Anyone Flying to Hawaii Any Time Soon?

Because if you are, Hawaiian Airlines is offering $25 off each ticket for you and a buddy. (This works for anyone flying from Hawaii to the mainland also). You have to be a Hawaiian Airlines member (you can join for free), and it does have to be a round trip ticket. Why am I telling you this? Because I like Hawaiian Airlines. For years, my husband has built up miles on United, and we've been able to take advantage of them a few times, which has been a great advantage to us. I know how loyal people can be to their miles. Once you've started accumulating them with one airline, you don't want to have to start all over with another, but we've recently made the decision to use Hawaiian Airlines wherever possible, even if it means losing miles on United.

Here's the thing: I like Hawaiian Airlines so much better than United. (If I'm not mistaken, I have at least one regular reader who is a United Airlines employee. Let me just apologize now. You might want to skip this part). For one thing, Hawaiian Airlines' flight attendants don't make a point of telling you, "We're here primarily for your safety." In other words, please don't bother us for menial crap like blankets and extra water. For another, I'm willing to bet that a lot of people have had experiences with United that allow them to commiserate with Busy Dad. Also, in my former life I had to deal with their automated lost luggage "assistant," who, if I remember correctly, is named Simon. Simon will say things like, "Please state the city that you landed in," and you'll say, "Denver," and Simon will say something like, "I think you said, 'Saskatchewan.' Is this correct?" and after 20 minutes of this, someone in your office will tell you to stop yelling, you'll flip them the bird, and they will crack up because they've never seen you this pissed off before, and Simon will tell you that he is unable to help you and to please hold while he gets an agent for you. You will tell the agent all the same things you told Simon, but now you will be cranky and mean to the poor guy in India who is just trying to earn a living for his family and, truth be told, is probably just as sick of cleaning up Simon's messes as you are frustrated. To be fair, it's been about five years since I've had to deal with Simon. Maybe things have improved.

Okay. So, where was I? Oh, yeah, fly Hawaiian Airlines instead! Granted, they don't go to all the places that some of the other major airlines do, but they will take you to a lot of places in the Pacific, and miles build up fast when you're flying trans-Pacifically. Also, I don't know about you, but I'm tired of going out of my way to give my money to companies who don't give a crap about customer service. If I'm going to spend hundreds of dollars on something, I'd just as soon give it to a company that I like and that I want to support, especially in these economic times where everyone should be fighting to hold on to their customers. My husband recently flew to Korea via Hawaiian's code-share partner, Korean Airlines, where the staff came out and personally and sincerely thanked each passenger individually for choosing Korean Airlines. Granted, he was in the business section, but still. When was the last time you were treated that way?

I honestly didn't start this with the intention of turning into an "I hate United" post, it's just that they are the airline that I have the most experience with. I'm sure other airlines have their fair share of disgruntled customers, and United probably even has somebody out there with a stellar customer-service story. Hawaiian's not perfect either-you still have to pay the extra baggage fees and pay for headphones and snacks (their snacks are really good!), but their meals have always been good, and I'll gladly pay the earphone fee to have the extra 2 or 3 inches of legroom that you get on Hawaiian. You know what I'm talking about. You've been stuck in that middle seat, trying to reach that dropped pen or the gum in your carry-on only to realize that you are going to have to dislocate your shoulder in order to reach it or ask someone if you can borrow their screaming baby to crawl around under your seat to get it for you, neither of which are ideal options. So, instead you just deal with the cramp that's already formed in your neck and try not to breathe on the guy next to you for the next 8 hours.

So, anyway, there it is, my post urging you to fly Hawaiian Airlines if you ever get the chance. Let's re-cap:

Pros:

• Friendly staff
• More leg room
• Best snacks I've ever had on a plane
• Good meals
• #1 in National Airline Quality Rating (I didn't mention that above, but I wanted to throw it in).
• Less chance of offending your seat mates with your bad breath because you can't reach your gum.
• Another thing I didn't mention-they also have gaming devices available for rent

Cons:

• Limited destinations
• Baggage, snack, headphone and gaming device fees still apply

Please feel free to share any stories you have about good airline customer service. I always like to hear stories of good triumphing over evil, even if it's from United! ;)

11/24/09-Edited to add: Per Beat of Hawaii's October 27th post, Hawaiian pilots have been talking about striking, so if you do choose to travel Hawaiian, it might be a good idea to have travel insurance in place that would cover such a contingency. Please check out their whole article for more details and a different point of view on Hawaiian Airlines.

