Online Travel Agent Screwed Up My Booking
Aug 27, 2014, 12:17 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2007
Programs: QFF Gold, Flying Blue, Enrich
Posts: 5,366
Online Travel Agent Screwed Up My Booking
Last week I booked a ticket on Zuji - Finnair SYD-CDG and return via BKK. The fare wasn't available for my dates on the Finnair site, and I'd booked with Zuji before so I was happy to do so with them again.
I was a bit annoyed at first, after I'd given my credit card number and pressed the "book now" button, I got a message saying that they couldn't confirm that seats were available on the required flights, one of the Zuji agents will work on my booking and get back to me. We have charged your credit card for this booking.
24 hours later the itinerary comes through from Zuji as confirmed, so all is good.
To cut a short story long, I want to select my seats, and as the Finnair site is broken for seat selection, and the Qantas site (part of the trip is on QF metal) will only let me select the QF legs, I go to Qatar's site which will let me do everything. The Qatar site has me returning on different dates from the Zuji itinerary. Back I go to the AY and QF sites, and sure enough, the Zuji itinerary has me flying on the dates that I requested, while the airlines have me flying several days later.
I hop onto Zuji and dial the 1300 number that is listed on my itinerary. A helpful telephone company recording informs me that the number I am dialling is not connected. So I try the standard number, which is in Melbourne and I am in Sydney. After five minutes of pressing various options I decide that I've donated enough money to the phone company with zero result and search an alternative way to contact them.
They have a chat system to contact one of their agents. I decide to give that a try, and after a very short wait an agent called Eagle Aguilliera (I think they use randomly assigned names) came on the line. Eagle, a very pleasant young Eurasian-looking man (I think that they use randomly assigned avatars as well, but what the hey) spent about 30 minutes with me, could finally see that there was a problem and promised to "escalate" it to "Ticketing". "Is there anything else that I can help you with?". Um, yes, will my problem ever be fixed? "Oh yes, 'Ticketing' will contact you either by phone or by email within 48 hours" says Eagle. The itinerary spells my name incorrectly, which I mention to him - I am not Mr Johnsmithmr Smith, I am actually Mr John Smith (not my real name, neither John nor Smith). This is normal, reports Eagle, and I figure that I won't be denied boarding because of this so I let it pass.
I obsessively check my booking on the various airline sites for the next 36 hours, until finally the airlines show me as flying on the dates that I originally requested. As I write this, 96 hours have passed and there has been no contact from Zuji telling me that my complaint has been resolved. I didn't ask them for an apology (Eagle did apologise for the inconvenience, I must add), but I would have thought that there would be some communication from them saying that the error had been fixed.
I would normally book a ticket like this via the airline's own site even if it cost a bit more in order to avoid this sort of thing, but the ticket I was looking for cost $1500 more on the Finnair site than it did on Zuji.
Now, if I wasn't an AFF or FT obsessive who needs to ensure several months ahead that I can obtain my particular preferred seat, I may well have turned up at CDG four days early for my flight because I trusted the itinerary that my travel agent gave me. Even as it was, I'd looked at my booking on both Qantas and Finnair without noticing the error, as the departure dates were correct, just the return date was wrong and it slipped my attention.
Anyone else had a similar experience? I'll be very cautious about booking with a third-party site in future.
I was a bit annoyed at first, after I'd given my credit card number and pressed the "book now" button, I got a message saying that they couldn't confirm that seats were available on the required flights, one of the Zuji agents will work on my booking and get back to me. We have charged your credit card for this booking.
24 hours later the itinerary comes through from Zuji as confirmed, so all is good.
To cut a short story long, I want to select my seats, and as the Finnair site is broken for seat selection, and the Qantas site (part of the trip is on QF metal) will only let me select the QF legs, I go to Qatar's site which will let me do everything. The Qatar site has me returning on different dates from the Zuji itinerary. Back I go to the AY and QF sites, and sure enough, the Zuji itinerary has me flying on the dates that I requested, while the airlines have me flying several days later.
I hop onto Zuji and dial the 1300 number that is listed on my itinerary. A helpful telephone company recording informs me that the number I am dialling is not connected. So I try the standard number, which is in Melbourne and I am in Sydney. After five minutes of pressing various options I decide that I've donated enough money to the phone company with zero result and search an alternative way to contact them.
