Jet Airways, simply worst mileage program ever
Aug 13, 2013, 9:13 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Aug 2013
Posts: 1
Jet Airways, simply worst mileage program ever
I’m addicted to miles an addiction which until today seemed to know no bounds. At the expense of my general well being I will spend hours trying to find the cheapest mileage award. I contend that finding four business class tickets to Europe for 300,000 miles remains one of my greatest achievements. Yes, I know, I need help. Yet in my search to stretch my miles, I’ve now become an expert on the best programs and the worst. The winner in the worst category didn’t reach the bottom simply on its lack of free mileage inventory. It beat out the rest through its sheer determination to not only make it impossible to use my miles. It wins hands down because it preys on mileage addicts like me. They work hard to make you believe that you’re a phone call or click away from finally using your miles for a fantastic vacation, only to have the rug pulled from under you and somehow leaving you with enough hope to keep on going with your futile attempts at finding that elusive free trip. The winner of my “worst frequent flyer program ever” (so bad that I might start a movement to have them censured by the U.N. human rights Commission) goes to Jet Airways.
I have been a loyal customer of Jet Airways, flying up to 200,000 miles a year with them. Jet Airways is an Indian airline that began flying to New York from Brussels a few years ago. Although they have changed aircrafts and the onboard service and comfort has decreased, the airline itself remains a good airline to fly. However after spending the last two months dealing with their “Jet Privilege” department, I’ve come to believe that the privilege is truly theirs alone.
In case you feel compelled to try your luck using Jet miles, don’t! Here is a short recap of my efforts trying to navigate the quagmire of Jet Airways during the past three months.
The customer service and frequent flyer department is based in Mumbai and I believe they must be staffed by all of the other call center rejects in India. I can imagine the scene at the employment office. “I’m sorry sir you’re no longer qualified to work for the Taliban women’s rights hotline, however I can get you a job at Jet Airways.” Back in May I realized that some of my miles were going to expire. I decided to try and use the miles on one of their partner airlines. It seems that Jet has a mileage partnership agreement with at least a dozen airlines. With most of the large airlines, mileage redemption has become more difficult or expensive. Yet with every other airline I deal with, they employ an intuitive online system that lets the consumer pick their destination and dates. The system will immediately come back with flights (even if it’s a partner airline) and the amount of miles and taxes required for the trip. Jet has the same system for its own flights (which never seem to have an available seat), but for a partner ticket they require more, a lot more. First off you need to fill out a form. The form asks you to fill out the name of the passenger, the desired route (with flight numbers), date of travel etc. Then you need to scan and email the forms along with copies of the passenger’s passports to the jet Privilege redemption center. I had checked on United’s web site to make sure that the flights I requested had open mileage seats. Once the form was sent, I received an immediate response telling me that someone would get back to me within 24 to 72 hours. After a week and no word I decided to call the service center. A call, which three months later, and over 15 hours on the phone has resulted in…nothing. Well almost nothing, this diatribe is being written as I wait on hold, let’s see if I can reach “War and Peace” length. On my initial call I had the pleasure to wait ten minutes on hold. Instead of listening to the Indian Barry Manilow, I was exposed to the grating sounds of the Jet Airways hold lady. Think of a failed sex line operator; now imagine her with an Indian accent. Now visualize listening to four lines spooled endlessly. The lines go something like this: “tank you for picking Jet Airways, Tank you for making us the number one airline in Ahmedabad, Tank you for calling me, tank you for thinking about slamming the phone against the wall, and tank you for jumping out of the window to escape my soul sucking voice….” Well, it’s possible that my imagination took over at some point. In any case, after fifteen minutes and endless future hours in the therapists chair I get through to a live operator. “Tank you for calling jet airways mumble mumble mumble (I think the call center might be located at the bottom of the Arabian Sea). Once I got my Google Indian call center to English dictionary activated I started making sense of the questions. Following a list of questions to ensure that I was indeed the person I pretended to be “Name, contact phone number, email, blood type, first dog’s name, first goldfish blood type etc.” the operator looked up my request. “Oh yes, here it is, we have gargled your request”
”What was that?”
“We have processed your request and are waiting to hear back from the partner airline, we will contact you as soon as we hear back from them.”
Well that seemed reasonable enough, I decided to go ahead and wait a few days. A week later, still no news. I decided to call again. Once again I was slowly ritually mentally mutilated with the endless chorus of “tank you’s”, I think in this one she tanked me for wrapping the phone cord around my neck. After fifteen minutes I got the live underwater operator and was told that they had now heard back from United and that the flights were now wait listed. Isn’t it strange that after two weeks the inventory of available free seats might be depleted? And so I decided to do what any insane addict would do, I decided to come back for more.
