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Comment by jmtame | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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".

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