"I'm never shopping THERE again!" Share your story!

[Virg]

#1aunt wrote:

"That's what I mean, though - Air Traffic Control thins the flights, meaning they tell the airline they can't take off and/or land, which cancels the flight.  In those cases it's not the airline's fault.  Even if there was never a threat of airport closure."

The information I learned after all of this came from an air traffic controller in my home town (in addition, the idea that they cancelled to avoid the risk of stranding a plane was something I hadn't even considered until he suggested it).  The airport didn't thin any flights.  Delta cancelled the flight on their own.  There were no changes by air traffic on the day it happened at all.  Of course, I didn't know this when I talked to Delta a week after the flight, and they maintained that the airport closure or not didn't matter when I talked to them.  By the time I had proof positive that they lied to me, it wasn't really worth pursuit through a court case, so now I just vote with my wallet and bad reviews any time someone asks.

Virg

[shadowfox79]

I will never use Ryanair again if I am ever flying within Europe again.

Oh God, Ryanair!

We managed to deal with their baggage allowance issues, but our flight back from Majorca was a nightmare. Admittedly part of it wasn't their fault - this was during the period of the Iceland volcano, which was causing chaos all over Europe by grounding planes. However, the rest was pure incompetence.

We arrived at the airport to find only one check-in desk open, run by a girl who was moving at a snail's pace, and a queue right round the airport. By the time we reached the boarding time, we were still well away from the front and starting to panic. At this point another desk opened and we managed to get through - cue chase-scene music as we ran the full length of Palma airport, straight past the moving walkways, with a momentary break when I was ordered to take my boots off at the metal detector. We reached the gate, boarded, and only then were informed that our destination airport had closed airspace and we were being diverted to Birmingham, where a coach would drive us back north.

We landed at Birmingham airport along with fifteen other Ryanair flights which had also been diverted. Five minutes later they closed airspace too. We got to the front desk to find that nobody had been warned we were coming, so no coaches had been arranged. Outside the terminal it was utter chaos - people were being bussed in from other airports only to turn round again because airspace had just closed! DH and I gave up, got on a train and then took a cab up to our destination airport to collect my car.

Never again.

[Daquiri40]

Booking a hotel over the internet.....

My boyfriend drives 1 1/2 hours each way to work, so one weekday I booked a hotel close to his work so he would have one day off of driving.  I went there early to check in and was told my credit card was declined, they had no rooms left, and were telling people to go 40 miles down the road because all hotels were booked solid within the vicinity. 

I drove across the street to a different hotel chain and got a room with no problems.

I think they didn't want to sell me the room at the internet price and could get full price from someone else.

I have never stayed at that chain since. 

[Giggity]

Other priorities than properly preparing the food for the picnic, for which he was the committee member..............in his case, we jokingly nicknamed him after Fritz Leiber's barbarian thief/adventurer from Lankhmar..............which might give you an inkling about where COOKING was on his priority list.  Unless there was wine the recipe............I suppose.

Sorry, I was vague.  I was saying you said he had priorities that ranked above chili.  My point is, unless he's with the secret service, that sentence just doesn't make sense.

For reals, yo. Nothing outranks chili. Not God or country or the love of a good woman or yo mama's chicken-fried steak.

Okay, that last one *might*.

[clio917]

(Sorry, I just looked over this after I wrote it and realized it is super long!)

I have a story about renting a car during our recent vacation. We went with a specific rental company because they were the only ones who offered Jeep Wranglers (we were going to be driving on possibly bumpy roads, so we wanted an SUV and having one that we could put the top down was a big perk). We checked their website and they were having a monthly special on Wranglers, so they should have plenty of them and be prepared to rent them out, right? We made a reservation on their website more than a month in advance.