In the next month, I called at least fifteen times, sent twenty e-mails and got nowhere. I received a reply to every one of my e-mails; every one of those replies had a variation of the following script:
Thank you for writing to us.
Your query is truly unimportant to us and we are committed to provide an unsatisfactory resolution. Our Service Executive will respond within three working years.
In case your query requires further investigation and takes a longer time, we will keep you in the dark.
Thank you for your patience and understanding in the interim. We hope you’re still alive by the time we get to this, we need to ensure that you’re left delirious and incapacitated by your experience
Yours sincerely,
Jet Privilege Service Centre
But I still didn’t give up. And a month ago I actually believed that my long and arduous work was actually going to pay off. I once again called the torture center and this time I found an operator who decided to mollify me by trying to be courteous and pro-active. She placed me on hold, called United and found two flights with availability. Imagine that, all it took was one phone call! Although the times were not ideal I was not about to wait any longer. I pounced on the offer and accepted the flights. I took out my credit card, ready to pay for the taxes. Oh but not so fast, turns out that this nice operator (who I’m sure was fired for thinking outside the box) was not allowed to process my payment. Jet Airways has an efficient checks and balance system. They check if one of their operators decides to act humanely and they balance it by forcing the customer to wait for one of their top level deniers to not get back to them. And true to form I was told that I would first receive an e-mail confirming my itinerary, then I had to forward that e-mail with a note of acceptance to the following e-mail:[email protected]. Once they receive this e-mail I would receive a phone call from someone asking for my credit card details. And then I would be the proud owner of two “free” tickets. But, I never got the e-mail or the phone call or even a pin designating me as “number one sucker”. But I refuse to give up. After a week of therapy, I tried my luck again by calling my friends at Jet. “Oh I’m sorry (not really) your flight is now waitlisted.” At this point I blew my gasket, let out a score of expletives and was promptly told “I’m sorry I will look into this and get back to you”. I received the same message for the next ten days. When, once again I was ready to give up all hope, a ray of light suckered me back into believing that I would triumph. I was once again told that the flights had opened up, I actually received an e-mail asking for my permission to take out my miles and I actually got a phone call asking for my credit card details. I even received a letter confirming my flights. I was free, free at last. But not so fast, from the depths of my soul came a warning. I couldn’t believe that it would be that easy. I decided to call United to see if they had a record of my trip. I called and was promptly told that the flights had indeed been reserved but had subsequently been cancelled. I guess Jet decided that fifteen hours of time I will never get back wasn’t enough, they also had to take my money and were secretly praying that I would show up to the airport with their confirmation, only be told by United that they had no record of my reservation. I could only imagine that scene, probably would have led to my arrest, and the video of my arrest would probably end up in the Jet call center training video.
Irate (again), I decide to call my favorite call center. This time Hershel tells me: “you must be mistaken”. Right, I probably misheard the United representative, cancelled and confirmed sound alike. He actually told me to go ahead and take the confirmation Jet Airways had sent me and show it to the United ground staff at check in. Following a lengthy philosophical discussion during which I might or might not have mentioned that I would spend the rest of my life hunting down his entire family, he proceeded to promise to look into it and “call within 24 hours”. 36 hours later I decided to look up the definition of 24 hours in Hindi. Surprisingly it translates to “expect elephant dung to drop out of the sky before hearing from me”. Once again I decided to call Jet Airways. I think it was the same day Snowden decided to defect. I contend that he was eavesdropping my calls and just couldn’t take it anymore. This time I spoke with Siddhand. He was nice enough to tell me that I was indeed right about having my reservation cancelled, and that they were looking into why it was cancelled. I would hear from them within 24 hours, at this point I looked out my window praying for a storm of elephant dung. Another 36 hours pass and I pop in some Prozac and call again. This time I get my buddy Hershel who proceeds to remind me that I spoke with him three days ago.
“What about your promise to call me back within 24 hours?”
“Sir you must understand our position...”
“What’s your position? You promised to call within 24 hours and you don’t, Is it your position that you lie to your customers? Is it your position that you should torture your customers with endless wait time, false promises and generally awful service?”
Hershel actually delivered on his follow up promise to call me within an hour.
He called (and I’m not making this up) to inform me that someone would call me within the next 24 hours. So another 3 days pass by and I once again call. This time I speak with Kiran. He tells me that “for the moment you’re waitlisted and we’re investigating the cause of the cancellation”.
