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April 20, 2007

Aeroplan (an open letter)

I wasted the whole morning trying to book for my son flight (see attached pdf output).

Starting from 9 am to 12 am the following bookings were shown as available.

You see: it works!

Your browser does not support embedded PDF files.

However when I finished filling all the steps including my credit card info and submitted data, the system responded that seats are no longer available. I restarted the session and tried again ... with the same result. And I did it during 3 hour interrupted only by my calls to web support desk (twice) and booking through an agent. Finally I gave up. Web support persons told me that the system was updated with some delay, usually 15 min to an hour. However when I told that it was going for much longer, I was advised (by two different persons) "Well, then I don't know".

Recently I had the similar experience with booking for my wife flight but at least then the help desk was able to help me. Now I experienced the least helpful and knowledgeable support in 10 years in any company I was dealing with.

I have been Aeroplan customer on the span of 13 years. It used to be the best frequent flyer program. However service began deteriorate: with more and more status miles needed to reach prestige level, with reducing airmiles earned for many booking, increasing surcharges for booking, introducing 12 month inactivity limit. Aeroplan webpages became more and more fancy, less and less compatible and functional. Nobody needs stupid javascripts anymations, but the real time search (rather than system update delay) must be.

It became more and more difficult to get credits for flights.

I am beginning to think that it is not worth the trouble anymore. It is a real shame that Aeroplan does not match the quality of AirCanada which is one the best airlines in the world.

I could not find on website the address of ombudsperson, so I kindly ask you to forward this to him/her.

Posted by Victor at April 20, 2007 01:07 PM