The Start of My Blog for Frequent Travelers

Airline, hotel and restaurant customer service is becoming so inconsistent and frustrating that I thought I'd just start writing about it.

I fly well over 100,000 mile a year (first class most of the time), stay at hotels 100+ nights per year and eat at hundreds of restaurants every year.

I'll start this blog with a few of my most common airline complaints.

Boarding - many time I sit in row 1. I have to get to the front of the boarding area line prior to boarding or push my way into the front of the line in order to board first or I will have no place to put my bag once on board.

All airlines could use some sort of an orderly method to board (ala Southwest). In any event, if I'm the least bit late, it is nearly impossible to get close to the front of the line and much less likely to have a place to but my bag once on board.

Many times I have seen coach passengers put their bags over a first class seat and walk to the back of the plane while flight attendents look on. This should not be allowed! Retrieving the bag is another story kinda like salmon swimming upstream!

The bins over the first row should be reserved for passengers in the first row. In fact, all the bins over the seats in first class should be reserved for first class passengers. So why not have assigned baggage compartments for all seats on a plane?? Probably too logical.

There was a time when I got on board and a first class flight attendant would always offer to take my coat and ask if I'd like something to drink. Now some ask if you'd like a drink, some have water waiting at your seat when you board, or as I experienced last night, I didn't get offered a drink for the first hour into the flight. During this first hour I watched the flight attendant leasurely take a drink from his water bottle at least 3 times.

One round of drinks, dinner and never saw the attendant again. This was on a 4.5 hour flight! Of course this is not the norm. Some flight attendants are quite good when it comes to the safety and comfort of their customer passengers, but the inconsistency is astonishing. Seems they should have standards, accountability and quality control but apparently not.