“The cause of the cancellation, it’s not like I cancelled it!”
My comment is met with silence, so I continue in my line of questioning.
“Wait, are you telling me that you’re looking into whether I cancelled the flight?”
“Sir, I don’t know who cancelled the flight, we’re looking into it”
“But you’re telling me it’s possible I cancelled it?”
“We don’t know”
Homicidal tendencies are now ready to erupt; I simply hang up the phone and promise myself to never call Jet again, lest. Given that this conversation only ended a few minutes ago (yes this was written during my time on hold) I will probably suffer from a form of temporary amnesia and try again tomorrow. Or maybe I will just rent a car.
Postcript: A week has passed and I have no confirmed flights, however I do have charges totaling $463.10 on my statement, a painful reminder of my trials and tribulations, and a reminder of why I should never fly Jet Airways.
I have been a loyal customer of Jet Airways, flying up to 200,000 miles a year with them. Jet Airways is an Indian airline that began flying to New York from Brussels a few years ago. Although they have changed aircrafts and the onboard service and comfort has decreased, the airline itself remains a good airline to fly. However after spending the last two months dealing with their “Jet Privilege” department, I’ve come to believe that the privilege is truly theirs alone.
In case you feel compelled to try your luck using Jet miles, don’t! Here is a short recap of my efforts trying to navigate the quagmire of Jet Airways during the past three months.
The customer service and frequent flyer department is based in Mumbai and I believe they must be staffed by all of the other call center rejects in India. I can imagine the scene at the employment office. “I’m sorry sir you’re no longer qualified to work for the Taliban women’s rights hotline, however I can get you a job at Jet Airways.” Back in May I realized that some of my miles were going to expire. I decided to try and use the miles on one of their partner airlines. It seems that Jet has a mileage partnership agreement with at least a dozen airlines. With most of the large airlines, mileage redemption has become more difficult or expensive. Yet with every other airline I deal with, they employ an intuitive online system that lets the consumer pick their destination and dates. The system will immediately come back with flights (even if it’s a partner airline) and the amount of miles and taxes required for the trip. Jet has the same system for its own flights (which never seem to have an available seat), but for a partner ticket they require more, a lot more. First off you need to fill out a form. The form asks you to fill out the name of the passenger, the desired route (with flight numbers), date of travel etc. Then you need to scan and email the forms along with copies of the passenger’s passports to the jet Privilege redemption center. I had checked on United’s web site to make sure that the flights I requested had open mileage seats. Once the form was sent, I received an immediate response telling me that someone would get back to me within 24 to 72 hours. After a week and no word I decided to call the service center. A call, which three months later, and over 15 hours on the phone has resulted in…nothing. Well almost nothing, this diatribe is being written as I wait on hold, let’s see if I can reach “War and Peace” length. On my initial call I had the pleasure to wait ten minutes on hold. Instead of listening to the Indian Barry Manilow, I was exposed to the grating sounds of the Jet Airways hold lady. Think of a failed sex line operator; now imagine her with an Indian accent. Now visualize listening to four lines spooled endlessly. The lines go something like this: “tank you for picking Jet Airways, Tank you for making us the number one airline in Ahmedabad, Tank you for calling me, tank you for thinking about slamming the phone against the wall, and tank you for jumping out of the window to escape my soul sucking voice….” Well, it’s possible that my imagination took over at some point. In any case, after fifteen minutes and endless future hours in the therapists chair I get through to a live operator. “Tank you for calling jet airways mumble mumble mumble (I think the call center might be located at the bottom of the Arabian Sea). Once I got my Google Indian call center to English dictionary activated I started making sense of the questions. Following a list of questions to ensure that I was indeed the person I pretended to be “Name, contact phone number, email, blood type, first dog’s name, first goldfish blood type etc.” the operator looked up my request. “Oh yes, here it is, we have gargled your request”
”What was that?”
“We have processed your request and are waiting to hear back from the partner airline, we will contact you as soon as we hear back from them.”
Well that seemed reasonable enough, I decided to go ahead and wait a few days. A week later, still no news. I decided to call again. Once again I was slowly ritually mentally mutilated with the endless chorus of “tank you’s”, I think in this one she tanked me for wrapping the phone cord around my neck. After fifteen minutes I got the live underwater operator and was told that they had now heard back from United and that the flights were now wait listed. Isn’t it strange that after two weeks the inventory of available free seats might be depleted? And so I decided to do what any insane addict would do, I decided to come back for more.
