As much as I enjoy arguing with trolls on the Internet, and I do REALLY love arguing with trolls, when it comes to arguing with people who are in control of things that directly effect my life or fate (airline employees, bank tellers, cops, etc) I really don’t enjoy dealing with them at all.
Thankfully for people like me there’s now an app named ‘Service’ that’ll do that for me. If a flight is canceled and I need compensation from an airline they’ll haggle with the airline for me, free of charge. Or if I check into a hotel room and it’s dirty af and I feel like the hotel needs to compensate me in some way the app will do all of that for me, acting as the middle man and getting me the compensation I feel that I deserve.
I haven’t yet had a chance to try the Service App out for myself, but a recent write up in Business Insider turned me onto it. Here’s how the Service App works:
And it’s not just flights/hotels, they’ve got their hands in everything:
https://twitter.com/rosieees/status/717116758268600320
@service again got me compensation for my delayed flight. If your flight is delayed just tweet at them.
— Martin Varsavsky (@martinvars) March 21, 2016
Users begin by sharing the name of the business they’re having issues with. Then they’re presented with possible complaints that are tailored to the appropriate industry (hotels, airlines, cable providers, etc.). The final step: entering your desired compensation, whether that means a full refund or a couple of meal vouchers. If what you’re asking is reasonable, Service will pursue your case, at zero cost to you.
And here is the Service App origin story. It is similar to that of many startups that were borne out of some sort of necessity:
“I was traveling on a brand new 737, and the guy sitting next to me had bought a GoGo Wi-Fi pass,” explains founder Michael Schneider. “Unfortunately, the power ports on the plane were broken; he wasted the last 20 minutes of his battery life trying to get someone at AA.com or Twitter to pay attention to his problem.” Thus Service was born.
It’s only happened about a handful of times in my life but I’ve been on flights that have been straight up canceled. One of those times was actually on a United flight with a layover in Charlotte and I was on my way to see my grandmother who was on her death bed and I later missed seeing my grandmother before she passed by about 45 minutes, I’d have been there to see my grandma in her last minutes if United hadn’t canceled my flight (they delayed it three times before canceling, lying to me all 3 times saying ‘we never cancel flights’, then they canceled it). Oh, and after all that those dbags lost my luggage.
United didn’t do a goddamn thing for me that day, they didn’t even help me get on another flight. I ended up rebooking online myself. They never compensated me even though I had to fly into a different airport, one that was 70 miles further away from my family than the airport I was supposed to fly into. I wrote then an extensive letter about how much they fucked my life up that day, it was mostly a therapeutic exercise for myself, and in response they said they’d cover the cost of my luggage fees due to losing my luggage. That’s all they could do: pay me back for my baggage fee after they LOST MY GODDAMN LUGGAGE and completely fucked up my flight experience and robbed me of seeing my grandma alive one last time. This is a time when I’d have used the Service App.
I hope I never have to use the Service App but I’m pretty glad to know that it exists for emergencies. If you’re interested in learning more you you read up over on Business Insider or you can download the app by heading on over to GetService.com.