0_0
I’m so furious with these three companies right now, they are completely changing the agreement we had and expecting me to pick up the tab for their mistakes.
I have spent more than 14 hours on the phone with Orbitz, along with repeated calls to American Airlines and China Southern and no one can fix their problem.
Let’s go back a month. I ordered a round trip ($2500+) flight from Asia to the States and back again. It’s not cheap–certainly not for me. I agreed to leave on June 30 and make connecting flights throughout the trip. Amazing. Cool. Fine.
First of all, did you know it is all but impossible to work with Orbitz customer service? They will not do anything unless you are physically on the phone with them, and they only have a US number. Try getting ahold of them any other way, and I was simply told that I had to contact this US number and that they wouldn’t do anything unless I was on the line with them. They had problems with their systems repeatedly a month ago- call back. over and over. Several days. “Just call us back later” Ummmm This is an international call thank you very much. And on Skype which apparently enjoys freefalling from great heights and repeatedly. So instead of them going on ahead and fixing their issues and just confirming it all with me by email, I had to mess with the local poor internet to try to get through to them repeatedly. Whenever my call dropped or they hung up on me (which infuriates me on a whole different topic), I had to start ALL over with someone new.
Anyway, a month ago, American Airlines up and changes my flight not once but twice. Including an asinine decision to leave me with a 1 hour layover in Denver for an international flight that goes against their own recommendations for early arrival. I had to call Orbitz repeatedly to actually get anyone who could help, only for them to finally (after hours of being on hold, please wait, thank you for waiting, I’m just trying someone else, on hold) tell me to call American Airlines myself. Finally get that stupid mess sorted out.
Okay, I’m not amused, but I’ll deal
Then several days ago, China Southern calls me. In Chinese. Wo Bu Ming Bai. Wo Shi Meiguoren. (I don’t understand, I’m American). Hang up. They try again in English. We’re so sorry, but the first flight on your trip has now been moved to the next day. So you’ll get to Hong Kong on the 1st even though you fly out of Hong Kong on the day before. We know this was a bad change, we’re so sorry. You are responsible for calling a whole different number to fix the problem.
Wait. Why didn’t I hear about this from Orbitz? Or American Airlines? Check my email. Nope. Nada. Nothing. They two airlines left me to hear back from a Chinese airline that only by fluke did I answer their call. By the grace of God I answered the call (thinking it was a student) and found out about the change.
Call the China Southern Number. We’re sorry, you have to talk to American Airlines or Orbitz because they issue the ticket.
Call American Airlines. We’re sorry, you have to talk to Orbitz because they locked the ticket, we can’t change it.
Call Orbitz (after repeated on holds, attempts to get ahold of them, attempts by them to figure out what the heck happened and their customer service generally not having a clue how to fix the mess), finally told oh so sorry, we have to call America Airlines. They call American Airlines. Sorry, American Airlines can’t do anything till they talk to China Southern. They Call China Southern who, incidentally, just closed. They only are open Monday – Friday during normal operating hours. Call back on Monday.
I call back Monday. So sorry, American Airlines and China Southern only work on US times Monday-Friday so you’ll have to call back at 11pm your time. What international company of this size does not have customer service around the clock. Seriously, this is antique business service here folks.
I call back tonight at 11pm. Orbitz girl takes 20 minutes just figuring out what my problem is. Spends the next 2 HOURS trying to find someone, anyone at China Southern to talk to. Can’t get ahold of anyone. She calls American Airlines. They are so sorry, there are no more flights on that day to HOng Kong. You’ll have to fly out the day before.
Cool, so you made the mistake, caused the problem, you’ll pay for the ridiculously expensive hotel in Hong Kong I now need right. Oh sorry, that’s not our problem. But you changed my flight? Yes. You failed to account for the lack of flights available for this trip? Yes. You changed our contractually agreed upon ticket in a way that costs me money and time? Yes. But you are not going to recuperate my losses from your changes and mistakes? No.
Well, no that doesn’t work. I reject your offer.Try again.
Well we can cancel your entire trip and refund it to you in several weeks. No. I reject this offer too.. I can’t afford to wait, I fly out in two weeks. Tickets are now much higher than before. So that doesn’t recuperate my losses. Try again.
No.
Try again.
No.
Try again.
Okay, let me give you to my supervisor.
Ok.
Hello, can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Hang up.
0_0
Oh you did not just do that. You seriously did not just hand up on me at 2am in the morning after 4 hours on the phone dealing with your screw-up? Why yes, you did!
