...I certainly never take to using WePay’s corporate blog as a pulpit for my attacks.
Then don't. Ever. Here's why:
It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.
You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time.
You also complained about customer service (in the airline industry, no less). That's like complaining about the weather. I suppose you deserve a pass on that, too.
But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring your ineptness to your company. Big mistake. Now people might think, "If he can't navigate a weekend trip, can't handle his vendors, and then complains about it publicly, why should I trust him with my money."
Please do yourself a big favor and delete this blog post before too many of your potential customers see it. Don't make a bad experience worse by threatening your business. With all the hard work already invested, it deserves better.
> It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.
Really? This is the first time I've ever heard this.
> But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring your ineptness to your company
I think it makes WePay seem human. Furthermore, whether or not it's true, this blog post makes me feel like WePay is saying 'we value our customers; we will never treat you like UAL does, and we will try to act as much like Zappos or Virgin as possible.'
Really? This is the first time I've ever heard this.
Really. It also ties in to why the airlines want you to show proof of who you are.
Back before they did both of these it was common for people to buy round trips and sell the legs individually for well below what the airline was willing to sell them for.
Why, you ask? The fundamental problem is that airline pricing is insanely complicated. The principle is simple, put a plane in the air, fill it with passengers, try to make a profit. The problem is that there are huge fixed costs to having the flight (time on airplane, fuel, employees, airport fees) and much lower variable costs (incremental cost of baggage, incremental fuel). Only a small fraction of people are willing to pay their share of the true cost of the flight. Some of those are willing to pay much more. Most are willing to pay less than their share of the total costs (not worth having the flight for them) but more than the marginal cost (worth letting them on the flight).
The result is that airline pricing becomes all about pushing people who are able to pay more into actually paying more, while allowing people who are not willing to pay more to get on cheaply. For instance if someone does a round trip and has a layover that includes a weekend, that's probably not a business trip and so they can pay less. Someone who flies somewhere then flies back the next day is probably on a business trip and can be charged more.
One way trips are generally bought by someone who is going A to B to C ... because those are business stops. People flying on business are generally willing to charge more, so airlines happily charge them more.
I agree with your view here. I've flown a reasonable amount, although not much in recent years, and I wouldn't have expected them to cancel my flight like that without contacting me in some way.
Likewise, this left me feeling somewhat positive about WePay. It was a rant about the ways they want to always help you, and how your problems are more important to them than "policy".
why would they tell him he could check in on the return flight if this is such a common thing? why not a notification saying "you missed your first flight so we canceled everything. warning: don't come to the airport and try to check in, buy some new tickets instead because that's what people have been doing for 30 years now." the airline screwed up here too, especially if he's someone (like myself) who didn't know about this.
this blog is completely justified, and it shows that wepay stands behind its commitment of customer service. you know they won't screw up customer service because 1) they blogged expressing dissatisfaction against bad customer service, 2) people will start calling them "UnitedPay.com" as soon as their customer service slips.
this blog is completely justified, and it shows that wepay stands behind its commitment of customer service.
It also shows that wepay (through this blog rant) is not saavy in some pretty standard ways of the world. Which is a real big fucking concern for anyone who's thinking about trusting them with their money.
OP says it himself with his very first "lesson", "Don’t optimize for the edge-case." Then he violates his own first lesson.
By complaining about customer service, he just got a small set of sympathetic people to passionately agree. And accidently got a huge set of potential customers to go away.
OP had a difficult experience. He got bitten by a software bug and horrible customer service. We've all been there. We understand.
My point is not that I don't sympathize with him. My point is that he's using his corporate blog to make a small point, potentially costing him huge unanticipated problems on the other side of this. He may pick up a few raving customer service fans, but how many people will think twice before trusting their money to someone either too green or too lazy to understand a standard airline contract?
OP may win this battle, but lose the war. I imagine he, his co-founders, and his business partners have worked way too hard to risk so much for so little.
maybe we just have a disagreement over what's appropriate to put in company blogs. maybe it's safer to stick with simple product updates and policy changes (and it probably is in most cases), but this is the type of stuff i like to see. it shows me there are human beings behind a company and that they're committed to certain values. i enjoy supporting those types of companies, and i know if i have a problem i'll be able to e-mail or call them and they're going to help me out.
i can't remember the last time i've actually read a company blog. i don't read them because they're boring. they usually have nothing worth reading, and i don't consider myself attracted to sensationalist material either.
the fact that it's a trivial mistake in the eyes of experienced travelers can probably go dismissed here because wepay primarily caters to college students and roommates.
If you want to add "color" to a company blog, you talk about positive things of a somewhat personal or offbeat nature. If he wanted to describe how the WePay team went on a road trip to a conference and stopped at some amazing place where the customer service was hands-on and handled exceptions well, that would be great. Or just about some board game which they really enjoy playing at the office.
Whining about vendors, especially when you are partially or technically somewhat at fault, is something you do on "friends-only" posts, personal facebook, etc.
While this statement is in alignment with conventional wisdom, I think things are changing (or should). Corporations are legal entities and can/should have a voice just like any other person. When folks start watering down the corporate voice to "only be positive" or "not admit fault", they are aggravating the problem that this blog post is illustrating. There are enough faceless corporations with thousands of powerless minions doing the work of "corporate".
wepay primarily caters to college students and roommates
Now.
