As for Twitter, most times we just wouldn't bother. The standard Twitter response from too many airl

Every airline makes mistakes admittedly some more than others and every traveller has been caught out by delays, lost luggage, faulty seats, a borked inflight entertainment systems or other items on the long list of Things That Can Go Wrong.
Use your smartphone to snap pictures budget new york hotels or even a short video if you can, including the problem and ideally some kind of marker for the date and time. (A clock on the wall? Your watch? A newspaper? Your laptop clock?)
Figure out what you want: an apology? Monetary compensation or even a full refund? A credit voucher? Frequent flyer points? Compensation for a hotel stay or emergency necessities? Replacement for a bag or possession that the airline ruined? Something else?
But be realistic: ask around to see what you can reasonably expect the airline to do about it. (Try the Australian Business Traveller Questions and Answers section, where fellow travellers are always around to help you out.)
It's important to keep track of your dealings with the airline, both for follow-up reasons ("I've spoken to five people since October 4th, and here are their names and what they said") and to save yourself time finding the details for a second call.
As much as we'd often prefer to start off with an email, most airlines don't do email well, there's almost always an initial barrage of questions, and their online enquiry forms have a frustrating habit of going astray.
As for Twitter, most times we just wouldn't bother. The standard Twitter budget new york hotels response from too many airlines is usually "call our contact budget new york hotels centre". An exception might be if you're overseas and don't want to make a long-distance phone call, and are trying to get the airline to ring you.
As a high-status Velocity member I've good success complaining to Virgin's e-mail addresses. The trick is to not use their contact form, but instead to send an e-mail to one of their e-mail addresses e.g. gold@velocityrewards.com.au
On a Qantas flight to Shanghai a few years ago the video screen in my seat wasn't working, I wasn't too fussed because I had a new book that I was dying to read. Alright I confess it was the latest budget new york hotels Harry Potter book! But enjoyable and thick enough to last the whole flight. I wasn't going to bother complaining but the FA was very apologetic and maybe because I wasn't kicking up a fuss she said that I should still write to Qantas because they will give me frequent flyer points for the inconveniece, she said they have a stack of points set aside to keep customers happy. So I did, and I got 10,000 points. Not a lot but better than nothing!
On the QF flight the problem was limited to my seat, and with a full cabin there was nowhere else I could be moved to. The 'compensation' for this was a $50 credit voucher which I used to buy a universal AC adaptor through QF inflight duty-free.
I think both of those rate on the poor side of the equation. $50 or even $100 for a non-working IFE, especially if you were intending to settle back and watch a movie to while away your time - and as a result didn't have a book, and might not have an iPad or laptop loaded up with videos.
1) I redeemed some Virgin Atlantic miles for an Air New Zealand flight in business from Tokyo to Auckland on the 777, with fully flat seats and direct aisle access. Air NZ swapped the 777 for a 767 with recliners (which was a major downgrade for a 12-hour flight) out but told neither Virgin budget new york hotels nor me. I raised it with Virgin, including a picture of the seat (which is similar to Virgin's premium economy). I asked for a mileage refund of the difference between premium economy and business class (i.e., 10,000 miles) for that leg, which seemed reasonable. Virgin initially offered 4,000 miles but I replied and highlighted the difference between the seats to them, and they fronted up the full amount.
2) I booked business class with Air NZ from London to Auckland, but the power point wasn't working and it was a full cabin. I wrote in and they offered 120 Airpoints (redeemable at a Airpoint:1NZD), and I've only managed to spend about half of those on domestic NZ flights so far. A duty free voucher or something in a currency I could actually usefully use would have been more welcome.
budget new york hotels I flew Qantas first class a couple of years back, and the flight was downgraded from an A380 to an old 747. I wrote and was given a call back and a $300 voucher, which I was pretty disappointed with.
I'm keen to know what you (and passing readers) think an airline's responsibility is to their passengers when the downgrade affects the seat/flight quality but isn't a "business budget new york hotels is full, you'll have to fly economy" situation.
And a data point from me: I recenlty flew Virgin from LAX to SYD, where I was to connect to a morning flight for a mid-afternoon meeting budget new york hotels in Melbourne. I booked a separate domestic flight to get me from Melbourne to Hobart in the evening.