So I call Orbitz back. Again. I’ve now been on hold for 30+ minutes waiting for a supervisor.
If they don’t fix this, I will be soooo furious. I’m already never going to book with Orbitz again. And frankly, I don’t recommend that you all do either. It’s one think if you tons of time and live in the States to call and be on hold for more than 14 hours!
But personally, I think that sucks and is generally AWFUL business.
As always, this lesson is not intended to be professional advice. This is simply lesson material for ESL students in a Managerial Economics and Corporate Finance class. Posted here for their use or for helping other students.
Financial officers and Managers are extremely responsible for the monetary (货币) goings-on in their companies. As we said before, the Wealth Maximization Rule means that Financial and Corporate Managers are required to maximize (最大化) the profits (收益) for their investors (投资者).
However, maximizing profits requires in-depth (深入)planning and micro-managing (微观) your funds today while considering (考虑) future profits as well.
There are two types of Value (值) that you should be aware of in Finance and Economics.
The first is called Present Value (现值) and is the value today of something that will increase in value in the future. Example: When we loan someone $1,000 at 10% interest, we know that our $1,000 loan will increase in value in the future. Present Value = PV.
The second is called Future Value (未来价值) and is the value that the item will have in the future. Future Value = FV.
I’ll make another post later discussing the many ways to use Present and Future value in your company, but today I just wanted to talk about using them to calculate (计算) “Compound Interest” (复利).
Usually, when we loan money to someone or invest (投资) our money in something, we do so on the condition that we receive back more money than we put in. Our corporation is not a charity (慈善机构), we don’t loan you things for free! The original money we invest is called the Principal (本息). The extra money we get on top is called the Interest (利).
Example ~ Company A (a large global corporation) invests $100,000 in a small new business called Company B. Company B has 10 years to pay it back. But Company A doesn’t do this for free ~ they want to maximize their profits too. That means they have to make some money on this contract (合同). So they ask Company B to pay an additional 7% per year.
$100,000 = Principal
7% = Interest
Problem! ~ 7% of what?
Answer! ~ It depends
It depends on how Company A decides to count it.
There are two separate mathematical formulas (数学公式) you can use to figure out the Interest.
The first one is called Simple Interest (单利) and I’ve already looked at it before.
The second method is called Compound Interest (复利). Compound Interest says that each payment period, Company B is going to pay an additional 7% of the currently owed principal! Lenders and Investors really like compound interest a lot better than simple interest.
For example: I borrow $1000 due in two years. My interest rate is 10%.
If I use Simple Interest: Year 1, I owe $1000 + 10% interest = $1100. Year 2, I owe $1100 + (10% of $1000) = $1200. 🙂
If I use Compound Interest: Year 1, I owe $1000 + 10% interest = $1100. Year 2, I owe $1100 + (10% of $1100) = $1210
The formula for Compound Interest is:
I = Interest
P = Present Value
R = Interest Rate
T = Number of Years Involved
N = Number of Times a Year
Company A (a large global corporation) invests $100,000 in a small new business called Company B. Company B has 10 years to pay it back. The interest rate is 7% compounded bi-annually. What is the Total Interest (利) you will pay over 10 Years?
The total interest is of course important to both Company A and Company B, there are two other important numbers that the financial managers of Company A want to know–the Present Value of their money and the Future Value of their money.
FV = Future Value (how much money you will make in total)
PV = Present Value
R = Interest Rate
T = Number of years involved
N = Times per Year
Using our example above with Company A & B, the Future Value is calculated like this:
That means Company A will make a total of $286,968.46 if they invest their $100,000 in Company B now. Over 10 years, their $100,000 will change into $386,968.46. We like this plan!
Sometimes, for example with bonds (债券), we know the Future Value (how much money will be paid to us in the end). But we don’t know how much money has to be invested (Present Value) to get that future result. So Present Value is calculated by the formula:
PV = Present Value
FV = Future Value
R = Interest Rate
T = Number of years involved
N = Number of Times per Year
Example: Mary Jane knows that in 4 years, she needs to have a total of $150,000 to pay her college tuition. She has an interest-generating account that gives her a 4% compound interest rate bi-annually on everything she puts in. How much money should she invest today (Present Value) in order to have $150,000 in 4 years?
That means that Mary Jane needs to put $101,336.67 in her bank account now in order to get $150,000 in the future.
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
Language Translation
Deceptively Blonde 