Dear Bank of America

Dear Bank of America,

I tried protecting your anonymity here, when I mentioned the two times you accidentally charged us $150 for Overdraft Protection that we didn't need, but I no longer care.  We have a checking account and a credit card with you.  We have overdraft protection set up so that if our checking account is ever overdrawn, it will pull from the credit card to cover the overage.  You decided to randomly charge $150 to our credit card (twice!) in the name of "Overdraft Protection" even though our checking account was never even anywhere close to being overdrawn.  The second time you charged us a late fee on the $150 that you inappropriately charged to our account-fair enough.  We probably should have contacted you sooner about this mysterious $150 charge.  After about 8 hours on the phone with your various minions, you agreed that an error had been made and that this situation would be corrected.  This resulted in a $4.19 credit to our account, for which you sent us two (2) checks, each in the amount of $4.19.  We deposited the first check and decided that the second check must have been an error and never tried to deposit it.  Silly us!  It must have been the first check that was the error because, guess what!  It has been returned unpaid due to a stop payment order.  So, now not only do we not get the $4.19 that you owe us, but we now owe our (non-BofA) bank a $5.00 returned-item fee.  Thank you.  No, really.  This is AWESOME.  

Sincerely,

Considering moving all of our accounts to another bank

Seriously, am I out of line for expecting more from a financial institution that just received millions of dollars in bailout money?  I know the bailout money doesn't really have anything to do with me and my little situation one way or the other, but come on!  Can't they do a little better job with all that money than this??

The first check was issued on December 1, the second on December 4.  It is now January 6, and at no time during the past month have we received any correspondence from BofA saying, hey, our bad, we sent you two checks.  Please don't cash one of them; if you have already cashed it and it has somehow resulted in fines or penalties we would be happy to take care of those for you.  We value you as a customer and apologize for the inconvenience.  

Oh yeah, also, we got a nice little notice from the credit bureau folks indicating that our credit report had changed.  You want to guess why?  I will give the BofA folks credit for at least jumping on that little fire and putting it out.  They sent a letter to the credit reporting agency immediately stating that we have a zero balance on our account and that it is not, in fact, past due.  So.  At least there's that.  

Wish my husband luck as he spends another 4 hours on the phone trying to straighten out this matter about the checks.  Is it worth it, or should we just suck up the $9.19?  Honestly, it's not worth the time it's going to take to fix it, but it's the principal of the thing, dammit.        

Props to Hawaii Pacific Plumbing Supply Company

So, it seems that our house is made of spare parts.  It's coming up on 10 years of age, and it's at that point where things are beginning to need to be replaced.  So far, anytime we've had to replace anything, it's some funky size that nobody carries.  This could just be a function of living on an island where supplies are limited, or it could be that the guy who built our house got some great deals on clearance items.  I don't know.  Anyway, I need to replace our bathtub faucet, and after having no luck at Home Depot, I turned to the folks at Hawaii Pacific Plumbing Supply Company (HPPS).  

Sadly, this tale does not end with me being able to get the part I needed, but, BUT, the folks at HPPS tried really hard to help me, and sometimes that counts just as much as getting me the right answer.  I spent about an hour-and-a-half in their showroom over a couple of days, the first day with the broken faucet and the second day with pictures of the parts that are still attached to our house.  (Note:  I could have emailed them the pictures, which is what they asked me to do because that would have been easier than asking me to come back into town, but I was in town anyway, so it was ok.)  Over those two days, the staff at HPPS dug through their warehouse; made phone calls; looked up information on line; tracked down the veteran guys in the office, who have been around and seen some things in the plumbing world, to try to identify my mystery faucet; thumbed through catalogs; and generally tried to provide some actual customer service.  Also, they managed to use the term "nipple," which is a vocationally legitimate term, in a relevant manner without snickering; and, let's face it, unless you are in the medical or body-piercing field, that's not always easy to do.  But, I digress.    

