I don’t travel often so if my experiences are typical of air travel then I have a hard time imagining spending more time on air planes. My first “really?” moment came when one of the people traveling with me asked for a blanket and was informed “blankets are for first class passengers only.”

Seriously? Have the airlines gotten to the point where only first class passengers can have the gross, wash-cloth sized pieces of fabric they call blankets? But I digress because this really a small complaint in the big picture.

On the return trip we arrived to the airport to find our flight had been cancelled – color me a newb, we should have checked before we left the hotel. The kiosk informed us we could wait standby and because we had no hotel to return to we decided to wait and see. The United Airlines attendants, without saying a word checked our bags and took them. At this point we had no idea why our flight was even canceled and now we have to get a ride out of here today or we’d have no clothes – travel newb tip #2, change of clothes in the carry-on.

We waited 3 hours for the next stand by flight and missed that, then the next one because even then we were still 20 deep on the waitlist. Ok, my patience is gone. There are no United Airlines agents to be found, once the flight departs they scurry away and when the next flight is loading they are way to busy to talk to you. So I breakout the smartphone and find the customer service phone number for United Airlines. 100% automated – but hey if you have a complaint you can fill out a form on their website and get a response in… 5 days. Look, all I wanted to know was what my options are and if there any way possible to get home. I don’t want frequent flyer miles, I don’t want comps and benny’s – I just want to go home.

So I find United Airlines on twitter. “Awesome” I think, I’m going to make this social media thing work for me.

Here’s how my twitter conversation with United Airlines went:

The answer I got was a canned response from the website. I’ve been to the website, I can’t find an agent and to get back to the ticket counter I’d have to go through security again. After seeing how unhelpful those agents were, I was reluctant to do that for fear of the time it would take myself and others to get back to the terminal.

I called a relative who was previously a flight attendant for several years who informed me of the dirty secrets of what to do when you flight gets canceled. One – they have to tell you why your flight was canceled and if it’s their fault, they pay. In our case it was a mechanical issue, so it’s United Airlines fault. My options in this case are at a minimum, United Airlines covers my hotel costs for the night I have to stay over, they put me on another airline, or get my close to my destination and rent a car.

Finally I get a United Airlines person and start hashing out a deal. In this case I opt’d to be transfered to another airline, US Airways. US Airways was able to get all three people booked on a flight and even two of us had window seats. Plus, the same plane on US Airways had better padded seats and what felt like more room. The only downside to this was US Airways doesn’t show inflight movies and you still have to rent headphones if they do. Find by me, I have my own movies and headphones and now I’m on my way home on a shorter flight to boot. After 8 hours in an airport I will take it.

United Airlines incompetency did manage to bite us one more time. When we landed at 1:30am their baggage department had checked out, which was a major inconvenience for one person who needed their luggage for the next day. US Airways saved the day, again, by still having a baggage department open (well, most major airlines still did… United Airlines was once again the exception) and the US Airways baggage personal took out information and baggage tickets to grab the luggage from United Airlines and sent someone out with our luggage 8 hours later.

Here’s what United Airlines needs to understand:

• Social Media needs to do more than just regurgitate information on your website. Twitter is on the internet – when people need help they’ll visit the web page, they come to Twitter to address concerns immediately and “talk to a person” – after all, it’s about the conversation or so they say.
• Finish what you start – you can’t respond to everyone on Twitter but when you start to help someone make sure they actually get what they started talking to you about. Don’t stop answering someone just because you don’t have a canned response
• Can I get a live person – either a hotline or someone at the kiosk, just like every other major corporation
• Blankets are first class only? Really? There where 3 rows of first class seats on this flight. I can understand carrying less blankets and running out. But restricting blankets to first class as a policy is just ridiculous.
• Staff your baggage departments the same hours as everyone else

You can claim these measures are cost cutting and providing a “better value” for your customer – but I know the next time I fly, it won’t be with United Airlines.