My flight to SYD ended up getting diverted to BNE due to fog; we spent 3 hours on the tarmac at BNE, and the effort in getting us all on new flights failed massively. I missed budget new york hotels my meeting in Melbourne (arriving in the CBD ~4 hours behind schedule).
Like in most things, if you are calm and cordial with the staff you are complaining to, they respond in a way that amazes you. I see people abusing them with personal insults and trying to blame the airline for everything that is going wrong in the world. It is no wonder that they are treated according to their std procedures.
3. If you don't get a favourable response, assuming your claim is reasonable, make it known in a folllow-up fax that you are going to take it further i.e. you'll use the various State "small claims" tribunals to refer the dispute for a formal hearing. You'll find there rarely is a need to actually fill out that paperwork, and even more rarely a need for a hearing. Lawyers aren't budget new york hotels allowed in these places, so you you'll never be savaged by a bunch of QC's on $1000 an hour of airline dosh. Airlines hate the thought of staff having to go along and waste up to a whole day at the court house defending their (perhaps untenable?) position. It's amazing how accommodating they'll be to to avoid this. Remember, the rules are your friend: any hearing happens at the nearest court to you the applicant; if that's e.g. in Perth and staff have to be sent from the airline office in Sydney or held back from working a flight to London to give evidence that's just too bad. Yes it can sometimes be done without the travel, by phone conferencing, but it's still going to blow their time if you won't back down. Time is money, and it pays to make clear that you have lots of the former even though they may have lots of the latter.
budget new york hotels I once decided to upgrade from Econ to Biz on SQ which by right should let me earn points at EY rate. Somehow their infamous system took me as a normal Biz redemption rather than upgrade redemption. After making a claim somehow my KF membership records seem inaccessible. Their reply "Sorry budget new york hotels sir, redemption booking doesnt earn any miles". Like duh I say. Luckily somehow for that trip I managed to keep all my travel documents including all the boarding passes and upgrade redemption notifications. I put it in a nice chronological order and emailed to them.Voila less than 24 hours I got a email to notify it has been credited and a phone call to apologize. It pays to keep records. Otherwise say bye bye to SIN-LHR mileage accruals.
I had an IFE that wasn't working for my seat only on a QF flight to HKG. The crew were great in trying to get it work but in the end it wasn't cooperating. The CSM gave me two bottles of First Class wine and I thought that was that (I wasn't too worried about it all to be honest) and I didn't bother contacting Qantas about it.
On my return flight a few days later I was upgraded to First Class. budget new york hotels Now... it could have been a coincidence... but I think the CSM follow up and this was what they did for me. It was a very comfortable overnight budget new york hotels flight home!
Almost a year ago I found a stone while chewing on one of those pastry snacks budget new york hotels served on DJ (CBR-MEL). Got it out on a tissue and alerted the flight attendant to it (I also took a photo of it). She took it away and that was it.
I wrote to VA about this with all the flight details and the pic asking them what they are going to do about it. Two months went by before I got a reply saying someone is going to look into it (this was like an automated email). Then Sometime arond June I get an email from someone in VA (was from their email account) apologising for the delay and that he's been trying to call me to discuss things. I replied I was available etc and waited for weeks before getting another email saying he'd been busy and promised someone would look into it.
Also flew LAX to JFK with UA in J and the flight attendant picked up that there was a big chip in the dinner bowl before I did and said it was not good enough and also offered a $100 voucher. I was quite impressed with that one.
Flight from ADL-SIN with QF last year was delayed by 1 day, recieved a $600 Qantas travel budget new york hotels voucher. budget new york hotels Given that I payed $800 for the return flight I was very impressed! Just from reading anecdotal evidence on forums like this it seems that QF are some of the best at compensation. BA flight from SIN-LHR 3 yrs ago IFE not working in my row, plane full, ran out of meal choices by my row ( 10 from back of cabin) and was given a 10 pound duty free voucher for LHR.....wasn't overly impressed.
We sat quietly while most of the other passengers called the crew every name under the some. Others all of a sudden became DYKWIA's and there was a lot of groaning going on the cabin. The crew told us that the problem would be addressed after the meal service.
The second I finished my meal one of the crew came to us and said, "you two are the only ones that have sat in your seats with a smile on your face, we really appreciate that and we'd like to offer you a seat upstairs"
budget new york hotels I was recently on JetStar from Melbourne to Sydney return and on both flights there w