The end result:  I now know that the piece I need has been obsolete since 2002, and I will probably have to call a plumber to fix our situation.  That's a drag, but the fact that they didn't make me run all over town to 6 different plumbing supply places and make 14 different phone calls to find out the same information meant a lot!  Because that's the level of customer service I've come to expect these days.  Has anyone else noticed this?  Is it just me or do you find yourself doing more and more of your own leg work these days in order to help Customer Service do their job, things that Customer Service used to do in order to provide, you know, service to their customers?  

Anyway, thanks to Justin, Jeannine, Courtney, and the rest of the folks at Hawaii Pacific Plumbing Supply Company who helped me identify the latest obsolete part in my house!  (You guys wouldn't happen to know if there's some place that carries screen doors that are about 1/2" smaller than everything that seems to be in the stores, would you?)   

Dutch Bros. Coffee Rocks!

I always hear people complaining about Starbucks and their phenomenal grasp on the coffee market. People are always saying there are other coffee places in the world, places that offer better coffee, better service, etc., and these people are always SO PISSED OFF that Starbucks is as big as it is. To them, I've always said (or at least, thought non-confrontationally to myself) people don't necessarily go to Starbucks because they want great coffee, they go because they are jonesing for a Caramel Macchiato or a Peppermint Mocha Frappuccino, and they know that they can go to Starbucks and get what they want. It's the same reason McDonald's is a success. People don't go to McDonald's because they have the best hamburgers in the world; they go there because sometimes all you want is a Quarter Pounder with Cheese, no onions, some fries, and a fountain Coke. (I realize that sometimes people DO go to Starbucks just for a coffee, and that I don't understand...but let's face it, that's not how Starbucks is making the big bucks, so my reasoning stands!)

That said...why have I never had Dutch Bros. Coffee before??? OMG! While we were in Oregon, we kept seeing them around, and our friends told us that we HAD to try them-they make their mocha drinks with chocolate milk! Toward the end of our trip, we finally ponied up and drove past our usual Starbucks to try out Dutch Bros. Not only was their Milky Way (espresso, caramel, and chocolate milk) fabulous, but my husband and I both got ours for free! We didn't complain, we didn't have our order made wrong the first time, we didn't have a coupon; what we did was talk to the girl who took our order and told her that we had never been to a Dutch Bros. before. She was super nice, and, as it turns out, she is from Hawaii too. As we were preparing to hand over our money, she informed us that since it was our first time visiting, our drinks were on the house! Now, I know most people would not question this, and I was thoroughly thrilled to get my free Milky Way, but as a former business owner, I couldn't help wonder if the girl had given us the official Dutch Bros. "Thanks for trying our product" free drinks or the "Hawaiian hook up" free drinks. I didn't want anybody losing money because their employee was hooking up her Hawaiian "friends". After talking to Tim, our tree climbing instructor, (who is possibly one of the nicest people in the world), we found out that this is indeed a common practice, so I felt much better. I hope that putting this information out there doesn't encourage anyone to abuse Dutch Bros.' policy. If it does, I hope that it will also encourage enough honest potential customers to come forth that they will cancel out the negative effects of any dishonest people just looking for a free coffee.

So, Dutch Bros. Coffee rocks! If they had a presence in Hawaii, I would totally be their newest revenue stream; but since they don't, I will continue to get my White Chocolate Mochas from Starbucks. HOWEVER, if you live anywhere where there is a Dutch Bros. Coffee (currently Oregon, Washington, California, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona) (or will be vacationing anywhere where there is one), get yourself to one of their locations and try one! And if you will be flying back to Hawaii, maybe you could smuggle some back for me! Let me know-I'd be happy to provide a cooler. Seriously.

P.S. I should mention that the inspiration for this post came from Patrick over at The Selling Sherpa. His Sales Tips of the Day, "End of the Line" and "A Little Bit More" reminded me of our Dutch Bros. experience, and I thought I should get the word out. So, thanks, Patrick!

