second one in Ottawa: because why not see the entire country for 25,000 points?
Third, your phone help. When I need phone help from Aeroplan, I am invariably traveling, because I have no web access. Which means I am paying expensive long distance. Which means I do not want to be taken through some silly voiceprint system that doesn’t want to work if the cell phone signal is at all dicey. Should I want to pay $0.35 per minute just to be put on hold for 20 minutes? Only to be told that “sorry, if you miss that flight because of the hurricane rampaging up the coast, we won’t be able to get you home for 5 days”? Maybe that’s OK in your books. But not mine. Lucky for me I didn’t miss that flight.
But let’s get to the dudgeon, shall we? You see, last week, my husband and I did miss a flight. He’d redeemed some points for a round-trip Vancouver-Montréal, with a stopover in Toronto. Said “stopover” was really us then taking a package that flew us on WestJet to Jamaica for a week. OK, sure, maybe we should have just stuck to the Star Alliance network, but apparently either the timing or the pricing didn’t work in our favour. Unfortunately, our Wednesday WestJet flight back from Jamaica was delayed, causing us to miss our evening Air Canada flight from Toronto to Montréal. Now here’s where I say, mea culpa, we didn’t leave enough time between connections to account for any delays. We tried to contact Aeroplan to provide the system with a heads up once we realized our problem, but go figure, there was that 20 minute hold time on roaming, and it wound up being faster to try dashing for the check-in counter. The Air Canada staff were kind enough to put us on the next flight out of Toronto, for the nominal change fee of $75 each. Am I indignant at this point? No. Miffed at paying a change fee for a delay I couldn’t control, sure. But I got where I needed to be, and we were late, after all.
No, the high dudgeon came on Saturday when we showed up at the Montréal airport for our flight home to Vancouver. Our first sign something was wrong was when my husband input his confirmation number into the automated check-in kiosk, and it told us it couldn’t find our reservation. How odd, we thought. Then we pulled up in front of the check-in counter, and the customer service representative got a strange expression on his face after reviewing our travel documents and fiddling with his computer. “Did you miss a connection somewhere?” he asked us. So we told him our Toronto story. “Ah, that explains it,” he said. “You were no-shows so the Aeroplan system canceled your reservation for today.”
I’m sorry, canceled? CANCELED?! After we paid $75 each in fees to make it to our destination? The system ASSUMED we never made it so just erased us from the flight back?
Here’s the kicker for me, and why I’m so mad: it did it WITHOUT TELLING US. Aeroplan has all our contact information. The system has our cell phone numbers. It has our e-mail addresses. It e-mails me my tickets. It e-mails me details on minor flight corrections like a 2 minute change in departure time or plane type. It e-mails me spam about new points contests, and Mile Maximizers, Home Hardware promotions and online shopping deals. But it couldn’t bother to call or e-mail me to tell me it had canceled my reservation?
That’s just shoddy.
We were very lucky. That flight was not oversold. But I listened to that poor Air Canada customer service representative talking to his Aeroplan counterpart. He tried two different phone lines, one of which left him hanging on hold for 10 minutes. When someone finally answered the other line, I couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. But it was very clear to me that whoever he was talking to was basically telling him they could not be of help to him or us. And that if that flight had been oversold, we were up the creek without a paddle.
All’s well that ends well, yes. We made it onto that flight. We didn’t even have to sit in the separate middle seats we were initially assigned after losing our reserved seats together. We didn’t have to pay extra fees for keeping our pets in a kennel for another day or two. Or take extra vacation days for missing work.
But I am not impressed with your company. And I don’t think you should be either.
Sincerely,
Katrina Archer
Well, Katrina. I feel sorry for you. Shit does happen to everybody. Maybe instead of directing your letter online to someone who will never receive it, try contacting the service center and leaving a formal complaint. A companies intent is never to upset clients and feedback is always welcome – particularly in such a large company where it is hard to control everything. Perhaps a kind suggestion of customer service training would be a good idea and also a revision of their IT systems…you know, something to avoid what happened to you. Im sure you will appreciate that it was an unusual case and although systems dont think, the people who invent them do. And sometimes, well sometimes maybe they just dont think of everything.
So I guess what Im saying is, take the positive from all this and turn it into something good. Be proactive and do something to help prevent this kind of thing happening to somebody else. Sure, its not your responsibility but none of us would ever develop and grow if it werent for the criticims and advice of others.
Good luck and stay positive!
And before you think its never happened to me, try 8 hours in the Buenos Aires airport and then learning that your bags never left your point of origin.