In the next month, I called at least fifteen times, sent twenty e-mails and got nowhere. I received a reply to every one of my e-mails; every one of those replies had a variation of the following script:
Thank you for writing to us.
Your query is truly unimportant to us and we are committed to provide an unsatisfactory resolution. Our Service Executive will respond within three working years.
In case your query requires further investigation and takes a longer time, we will keep you in the dark.
Thank you for your patience and understanding in the interim. We hope you’re still alive by the time we get to this, we need to ensure that you’re left delirious and incapacitated by your experience
Yours sincerely,
Jet Privilege Service Centre
But I still didn’t give up. And a month ago I actually believed that my long and arduous work was actually going to pay off. I once again called the torture center and this time I found an operator who decided to mollify me by trying to be courteous and pro-active. She placed me on hold, called United and found two flights with availability. Imagine that, all it took was one phone call! Although the times were not ideal I was not about to wait any longer. I pounced on the offer and accepted the flights. I took out my credit card, ready to pay for the taxes. Oh but not so fast, turns out that this nice operator (who I’m sure was fired for thinking outside the box) was not allowed to process my payment. Jet Airways has an efficient checks and balance system. They check if one of their operators decides to act humanely and they balance it by forcing the customer to wait for one of their top level deniers to not get back to them. And true to form I was told that I would first receive an e-mail confirming my itinerary, then I had to forward that e-mail with a note of acceptance to the following e-mail:[email protected]. Once they receive this e-mail I would receive a phone call from someone asking for my credit card details. And then I would be the proud owner of two “free” tickets. But, I never got the e-mail or the phone call or even a pin designating me as “number one sucker”. But I refuse to give up. After a week of therapy, I tried my luck again by calling my friends at Jet. “Oh I’m sorry (not really) your flight is now waitlisted.” At this point I blew my gasket, let out a score of expletives and was promptly told “I’m sorry I will look into this and get back to you”. I received the same message for the next ten days. When, once again I was ready to give up all hope, a ray of light suckered me back into believing that I would triumph. I was once again told that the flights had opened up, I actually received an e-mail asking for my permission to take out my miles and I actually got a phone call asking for my credit card details. I even received a letter confirming my flights. I was free, free at last. But not so fast, from the depths of my soul came a warning. I couldn’t believe that it would be that easy. I decided to call United to see if they had a record of my trip. I called and was promptly told that the flights had indeed been reserved but had subsequently been cancelled. I guess Jet decided that fifteen hours of time I will never get back wasn’t enough, they also had to take my money and were secretly praying that I would show up to the airport with their confirmation, only be told by United that they had no record of my reservation. I could only imagine that scene, probably would have led to my arrest, and the video of my arrest would probably end up in the Jet call center training video.
Irate (again), I decide to call my favorite call center. This time Hershel tells me: “you must be mistaken”. Right, I probably misheard the United representative, cancelled and confirmed sound alike. He actually told me to go ahead and take the confirmation Jet Airways had sent me and show it to the United ground staff at check in. Following a lengthy philosophical discussion during which I might or might not have mentioned that I would spend the rest of my life hunting down his entire family, he proceeded to promise to look into it and “call within 24 hours”. 36 hours later I decided to look up the definition of 24 hours in Hindi. Surprisingly it translates to “expect elephant dung to drop out of the sky before hearing from me”. Once again I decided to call Jet Airways. I think it was the same day Snowden decided to defect. I contend that he was eavesdropping my calls and just couldn’t take it anymore. This time I spoke with Siddhand. He was nice enough to tell me that I was indeed right about having my reservation cancelled, and that they were looking into why it was cancelled. I would hear from them within 24 hours, at this point I looked out my window praying for a storm of elephant dung. Another 36 hours pass and I pop in some Prozac and call again. This time I get my buddy Hershel who proceeds to remind me that I spoke with him three days ago.
“What about your promise to call me back within 24 hours?”
“Sir you must understand our position...”
“What’s your position? You promised to call within 24 hours and you don’t, Is it your position that you lie to your customers? Is it your position that you should torture your customers with endless wait time, false promises and generally awful service?”
Hershel actually delivered on his follow up promise to call me within an hour.
He called (and I’m not making this up) to inform me that someone would call me within the next 24 hours. So another 3 days pass by and I once again call. This time I speak with Kiran. He tells me that “for the moment you’re waitlisted and we’re investigating the cause of the cancellation”.
“The cause of the cancellation, it’s not like I cancelled it!”
