maggie b.

DO NOT FLY HAWAIIN AIRLINES
I am a frequent flier and had the worst experience last week while flying with Hawaiian airlines; Seatac Airport. My boyfriend and I were flying to Hawaii for a wedding, we arrived at the airport one hour before our flight was to board and went to check in at the bag drop off. There we were instructed to first check in at the self-check-in station where we were told we were too late to check in. Junior was helping people in line and self-check-in and told us that we needed to hurry, but we would still make our flight ("last call was just announced less than 5 minutes ago"). He walked us over to the first-class station where Lesa was to help us check-in. Lesa immediately told us it was too late to check a bag, that you needed to check a bag 50 minutes prior to boarding. She told us we were five minutes late and that we would either need to come back tomorrow or buy another flight today. We were confused by this ‘rule' because it did not state this on the ticket or e-reciept; in addition we still had over 45 minutes before boarding time. I asked if it was possible to have the bag sent on either of those flights and we could pick it up later at the airport; the answer was no. We then asked her to show us where this '50 minute' rule was located/stated and she could not show us or find anyone that could locate this rule. Furthermore, we asked for a manager, the manager at the front desk (Togalei) was busy helping another individual and Lesa refused to call any other manager. After 20 plus minutes of her leaving us and helping other customers, her looking for the ‘50minute rule', and no manager being called, both my boyfriend and I were forced to buy another ticket to fly out same day. It was truly a terrible start to our trip to Hawaii. We will never fly Hawaii again, I bought my ticket for just under 1100 and he bought his for just under 700 and had to add another 400 to our tab. Hawaiian Airlines was not solution oriented, customer friendly or accommodating, they were not able to show us where this '50 minute rule' was located and would not call us a manager.
The only conclusion to this series of issues is that Hawaiian Airlines overbooked our flight and/or sold our tickets. Instead of allowing us to board our original flight we were forced to spend additional minutes/money, missed our first wedding activity in Hawaii, and had to take a connecting flight, after purchasing a direct flight.

To add salt to the wound of this experience on the way home, my boyfriend did not have a seat on the plane. He purchased the ticket six months in advance, whereas, I had a seat and purchased the ticket one month in advance. He had called Hawaiian Airlines after seeing this error after original purchase, and they ensured him that this is how everyone's ticket looked and that they would be assigned seats upon arrival. We arrived to the airport over two hours early to ensure not MISSING any ‘X' minutes to check bag in. Then headed to gate to talk to attendant, SURPRISE, no attendant was available until boarding. Luckily I STOOD and waited for an attendant to arrive (while my boyfriend was walking the gates looking for anyone to help) after over an hour an attendant arrived with no greeting, no eye contact, and after taking 10 minutes to ‘set-up' helped us get the "LAST" seat on the plane. This again, was confusing because the ticket was purchased well in advance. We asked if there was any way we could sit together and she said ‘no'; come back when she had helped everyone else to see if there were any no-shows. When we came back a group of three in front of us were given seats together (even though we were the first ones in line to ask for seats together).
Hawaiian Airlines slogan should be give us your money and the answer is ‘no'. Very disappointed.