=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SFGate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/c/a/2008/05/01/DDKQ10DKB2= .DTL --------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, May 1, 2008 (SF Chronicle) Flight horrible? Want payback? Ask for it. Ed Perkins If an airline treats you badly, you should certainly complain. But if you decide to complain, do it the right way. A poor or misfocused complaint, no matter how shabby the treatment, will probably fall on deaf ears. During this past week, I received copies of complaint letters two aggrieved passengers sent to two airlines. Both included blow-by-blow details of mistreatment; both told of significant monetary losses, additional expenses, loss of vacation time and general hassles. Clearly, both travelers had legitimate, well-documented beefs. But instead of ending with a hard-hitting demand for compensation, both totally fizzled out with weak endings: one with "please advise us of your position in this matter," the other with "thank you in advance for reviewing the complications involved with travel on your airline." These two letters violated the most basic rule of an effective complaint: Always ask for something! If your complaint is not important enough to justify asking for some specific compensation, it probably isn't worth pursuing at all. Over the years, I've frequently reviewed the various steps of an effecti= ve complaint. -- Establish your objective: what you really want from the complaint. Do you want compensation or do you just want to give the airline a black mark? If you decide to complain, ask for something specific. -- Keep your complaint simple. Figure that your initial response, if any, will be a form letter along the lines of "sorry you were disappointed; we hope to see you again soon" or such and that the real process starts with your second letter. -- Establish some response deadlines. -- And once you start, plan on finishing, in court, if necessary. For now, I won't elaborate on all those steps. Instead, let's focus on t= he two most important: Your objective: In just about any human endeavor, the best place to start is almost always to determine your objective, what you'd like the ultimate outcome to be. In the case of complaining to an airline, I see only two sensible and attainable objectives: Either you want compensation for whatever befell you, or you just want to score points against the airline. Want an apology or an "explanation" of what happened? Fuggedaboudit. No airline is going to admit a mistake because the airline's lawyers would consider an admission of error to be the basis for a lawsuit. Want the airline to volunteer generous compensation on its own? Again, fuggedaboudit. Ditto getting an airline to discipline a nasty employee or to change its policies and procedures. Specific compensation: Always ask for some form of compensation. Calcula= te a dollar figure that you think would be appropriate. That's easy if your loss was tangible: forfeited deposits, loss of vacation time, additional expenses and such. But even if it wasn't, come up with a figure for inconvenience and hassle. Then, determine what kind of compensation you prefer - and what you'd settle for in a negotiation. Money, of course, would be best, but an airline would much rather give y= ou a voucher for future travel, extra frequent-flier miles or an upgrade than cut you a check. Decide what you'd want and what you'd accept. Then, in the complaint process, make sure the airline understands that you plan on going as far as you need to in seeking compensation. If your complaint doesn't rise to the level of warranting specific compensation, the best you can do is score a point against the line. Submit a complaint to the Department of Transportation. The department won't pursue your issue individually, but your submission will count against the airline in its airline-quality statistical reports. Write to Aviation Consumer Protection Division, C-75; U.S. Department of Transportation; 1200 New Jersey Ave. S.E.; Washington, D.C., 20590, or go to airconsumer.ost.dot.gov for an online complaint form. You could also post your story on one or more of the airline or complaint blogs. If you want to send something to the airline, too, go ahead, but don't expect any meaningful result. =A9 2008 Tribune Media Services ----------------------------------------= ------------------------------ Copyright 2008 SF Chronicle <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> If you wish to unsubscribe from the AIRLINE List, please send an E-mail to: "listserv@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx". Within the body of the text, only write the following:"SIGNOFF AIRLINE".