Lounge Lizard

We are traveling to SoCal in September. On the way there and coming back, we have a 2 hour and a 3 hour layover in Toronto. My wife once had an upgraded ticket on a trip out to see me and she used the Air Canada VIP Lounge and loved it. So, we wanted to use that service again if possible (you can with standard fares for an additional fee per person).

The strange thing is that Air Canada will not accept you purchasing a VIP Lounge pass if your destination or starting location airports do not have a lounge. Since we are in the small town of Saint John, NB, our airport does not have a lounge. So the fact we are WILLING to pay this additional fee means nothing to AC, they will not accept our money or give us the pass.

This has irritated my wife more than once, and today she found the rule, sent it to me, and asked me to call and argue with them about it. Rather than argue, I took a different tact.

When Mike, the AC representative who fielded my call came on the line, I said, "Mike, I have a problem. I want to give Air Canada money and your company doesn't want to take it. Can you help me to give Air Canada more money, Mike?"

This completely took Mike by surprise and I heard him give a little laugh before he replied, "I'll see what I can do. What seems to be the trouble?"

I then explained to Mike that I was willing to bet that the vast majority of people flying do not feel the need to use a lounge at their starting destination, as they are likely arriving at an appropriate time and getting on their planes fairly quickly. Where the majority of people need a lounge is at connection cities; they have long layovers and may have had a trying flight for a number of reasons, and they need to unwind before going up in another plane. Mike agreed that made sense.

At this point I explained that it almost felt like AC was discriminating against NB because none of our airports had lounges, so we couldn't purchase this option at all for any of our flights. I told him this was like AC turning down free money. He laughed and agreed.

Mike was so amiably surprised and pleased with the conversation that he then tried some workarounds to see if he could get us the lounge passes. Each failed. But this led him to check to see if there was any more information about this service available. He found an article that says that, starting August 6, 2009, AC will allow these passes to be purchased by any individual for locations that have a lounge. He recommended that we try again to purchase it online at that time and, if it still didn't work, to call AC back. He went so far as to give me the location and name of the file so I could tell anyone who argued with me to look it up and get it done.

As we were signing off, he again said, "I see your point; seems strange that Air Canada would just leave this 'free money' on the table. Maybe this new policy is addressing that."

Sometimes, you just have to know the right tact to take and doors will open. This is, by far, some of the best customer service I have received in my calls/talks with any AC employee. Kudos to Mike for going the extra step.

Do you think if I had called up with angry voice and only complaining/demanding satisfaction, I would have had the same experience?