Katrina…I have been with Aeroplan almost since its inception and have watched the decline accelerate to the point that this time I too am going to file a formal complaint. I feel like I have just been put over the log like the guy in the movie “Deliverance” with a similar litany of complaints from our upcoming vacation in Central America. I won’t list the details here but I am now in terror of what is going to happen as we change planes and airlines (it is a partner at least) in the Olympic maddness. Tanya has a point but I refuse to roll over on this one and they can take or leave my suggestions as they will…I will be courteous but clear in the unjust treatment that has already cost us an extra night at the airport so we can get through US customs in time for an early flight,the price of 2 extra tickets to come the day before we had originally booked, not to mention the hours on the telephone…my Scots blood is boiling but I will hold my gasket firmly down…put the letter aside for a few hours and go back to it before I send it to as many people in Aeroplan and Air Canada and Star Alliance that I can get addresses for. The logic of their rules escape me because it would not cost them a penny to change our flights to the day before we were booked for…instead we have hours on the telephone costing us all money,
You write well and I concur that you should send it directly to Management who can, with enough will, change things perhaps…we live in hope and with sadness remember the days of fresh linen, real plates, smiling stews and flying was a pleasure instead of a nightmare
Good luck with your trip, Douglas. And based on my friends’ recent experience trying to connect through the U.S. to New Zealand, don’t plan on bringing any carry-on, either. They were allowed to bring their camera equipment on the plane, but not the bag that contained it all.
This reminds me that I have to remind my husband to write the actual complaint letter to Aeroplan, since the booking was in his name…
Booo
I had the same conversation with my husband this week. I hope you send the letter to Aeroplan directly. I’m fed up, too. We used to be able to fly pretty much anywhere in Canada, direct, for 15,000 points and I could go business class, Montreal to Vancouver, for 40,000. I had to pay more than that to fly my daughter from Moncton to Montreal this year. If I want the lowest rate, she can have a stopver, overnight, in Halifax. It’s ridiculous.
Funny, but when I missed my flight years ago due to a computer glitch at the airport, they “apologized” by opening an Aeroplan account in my name (since I was using my husband’s points on that flight) and depositing enough points for a flight within Canada. Then they didn’t follow through and put the points in. After many phone calls, the points went in, but only a fraction of what they promised. So not enough for a flight or rewards, but I’ve been diligently putting points in here and there until I can redeem them and close the account. This week I got an email saying I’m about to lose the entire account because it hasn’t been active enough. If I want to transfer them to my husband’s account, I’ll lose half. Some apology.
You pretty much have to take a flight a year now or they get rid of your points for you :-(
I was about to send a third letter of complaint to Aeroplan, this time to Rupert Duchesne, and was sidetracked by your letter to him. Very well said, which could have been said by anyone of us who have Aeroplan complaints. I especially liked your comment that reward flights are punishments. We flew to Moscow on points last year: Vancouver to Edmonton to Toronto to Frankfurt to Moscow. Going home was on Lufthansa, paid for by our travel insurers, as I’d spent 4 days in hospital in St. Petersburg. Of course, Aeroplan couldn’t change the milk run return flight plan and we flew Lufthansa with only a stop in Frankfurt, as prescribed by my doctor. Business Class cost $6,500 each and, of course, points for unused Aeroplan portions are forfeited. Also, all the bouncing around invariably has an economy portion in the business class flight, usually a long portion (Edmonton to Toronto, not Vancouver to Edmonton), again with no credit for the difference.
I don’t suppose you had an answer to your complaint. Of the many letters I have sent to various Aeroplan executives, I have yet to receive a reply. Shame on them.
Katrina: Count me as one of the hugely dis-satisfied! I consider myself a “positive” person, but at some point even the person wearing the rosiest-colored glasses has to realize that the company is counting on them to not put up a fuss.
In my case, Aeroplan was untruthful with me (I’d use a stronger word but I’ve lost respect for the company and don’t trust them not to use any opportunity to classify me as unreasonable). I received a call three weeks before the departure date indicating that the direct flight from Ft. Lauderdale to Ottawa (AC# 1221) had been cancelled and that they were re-routing me with one stop in Toronto. I specifically asked if I was being bumped from 1221, or was it cancelled. The agent replied that no, they wouldn’t bump me; but in that case the flight was cancelled. Well, guess what I saw when I arrived for my flight at Ft. Lauderdale (?): Air Canada Flight 1221, with direct service to Ottawa, was still scheduled and “on time”.
I’m upset enough that I will contact Aeroplan to complain. Although, I am not optimistic that it will do me any good. I too, have had unpleasant experiences with Aeroplan’s wait-times for customer service reps. (I feel sorry for them. It can’t be a pleasant job.) My view is that Aeroplan has consciously decided to cut back on its customer service people for one of two reasons – either the number of calls don’t justify having a large number of reps to speak to, or they don’t place that high a value on member satisfaction. Draw your own conclusions on that one!
I’d love to be able to skip the front-line cust/serv reps (who seem to be trained to deflect the criticisms and wear you down), and go straight to the Pres and VP of Member Relations. It would be nice to have an e-mail from one of its corporate officers that shows their corporate e-mail format. It’s debatable on my chances of success, but at least it would give me some satisfaction knowing that the top level is hearing the extent to which members are not pleased.