When we finally got to the rental car office from the airport (2 shuttle buses, but we knew that they were off-off-site, so that wasn't really a bother) there was a sizable line and only 2 people at the counter. We stood in line and eventually a few more employees wandered back from lunch. An hour and 45 minutes later, we are checked out and went outside to get our car, where we stand around in the hot sun for another 10 minutes until another employee points us to the Jeep that he had parked out front. We asked him if it was a good car and he said it was just fine, he just checked it out and anyway, it was the only Jeep he had left. So we drove it to the final stand at the exit where they check you out, the employee scans the VIN, looks at the computer and tells us "Oh, this car needs an oil change. You'll have to give it back and get another car." What?! He just waves us in the general direction of the return area, where we unpack our luggage and stand around (in the hot sun) for another 10 minutes while the guy who gave us the car (who said he had just checked it out and it was fine) ignores us in favor of other customers. I finally got agitated enough that another employee noticed me and was nice enough to look into the back lot and see that there were 3 other Wranglers sitting out there (obviously the oil change Jeep wasn't the last one available...)

It turned out OK in the end because the second Jeep they gave us was newer and cleaner (and had obviously had its oil changed lately), but they were just so disorganized and chaotic that I don't know if I ever want to use them again. And it was funny that the only employee that was helpful and seemed to know what was going on wasn't one of the customer service employees, but one of the guys who cleans and moves the cars in the back lot.

[CakeBeret]

*snip*
It turned out OK in the end because the second Jeep they gave us was newer and cleaner (and had obviously had its oil changed lately), but they were just so disorganized and chaotic that I don't know if I ever want to use them again. And it was funny that the only employee that was helpful and seemed to know what was going on wasn't one of the customer service employees, but one of the guys who cleans and moves the cars in the back lot.

My DH works for a car rental company and I am completely unsurprised at your story. DH does not work the front counter, but he has told me story after story of the front counter people renting out the wrong cars, renting out cars that should never have been rented out, etc.

[MamaMootz]

I'm on page 102, but one of the stories there made me remember this from the Lexus dealer located in Reno.

I was in the market for a new car, and I really loved this Lexus sedan...the IS convertible. DH and I discussed it ahead of time, we could make it work with our budget, and he wanted to buy me that car because I never ask for anything and my current car was over 10 years old at the time.

Important note for later on in the story: I am in my 40's.

We arrived at the dealership. Not a soul was shopping there. We meet with a saleswoman. She asks me what I'm interested in. I tell her I want to test drive the IS convertible. She refuses to let me. She tries to steer me over to the Lexus SUV as more suitable for me. I tell her I'm not interested in the SUV and I would like to test drive the IS convertible, please. She stops, looks me up and down and tells me she will not let me test drive the car but she would let me sit in it for a minute. When we ask her why she will not let me test drive the car, she tells us that the target demographic for that car is people in their 20's and I'm clearly "outside" of that demographic.

I was FURIOUS. We left the dealership. To this day, I will not consider a Lexus of any type because of this woman's behavior.

So... let me get this straight? A car with a $50K price tag for a base model is being marketed to people in their 20's... who probably cannot afford to buy it. But I'm older and can afford it, and am therefore, not allowed to buy the car because I'm TOO OLD???  Oh sorry about that, I guess my money spends differently than someone in their 20's.

Yeah, I understand why no one was shopping at that dealership. I wonder if they are still in business.

[gramma dishes]

^^^  Oh, wow!

I would most certainly have notified Lexus (the corporation) of this! 

You are so right.  Maybe their "target" demographics need to be shifted a bit to reflect reality.  As you pointed out, they may have expected the cars to appeal to the twenty something market, but it is unlikely that that is the 'market' that can afford to pay for the car.

[Diane AKA Traska]

That's an interesting sales tactic: insult the customer and refuse to sell them anything.

[Twik]

That's an interesting sales tactic: insult the customer and refuse to sell them anything.

There is a vague bit of sense there - if you want your car to be the "in thing" with the twenty-somethings, you don't want them to see their parents driving it. Ruins the illusion that you're a hipster. You know, the sort that doesn't believe in outmoded stereotypes? 

But yeah. $50K car, they have to learn to be flexible.

[Diane AKA Traska]

That's an interesting sales tactic: insult the customer and refuse to sell them anything.

There is a vague bit of sense there - if you want your car to be the "in thing" with the twenty-somethings, you don't want them to see their parents driving it. Ruins the illusion that you're a hipster. You know, the sort that doesn't believe in outmoded stereotypes? 