My comment is met with silence, so I continue in my line of questioning.
“Wait, are you telling me that you’re looking into whether I cancelled the flight?”
“Sir, I don’t know who cancelled the flight, we’re looking into it”
“But you’re telling me it’s possible I cancelled it?”
“We don’t know”
Homicidal tendencies are now ready to erupt; I simply hang up the phone and promise myself to never call Jet again, lest. Given that this conversation only ended a few minutes ago (yes this was written during my time on hold) I will probably suffer from a form of temporary amnesia and try again tomorrow. Or maybe I will just rent a car.
Postcript: A week has passed and I have no confirmed flights, however I do have charges totaling $463.10 on my statement, a painful reminder of my trials and tribulations, and a reminder of why I should never fly Jet Airways.
Aug 14, 2013, 9:14 am
#4
Used to be shahadil
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: BOM
Programs: Flying Returns, Jet Privilege, Hyatt Gold Passport
Posts: 805
try calling after 1930 indian time. wait times are negligible. as for your post on cancellation of ticket after payment, you are worrying me now, and i think i need to check with the partner airline.
Aug 14, 2013, 10:10 am
#6
Used to be ' simz '
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Kolkata, India
Programs: Does it matter..??? It doesn't matter to them
Posts: 1,129
LOL.. This was too funny.. well written my friend..
I feel your pain.. redeeming with Jet, specially for partner airlines is nothing short of a nightmare..
I feel your pain.. redeeming with Jet, specially for partner airlines is nothing short of a nightmare..
Aug 14, 2013, 10:29 am
#7
Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: bombay
Posts: 1,408
Aug 14, 2013, 11:03 am
#8
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: India
Programs: Bonvoy Lifetime Titanium, IHG Plat, HH Gold, Trident Plat, DL Diamond, AI Maharajah
Posts: 29,678
its like reading my own experience....this is pretty much what i go through every single time i try to book a partner ticket....its almost impossible but trust me, after getting shut down some 32 times over the phone or email, when you finally do get that ticket in the end, its so worth it to realize that you got rid of some useless jet miles....
Aug 14, 2013, 1:17 pm
#9
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: BOM
Programs: Krisflyer Gold, Privlige club Silver
Posts: 114
That's very well dramatized jet torture center sure is a pain, and their mileage redemption is only good for domestic use
And yes you and Jason should really bombard them together
Karan
And yes you and Jason should really bombard them together
Karan
Aug 15, 2013, 6:05 am
#10
Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Goa, India
Programs: Marriott Titanium, IHG Plat Ambassador, Hyatt Explorist, Qatar Gold, Vistara Gold
Posts: 1,294
Welcome to FT..
That's a hilarious and very well written post! Don't even bother with Jet's partner redemptions.
There is decent award availability on their LHR, HKG and SIN sectors. You might wanna try a few months in advance. You can book online and confirm instantly.
That's a hilarious and very well written post! Don't even bother with Jet's partner redemptions.
There is decent award availability on their LHR, HKG and SIN sectors. You might wanna try a few months in advance. You can book online and confirm instantly.
Aug 15, 2013, 4:18 pm
#12
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: BOS
Programs: TrueBlue Mosaic, Miles & More Silver, MileagePlus Silver, MarcoPolo Silver, HHonors Gold
Posts: 5
Thanks for putting this down
I've had pretty much the same experience with you except I never got as far as giving them my credit card details. In 5 years of trying to get rid of my JP miles, I've only managed one flight on a Jet Airways partner airline, and that was back in 2008 when you could still call New York and speak to someone.
Their service has deteriorated so much since then that it's better to let the miles expire. I ranted about them on twitter, and they asked me to call their customer support number... yeah, like that's going to help
Their service has deteriorated so much since then that it's better to let the miles expire. I ranted about them on twitter, and they asked me to call their customer support number... yeah, like that's going to help
Aug 15, 2013, 11:22 pm
#13
Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: BOM
Programs: UA Gold, UK Silver, AA Silver
Posts: 63
Welcome to FT.
haha, that's a hell of a post. Still laughing
Due to warning posts like this I stopped travelling Jet completely. Plummeted back to Blue plus as fast as I had risen to silver and I am enjoying it. I may let the 50k odd miles, which I had acquired in the process, expire.
haha, that's a hell of a post. Still laughing
Due to warning posts like this I stopped travelling Jet completely. Plummeted back to Blue plus as fast as I had risen to silver and I am enjoying it. I may let the 50k odd miles, which I had acquired in the process, expire.
