The plan was to fly from Boston to San Francisco this afternoon on United, but I opted to standby for a morning transcon so I could have dinner with family this evening. The flight was zeroed out and although I did not sweat clearing the standby list, I knew I wouldn’t receive an upgrade to first class.
While chatting with the purser on my redeye to Boston last night (I got exactly 0 minutes of sleep and am still on Japan/South Korean time and very jet-lagged) I mentioned that I would be turning right around and flying to San Francisco, probably in economy class. Few had elected to eat on the redeye so there were quite a few meals leftover. Taking the initiative, the purser assembled a "care package" or "picnic lunch" to help make the six hour flight behind the curtain a little more bearable.
I received a turkey and cheese sandwich (which the flight crew was more than happy to warm up for me this morning), sliced apples, pop chips, almonds, and a Cliff bar. That’s what I call service. I was truly impressed.
Now do you see why I love United?
I actually received excellent service from a BOS based inflight crew going SFO-BOS just a few mornings ago. My ticket had gotten slightly messed up after a reroute a couple segments earlier. I went from having a row 6 window on an Airbus to a middle seat in economy (not economy plus). One GA refused to do anything to help, while another grabbed my boarding pass for my next segment and said she’d try to get me a better seat (which she did). After boarding and explaining to the purser what happened, he helped me grab a row all the way in the back to myself and then delivered a couple blankets from first class. Throughout the flight, when I was awake, the entire crew made a point to check on me and see if I needed anything – extra food from first class, a pillow, whatever. It made the SNAFU entirely bearable, and if anything, into a positive experience. It surprised me when talking to the crew that apparently the BOS FA base has been receiving low customer service scores. I made sure to give a GTEM to all three. Nothing any of them did cost United an extra penny, but it sure made a difference to me.