But yeah. $50K car, they have to learn to be flexible.

Yep, the ones that want to be unique individuals, just like all their friends. 

[MamaMootz]

And it wasn't bad enough that she wasn't going to let me test drive it, she was going to "let me sit in it for a few minutes" acting like she was granting me a favor from on high. DH saw my face and just steered me to the door. I was sputtering.

I just checked the website and they are still around, and so is the saleswoman. So I guess insulting customers works for her, I don't know.

[JadeAngel]

Last weekend the BF and I were walking down the street around lunchtime when we saw a board out the front of a chinese restaurant offering 'Yum Cha' between 1 and 3pm. It wasn't until we walked in that I realised the place was completely deserted (at lunchtime on a Saturday... not a good sign) but with some trepidation we sat down and ordered - the food was beautiful and we had a very nice lunch.

However.

The BF found some food stuck to the bottom of his bowl, which had obviously not been washed properly. The waiter seated us and then vanished so after some discussion we switched the bowls with the one on the next table, which was not ideal as whoever sat there next would get the crusty bowl, but the best we could come up with under the circumstances.

We ordered four dishes to share and the waiter came out and plopped down an unfamiliar dish before us and vanished again. When he reappeared we asked what it was and he replied 'fillet steak' which we did not order so we sent it back to the kitchen.

Later the BF saw the waiter eating the fillet steak we declined (this becomes important shortly)

When the Yum Cha list was returned to us so we could look over it, the fillet steak had mysteriously been filled out as if we had ordered the dish, even though when we queried the order initially, the waiter checked the same list and said it wasn't on there (we ordered the prawns which was the next item down)

We ordered dessert (sesame balls with red bean paste yum!) which was listed on the menu as three pieces - however when the dessert arrived there were only two pieces on the plate. No explanation was ever offered for this.

Finally we received the bill - on it we had been charged for the fillet steak, which we had not ordered and which had been eaten by the waiter, and we were also charged the full price for the dessert, despite only receiving two thirds of it. The dessert was only $2.50 so we didn't quibble, however the BF went up to the counter and pointed out that they needed to take the fillet steak off the bill, which thankfully they did without argument as we were concerned that they would point to the doctored Yum Cha list and insist that we had ordered it.

I think we figured out why the place was deserted...

[Mental Magpie]

I am a "20-something" and I can tell you right now, if they tried to steer me towards that car like they tried to steer the "40-something" away from that car, I would have laughed in their faces *I realize this isn't always the best option, nor the polite-est, but it is my default reaction*.  That is so out of my price range that I wouldn't be able to help myself.  "Who do you think I am, the daughter of a millionaire?  Don't you realize that I'm still paying off student loans?!"  The fact that she even told you, OP, that you were out of the demographic would make me guffaw.

[Xandraea]

I am a "20-something" and I can tell you right now, if they tried to steer me towards that car like they tried to steer the "40-something" away from that car, I would have laughed in their faces *I realize this isn't always the best option, nor the polite-est, but it is my default reaction*.  That is so out of my price range that I wouldn't be able to help myself.  "Who do you think I am, the daughter of a millionaire?  Don't you realize that I'm still paying off student loans?!"  The fact that she even told you, OP, that you were out of the demographic would make me guffaw.

I'm no longer a 20something but, from the time I got my first car at 19, I looked at vehicles I liked, that I could afford.  I still admire a vehicle for the vehicle, and pay little attention to who's driving it, at least not in the judgmental sense of "Eep, OLD PEOPLE drive that car?! I'd never be caught dead in it!"  I've seen senior citizens in convertibles with the tops down on a nice summer day, and I've seen teenagers in large SUVs  (OK, there, I really hope it's mom's car they're borrowing). I'd choose a vehicle because it's what I want to drive, not because of who else may be seen in the same model.

It's amazing that dealership is still in business, and the woman works there still!  One would think refusing to sell the business' product would have her out of a job. I know her attitude would put me off entirely, even if I was in the market for the car she deemed suitable for my demographic.