Las Vegas

When people find out that you live in Hawaii, they always ask, "Where do you go to vacation if you LIVE in Hawaii??" Fair enough. The answer is Vegas. Seriously. Vegas is where people go to vacation when they live in Hawaii. There's no gambling in Hawaii (okay, there's no LEGAL gambling in Hawaii) and there's a serious shortage of quality entertainment out here that isn't Hawaiian-themed, so Vegas has that going for it-gambling and quality productions. Other than that, I am seriously missing the draw. 107 degrees is just too damn hot, dry heat or not. The entire freakin' city smells like an old ashtray, and our time share presentation lasted THREE HOURS. Oh, did I not mention that this is how we got suckered in to Vegas in the first place?

We initially had a trip to Oregon planned where we were going to participate in Tree Climbing Northwest's Tree Week. Since Hubby is a Hilton HHonors member, we received a call from the Hilton folks telling us about a Great Property! they have in Vegas called the Hilton Grand Vacations Club and asking us if we would like to receive some discounted rates, gambling money, and free food to come and listen to one of their spiels. Hubby and I have done the time share spiels before and knew that we could endure sitting through one AND not fall prey to their tactics. We are nothing if not jaded after our Cold Stone fiasco (thanks, Cold Stone!). We can say no to practically anything now, no matter how good a deal it might actually be!

Anyway, we decided to tack on the Vegas trip, catch a show while we were there, drive over to L.A. to see some good friends, and then drive up to Portland. Bad idea. Vegas was so not meant to happen on this trip. First of all, the Hilton Grand Vacations Club is at the far end of the strip, so if you're idiots like us and decide to walk down and check things out at noon when it's 107 degrees out, you will be miserable by the time you get anywhere. Second, as we were packing our things, preparing to go to the airport I noticed what felt like a bladder infection setting in. Awesome. There's nothing like long hours on an airplane, being outside of your primary care...jurisdiction or whatever, and a four-day road trip to make a bladder infection even more exciting!

So, on to the good stuff, but first our itinerary, as it appeared in my head:

Saturday night-Catch red-eye flight to Vegas
Sunday-Arrive Vegas, walk around, check things out, try not to fall asleep immediately upon landing so as not to screw up internal clock too badly. Chill.
Monday-Sit through time share presentation, enjoy remainder of afternoon, go see "O", for which tickets had been purchased far in advance and for a lot of money.
Tuesday morning-Drive out of Vegas.

Saturday and Sunday pretty much went as planned. On Monday, we made it through the THREE HOUR time share presentation (it was only supposed to be two) and managed not to buy anything. Incidentally, Hubby no longer stays in Hiltons when he travels because every time he does, they don't have any hot water when he shows up, and after 20 or so hours in the air, this tends to piss him off. After that, we walked around for a while and then went over to the Bellagio to pick up our tickets for the show that night. This is the part where the Lady Behind The Counter (the LBTC) informs us that "O" doesn't show on Monday nights. Oh no. Oh no,no,no,no,no. Please don't tell me the tickets were for last night. The tickets were for last night. F&*#$#! She politely tells us that even though the missing of the show was through no fault of their own, they would be happy to honor the tickets the next time we are in town. The last time Hubby was in town was 20 years ago. The last time I was in town was January, 2007, but that was for a mandatory work conference. Before that, 1993. The show was the main reason we decided to take advantage of the Hilton offer in the first place. We don't go to Vegas, and honestly have no interest in ever going back again...except maybe to catch another show. After listening to all of this, the LBTC kindly conferenced with her supervisor again and informed us that, although it is not their normal policy, they would go ahead and refund the money for us. So, thank you to Natalee, the kind LBTC who decided to help out a couple of schmucks who couldn't remember what night of their 2-night stay was scheduled for fun and entertainment.

Tickets for "Mystere" were still available for that night, so we got them instead. The seats were actually pretty good, and we got a really good military discount, so it worked out ok as far as that goes. The show was good...but I had a hard time enjoying it because A) the bladder infection which had never completely set in, yet had never completely gone away either, made it hard to sit still and enjoy a show, and B)when I could no longer sit still and had to get up and go to the bathroom, I realized that my ID and credit card were not in my back pocket, like I thought they were. So, the first half of the show was spent in physical discomfort, and the second half was spent in mental and physical discomfort. We could have left the show to deal with the missing items issue, but I figured A) there was a chance that everything was still in our hotel, B)if anyone had stolen it with bad intentions, they were already doing damage-we might as well enjoy the show, and C) if someone had found it and turned it in, then it was safe and would continue to be safe until after the show. Turns out everything was sitting on our bed, right where I had left them when I took them out of my other pockets right before we left for the show. Phew!