This is a great idea that, if executed properly, can be so much more. I guess that's why I was so concerned with what I saw as negative corporate blog energy.
The place to warn about this would be before he missed his flight (or at initial booking, but it would annoy frequent travelers to be presented information like this every single time they book; it's in the rules of carriage).
I've flown on some airlines where they send mail encouraging online checkin which also includes "miss your flight" information. And, I've flown others where if you miss you flight, they call or email or SMS you and try to work with you on rebooking to a later flight (either standby for free or a small fee, or rebooking for $50-150), plus any difference in fare. This would still support price discrimination and market segmentation.
The vast majority of people who miss their outbound leg are still wanting travel on the outbound leg at a later time, not to burn the outbound leg and take the return leg. That is the failure mode to try to optimize, not the return leg.
agreed, they should do better at making sure you read this. but they shouldn't bury this somewhere EULA-style.
that's an aside. the point is: they told him to check-in. their system is flawed. they took the time to hire someone to program the ability to cancel the whole flight, but they ignored the part where they tell him to check-in. to make things worse, they treated him terribly when he tried to and didn't realize his "mistake."
EULAs are basically meaningless, so I skip them (unless I'm evaluating a large purchase).
Terms of Carriage/Fare Rules are actually quite important. I absolutely do check things like change fees, reroutability, fare class, etc. when I buy a ticket, and will often pay the 5% premium to get a more changeable ticket.
This is much more like reading the tech specs for a new laptop (does it have a linux-supported wifi chipset? discrete graphics?) than a EULA.
A useful fact you may not know: most "legacy" carriers will interline you onto another airline if they can't accommodate your scheduled travel -- for instance, if they cancel a flight, they will put you on another airline's flight if it will get your there faster. This is a VERY BIG DEAL internationally, where they don't always even have daily flights -- if a flight is canceled, it could be 2-3 days before the next flight with the same airline to your destination. Low cost carriers (e.g. Southwest) won't.
I strongly agree with this. It might be appropriate for a personal blog, but it makes WePay look like it's run by people who don't understand how to navigate complex systems.
Guess what industry is even more regulated, rule-bound, complex than the airline industry? Banking and payments. A startup already has a high hurdles related to people being conservative with their money; being an iconoclast isn't exactly what people want when it comes to a finance manager.
I'm sure WePay does not dedicate as much time/effort into understanding every complex industry and in fact they obviously shouldn't. Banking and payments is core to their business. Air travel is not. I would still trust my lawyer if he/she failed to tell me how high I could jump on the moon.
It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.
I thought that was standard as well, but I fly usually fly United or other big carriers.
I flew JetBlue recently, and did something just like what this guy did. I called up expecting to have to rebook, but they said that wasn't necessary, and even refunded the money for the first leg.
I can see how someone used to Virgin, JetBlue, et al. could make this mistake.
I agree, but I'm sympathetic to the guy - I don't think it's actually common knowledge that if you miss the first leg, the second is canceled. It's a non-normal use case, the only way you'd learn it is if you try doing it and have it go wrong, or someone tells you.
I had it happen to me where I booked an itinerary going from NYC -> London -> Berlin, but then I had to be in London a week earlier. It was cheaper for me to buy a new one way ticket from a different airline, but then I showed up for my London -> Berlin flight and they said it was canceled since I didn't do NYC -> London. I said, "Umm, okay, I don't mind forfeiting that, but I already paid. Can you let me go London to Berlin? I don't have any other arrangements here."
They overrode the cancel and let me in. I think this is an easy error to make, because most people don't ever travel in a way where they'd miss their first leg and take the second. I know it took me by surprise. Agree about not ranting on a company blog though, it doesn't give people the warm fuzzy feeling about doing business with you.
Savvy businessmen know the difference between discounted nonrefundable tickets and full-fare refundable tickets.
I think he should leave this in his blog since it's very helpful information for prospective vendors and customers. They should know that he doesn't read contracts when he makes a purchase and simply assumes that the contract favors him. When the vendor does not honor the contract he imagined, he'll create a scene at the vendor's business demanding that their customer service agents honor the imaginary contract. When they don't do so he'll publish a screed in his company blog saying that it's all the vendors fault and their customer service reps are just so rude.
I'd say this is valuable information for anyone who's thinking of doing business with this guy.
Then don't. Ever. Here's why:
It's standard knowledge that your second leg will be canceled if you miss your first leg. It's been that way for 30 years.
You have just demonstrated your inability to deal with a standard curve ball. No big deal. As individuals, we all run into that from time to time.
You also complained about customer service (in the airline industry, no less). That's like complaining about the weather. I suppose you deserve a pass on that, too.
But your mistake was using your company blog, unintentionally transferring your ineptness to your company. Big mistake. Now people might think, "If he can't navigate a weekend trip, can't handle his vendors, and then complains about it publicly, why should I trust him with my money."
Please do yourself a big favor and delete this blog post before too many of your potential customers see it. Don't make a bad experience worse by threatening your business. With all the hard work already invested, it deserves better.