Finnair Plus - Surprising flexibility but system oddities with AY

I flew from Helsinki to Geneva on an el cheapo Z-fare ticket with no changes allowed. Needless to say, the very next day something occured, and I had to change my return.

I called Finnair's reservation line to see if I'd have any luck with my existing ticket. Unsurprisingly, I did not.

I then explained my situation and the agent started to seek alternatives for me to get back. She gave me the (rather extortionate) one-way price, but then, on her own initiative, started looking for better R/T fares even though she knew I would only be flying in one direction. I was quite surprised (very positively so) by this -- Finnair personnel knowingly helping a pax bend the rules.

The agent then told me that her system was rather clumsy, as she could only look at one date pair at a time. I launched the Finnair website on my laptop and together we managed to find a date combination which got me home when I needed and lowered the price from €750 to less than €250.

Interestingly, when we proceeded to the booking, it turned out that the website gave me a price that was nearly €50 better than the best price she could get on her system. I therefore thanked the agent and made the booking online.

So, kudos to the Finnair agent for her effort to help me. However, I find it strange that Finnair gives their web site visitors more flexibility in finding the best flights than their own booking agents. I'd be frustrated if I were a Finnair agent.

I'd be even more frustrated as a Finnair agent to know that I cannot give the best prices to my customers. This is probably Finnair's not-so-subtle way of directing people to use the web site instead of calling the service centre, but I still think it is nonsense. As a customer, if I contact Finnair directly, be it via web, mail, in person or by carrier pigeon, I expect to get the same price for the same product.

Cheers,
T.

PS: Thank goodness for Skype. I made the call during the mid-summer weekend and the service centre staff was pared to a minimum and hold times were long. The call with my mobile would have cost in the neighbourhood of 20 euros -- with Skype it was less than 1 euro.

That can happen pretty much anywhere nowadays.

Some time ago at W Times New York we needed to extend our stay couple of nights. The reception boy said that he couldn't give a good rate but I could use the PC next to the reception to book the nights myself. I did the booking on the PC and 5 minutes later we had a new booking to extend our stay, didn't even need to check out or change room.

Just for the reminder, in case you have a travel insurance and it covers this type of situation, remember to file a claim regarding your trip unexpectedly cut short.

Good that in the end Finnair was able to see the human side of the situation and didn't stick to the rules while they could have. It shows that they have the true service attitude when needed. Odd, that they cannot see all the fares but I guess that is the modern day situation where they want to direct people to do all the work themselves.

For a long time, Blue1 was offering fares online, which weren't available for travel agencies or apparently not even to their call centers. Nowadays they are offering them also to travel agencies when they discovered that corporates just spend their money on some other airlines if they cannot find the fare in travel agency systems. Something similar might happen eventually also with Finnair.

Just for the reminder, in case you have a travel insurance and it covers this type of situation, remember to file a claim regarding your trip unexpectedly cut short.

Good that in the end Finnair was able to see the human side of the situation and didn't stick to the rules while they could have. It shows that they have the true service attitude when needed. Odd, that they cannot see all the fares but I guess that is the modern day situation where they want to direct people to do all the work themselves.

For a long time, Blue1 was offering fares online, which weren't available for travel agencies or apparently not even to their call centers. Nowadays they are offering them also to travel agencies when they discovered that corporates just spend their money on some other airlines if they cannot find the fare in travel agency systems. Something similar might happen eventually also with Finnair.

Don't worry, I'll try to milk my travel insurance to the max. It will be a good test of the Amex Plat travel insurance they make so much fuss about. I wonder if they'll reimburse me for my new mountaineering gear I never had a chance to try (that's probably pushing my luck too far...).

I've actually noticed a pattern similar to Blue1 with many hotels. An individual traveller fairly often gets a significantly better rate through the hotel's web site than a travel agent gets through the reservation systems. Odd and rather frustrating, as this threatens to make reserving complex itineraries rather messy.

Cheers,
T.

Don't worry, I'll try to milk my travel insurance to the max. It will be a good test of the Amex Plat travel insurance they make so much fuss about. I wonder if they'll reimburse me for my new mountaineering gear I never had a chance to try (that's probably pushing my luck too far...).

I thought I remembered you being Plat member. If I don't remember wrong, there was at least a reference example about unused skiing tickets in somewhere. In my opinion the mountaineering gear should be the same case ...

I've actually noticed a pattern similar to Blue1 with many hotels. An individual traveller fairly often gets a significantly better rate through the hotel's web site than a travel agent gets through the reservation systems. Odd and rather frustrating, as this threatens to make reserving complex itineraries rather messy.

And so stupid from the seller side, today airlines aren't paying the commission to the travel agent but we are in some cases. So why would they want to direct us to use their web site when our travel agents would do all the work and we are paying for the commission. It doesn't cost anything to the airline/hotel/etc if we take care of it through travel agents.