Since we were setting out on a four-day road trip the next day, and my bladder infection was still lingering, we decided we should deal with it now, and that's how we ended up at the Las Vegas Emergency Room at 2:00 in the morning. The triage nurse who checked me in and got me set up to see the doctor was great, but after that, things went downhill. As I sat in my gown behind my curtain, waiting for the doctor, they wheeled a patient in to the bed next door to me. Apparently, the patient, whom I will call J, had tried to kill himself by stabbing himself with a shard of glass. Some people saw him and called the police. J was pretty out of it-I'm not sure if he was drunk or on drugs or had just lost a lot of blood. This is all sad and disturbing, but the worst part was the conversation that the doctor had with him, which went like this:

Doctor: J? J? Are you suicidal, J?
J: (Incoherent response)
Doctor: Have you tried to kill yourself before?
J: (Incoherent response)
Doctor: You almost succeeded. There's a lot of blood. You'll have to try again, J.

Now, I understand that as an ER doctor, you probably see a lot of attempted suicides, and I understand how you could become a bit jaded; and, granted, I've never been to medical school, but I'm fairly certain that there is something ethically awry in telling a suicide survivor that he is going to have to try again because he failed this time.

After that disturbing little exchange one of the nurses came in to give me my cipro. I said, "Isn't that pretty hard-core; don't they give that to people before they go into the jungles of Borneo or something?" and she said something to the effect that it's pretty broad-spectrum but fairly gentle, so it should't make me nauseous or anything. Then she told me, "It's also good for STDs. I just thought you'd be interested in knowing that." Um...okay. Look, I know it's 2AM and I am in a Vegas ER with a bladder infection, but could you not imply that I'm a whore or that my husband, who is outside in the waitng room, has been sleeping around and has brought something home? Geez, lady. I'm on vacation here.

After I got my clothes and my dignity back on, we went outside to wait for a cab. As we were waiting, we heard a lady on the other side of the waiting area having a very heated phone discussion with someone about the treatment of her son. I'm not sure what the person had done, but nobody was to treat her baby that way, and she spared no cuss words in making sure that her point was understood. Hubby asked me if I wanted to go back inside. The onslaught of cussing was offensive, but I really didn't feel like going back inside, so we waited it out. As we got in the cab, I finally looked over at the angry, cussing woman, just to see. I didn't want to make eye contact while we were waiting for the cab, but now that we were safely ensconsed in a metal shell, I figured it was ok to look.

Me: She's not on the phone???
Hubby: No
Me: Jesus, I thought she was yelling at someone on the phone.
Hubby: Nope. She's nuts. That's why I asked you if you wanted to go back inside.
Me: Well, I didn't know she was crazy. I just thought she was on the phone!
Hubby: Nope. Not on the phone.
Me: Why didn't you tell me?
Hubby: I thought you knew.

---

And so ends our adventure in Vegas. Leaving Las Vegas never sounded so appealing.

Props to the Spirit of Freedom on their customer service

Recently, I wrote about my snorkeling experience on the Great Barrier Reef, specifically on board the Spirit of Freedom dive boat. I mentioned how my experience might have been better, and I finally decided to go ahead and send an email to the company in that regard. I suspect they don't get many snorkelers-most people who sign up to live aboard a dive boat on the GBR are going to be diving, after all, so I imagine they don't focus a whole lot on what to do with snorkelers other than make sure they make it back on the boat. While that's a GREAT start, I think there are some easy ways that they could make a single snorkeler feel a little more comfortable. Anyway, I just wanted to say that within 24 hours I received not one response but TWO acknowledging my email and thanking me for my suggestion. So, way to go, Spirit of Freedom! I don't know what you'll actually do with my suggestion, but thanks for at least making me feel like you care.

Maybe a reader could book a trip with them and report back to me. I'm sure somebody could find a legitimate way to write this off in the name of research!