For more than 3 years, I’ve been writing The Cranky Flier to provide opinions and general information about the latest with airlines and airports. Today, I’m officially launching what I think is the next logical extension of the blog . . . Cranky Concierge, a personalized air travel assistance company.
I’m sure everyone out there has been frustrated with at least one part (likely all parts) of the air travel process. Now starting at only $30 per trip for all passengers on an itinerary (with a money-back guarantee), you can have your own airline dork watching over you to help with all aspects of your trip. Here’s what we provide:
We’ve been doing testing for a couple of months, and I think that the most exciting pieces here are the Flight Monitoring and Delay & Cancellation Assistance. With Flight Monitoring, you’ll receive an email before your trip outlining your flight info, potential delays, weather, and a description of where your airplane is coming from before your flight. We’ll monitor this throughout the day leading up to your flight and keep you apprised of any changes to your flight status via email or SMS. In testing, we’ve been able to notify travelers of delays long before the airlines update their own flight statuses. We are not a travel agent, so we don’t actually handle booking but rather just give you options.
When it comes to helping fix problems when they go wrong, we’ve had great success. In one example, clients were traveling from San Francisco to Denver via LA (the only itinerary on which they could get a ticket using miles) The flight to LA was late and would miss the last flight to Denver. There were no seats on the nonstops to Denver, so the airline said that they would have to wait until the next afternoon.
That’s when we got the email. We quickly sprung into action and were able to tell them about 
a flight from LA to Colorado Springs that had room and that they would make with time to spare thanks to a slight delay. They suggested that to the airline which gladly put them onboard. We found them a cheaper rental car in Colorado Springs and they made it that night.
That’s the power of having an airline dork on your side. We’re starting small and only offering this to US residents right now, but we are planning to expand over time. We are looking to build our network of airline dorks as demand grows. In particular, we’re looking for airline employees with flexible schedules (hello, flight attendants) who might be interested in joining the team on their days off. Send me an email at brett@crankyconcierge.com if you’re interested in learning more.
This service is not meant for those people who like to do everything online independently. This is meant for those who don’t have the time to spend on researching everything themselves. It’s also meant for those people who don’t have the deep knowledge about the industry and simply want someone to help them with the process.
So, please visit http://crankyconcierge.com/ and let me what you think. (I actually coded the entire website myself, so if you find any problems, let me know that as well.)
As I said, I see this as a natural extension of the blog. Hopefully this service will be worthwhile for many of you. It will help me make a living while still providing the same great content on the blog for free that I provide every day. From time to time, I’m sure I will post successful assistance efforts here on Cranky Flier so you can learn how to help yourself when you’re stranded.
If you’d like the assistance of an airline dork for your next trip, you know where to find us. For only $30 per trip, you really can’t go wrong. (We’re also looking at subscription pricing options, so stay tuned for that.)
[Update: Pricing now starts at only $25 per trip for advance travel within the US and Canada]
