United Airlines: Mind your manners to avoid self-desctruction

I'm still waiting for United Airlines to offer an appropriate apology.  Or thank you.  Or any kind of indication that I'm an even remotely valued customer.

My obstinacy -- and my willingness to continue to lambast United -- arises from an incident a few weeks back at the DFW airport.

I had a seat of the last Sunday evening flight to Newark.  I checked in at the gate about a half hour before departure; the agent told me the plane had just arrived; it needed to deplane; and boarding would begin in 15-20 minutes.

I went to the United Club and returned in about 25 minutes, at what would have been 1-2 minutes before the scheduled departure time.  When I got to the gate, the door had been shut and the plane just pushed back from the gate.

I stood there speechless.  Eventually, when the gate agent returned, I stared with baffled frustration and could barely ask: "what?!?"

His general response: "too bad."

Now, I had a reserved first class seat as a Platinum-level frequent flyer.  I had been in the United Club.  And the plane left without me, after I had made it known that I was in the airport and intended to travel.

After the 787 debacle, UA might have considered putting
some eggs in other baskets - like customer service.

I have never missed a flight in my life -- with hundreds of hundred of flights under my belt.

The agent in the United Club offered some considerate help.

In the end, the best I could do - I had to be back for work the next morning: I bought an $800+ ticket to Philadelphia on American, arrived at midnight, and then drove home to New York, in bad weather, making it to my apartment at about 3:00am.

United's response?  Shrug.

I realize they must get a billion silly complaints a day.  But when a loyal customer takes the time at offer feedback, should it take days before even sending a basic response?

I must say, the Director of Operations at DFW went out of his way to be helpful after-the-fact.  Though the rest of the airline let down his excellent example.

Am I asking too much?

Honestly, if within a few days I had gotten a nice, hand-written apology with a small token of appreciation - say a $100 gift certificate to a nice restaurant - I would have been impressed and dropped the matter.

The counter-example: I bought a gift at a high-end retail store in Dallas, around $300.  Without any expectation, I got a nice, hand-written note thanking me for the purchase.

Now, I can imagine Gucci has a much higher profit margin than United.  But I also know I spent nearly twenty times as much money on United since the first of the year.  With nothing more than some poorly conceived, adversarial emails and a measly 10k FF miles from customer care -- which I need like a hole in my head.

I can only hope other airlines and management can learn from this and, at a low cost and very simply, actually value customers and their loyalty.