Delta: Don't Love to Fly Them

I just got back from a ski trip to Squaw Valley at Lake Tahoe, via San Francisco. I took my kids to see my sister for her "big" birthday, and to get there, we booked Delta. Need I say more?

• The Delta terminal at JFK outlived its usefulness back when JFK was still alive. The gates are virtually miles from the terminal entrance, so you not only need to allow extra time just to get there, you need to wear roller skates because the moving sidewalks all are broken.I'm not lovin' flying with Delta.
• They charged us different rates for our luggage going and coming, for the same number of pieces weighing the same amounts in both directions (no shopping this trip). And we're talking about a lot of denaros for 3 standard suitcases, 3 ski and board bags, and 1 boot bag. Needless to say the gate agent in SF said I needed to see a customer service agent in New York to reconcile the charges, and the agent at the baggage office at JFK said I need to call customer service on the phone. Just what I really need: another thing to do on my first day back at work tomorrow, another aggravation. I'm not lovin' flying with Delta.
• They clipped the locks on our ski bags on our return trip to inspect the contents. If the bags were above suspicion on the first leg of the trip, why not on the second? And if they needed to be inspected, why didn't the porter alert us so we could have removed the locks (which I bought specifically to safeguard our very expensive ski and snowboard equipment) instead of having them destroyed? If we were going to smuggle an illicit substance on board, would we have selected the most conspicuous bag we could possibly find to execute the dirty deed? I'm not lovin' flying with Delta.

Welcome to the 21st Century

Last week I called the Wall Street Journal to resolve a problem with my subscription. The customer service rep turned somersaults trying to find the source of the problem and after several rounds of effort, lost track of the last name on the account. So she politely asked me to repeat "the gentleman's" name. I was more shocked than insulted, but I absolutely called her out on it. She clearly had assumed I was someone's (some man's) secretary/administrative assistant, and under pressure she admitted as much.

All I could think was how mortified the Journal's marketing people would be, since they spend so much money and so much brainpower (term used loosely) promoting the paper to businesswomen, who after all make up 50% of the U.S. workforce. Then I considered that the customer service rep might have been working from a call center in Utah, and you know how they treat women in Utah, land of polygamists gone wild.

OK, so now I'm being a snotty New Yorker, but in self-defense, this experience momentarily brought out my worst instincts. It's a good thing I learned a long time ago not to chop off my nose to spite my face. I need my nose to maintain my NYC cred. And I need my Wall Street Journal to do my job.

No Account

As far as I'm concerned, online banking is one of the great miracles of the 21st century. Paying my bills online saves me 2 full days every month - the one I used to spend balancing my checkbook and the one I spent writing the month's new batch of checks.

Emigrant Savings has a pretty decent online banking tool. They're also neighborhood-friendly at the branch level, which is why I've stayed with them all these years. Unfortunately, last month the bank charged me $50 for excessive online transfers from one of my savings accounts. It turns out there is a limit to the number of transfers you can make out of a savings account online: six. But if you make the transactions at the ATM or the teller window, there is no fee at all.

Here's my issue: online banking saves banks oodles of money.  No overhead, no tellers. So why does the bank limit transaction activity online? It's not like they need to recoup costs by passing them on to their customers. 

I was so mad I cancelled that account. Good going, Emigrant! I've only been a customer 20 years. Was the $50 really worth it?