They have a chat system to contact one of their agents. I decide to give that a try, and after a very short wait an agent called Eagle Aguilliera (I think they use randomly assigned names) came on the line. Eagle, a very pleasant young Eurasian-looking man (I think that they use randomly assigned avatars as well, but what the hey) spent about 30 minutes with me, could finally see that there was a problem and promised to "escalate" it to "Ticketing". "Is there anything else that I can help you with?". Um, yes, will my problem ever be fixed? "Oh yes, 'Ticketing' will contact you either by phone or by email within 48 hours" says Eagle. The itinerary spells my name incorrectly, which I mention to him - I am not Mr Johnsmithmr Smith, I am actually Mr John Smith (not my real name, neither John nor Smith). This is normal, reports Eagle, and I figure that I won't be denied boarding because of this so I let it pass.
I obsessively check my booking on the various airline sites for the next 36 hours, until finally the airlines show me as flying on the dates that I originally requested. As I write this, 96 hours have passed and there has been no contact from Zuji telling me that my complaint has been resolved. I didn't ask them for an apology (Eagle did apologise for the inconvenience, I must add), but I would have thought that there would be some communication from them saying that the error had been fixed.
I would normally book a ticket like this via the airline's own site even if it cost a bit more in order to avoid this sort of thing, but the ticket I was looking for cost $1500 more on the Finnair site than it did on Zuji.
Now, if I wasn't an AFF or FT obsessive who needs to ensure several months ahead that I can obtain my particular preferred seat, I may well have turned up at CDG four days early for my flight because I trusted the itinerary that my travel agent gave me. Even as it was, I'd looked at my booking on both Qantas and Finnair without noticing the error, as the departure dates were correct, just the return date was wrong and it slipped my attention.
Anyone else had a similar experience? I'll be very cautious about booking with a third-party site in future.
Aug 27, 2014, 11:29 am
#4
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Please follow the discussion as the thread moves to the Online Booking and Bidding forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.
Aug 28, 2014, 5:21 pm
#5
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2007
Programs: QFF Gold, Flying Blue, Enrich
Posts: 5,366
Update
I made this same post on Australian Frequent Flyer.
As a result of my post on AFF, a manager from Zuji's Customer Care team called me to follow up. She acknowledged that Zuji had made an error with my booking which had now been fixed, but also said that an email had been sent to me when the booking had been corrected. As I had received no email, she then checked and it became apparent that they had also made an error with my email address, adding an illegal character to the address, which made the email undeliverable.
I was impressed with the professional way that Zuji followed this up for me, it's clear that this is down to human error and I can live with this. For whatever reason, my booking couldn't be completed automatically so and the error occurred when the ticketing was done manually. I'm also impressed that Zuji monitor posts such as mine and pro-actively tracked me down from the details I gave on AFF - obviously I gave enough detail that they could identify me, but not enough that someone from outside their organisation could do the same.
As an aside, I'm also glad that I just gave the facts, didn't embellish, or use snark in my post!
Given my dealings with them, I will certainly consider using Zuji again as long as the price for the ticket that I want is competitive - but I'll be particularly diligent about checking any bookings that I make with any organisation.
As a result of my post on AFF, a manager from Zuji's Customer Care team called me to follow up. She acknowledged that Zuji had made an error with my booking which had now been fixed, but also said that an email had been sent to me when the booking had been corrected. As I had received no email, she then checked and it became apparent that they had also made an error with my email address, adding an illegal character to the address, which made the email undeliverable.
I was impressed with the professional way that Zuji followed this up for me, it's clear that this is down to human error and I can live with this. For whatever reason, my booking couldn't be completed automatically so and the error occurred when the ticketing was done manually. I'm also impressed that Zuji monitor posts such as mine and pro-actively tracked me down from the details I gave on AFF - obviously I gave enough detail that they could identify me, but not enough that someone from outside their organisation could do the same.
As an aside, I'm also glad that I just gave the facts, didn't embellish, or use snark in my post!
Given my dealings with them, I will certainly consider using Zuji again as long as the price for the ticket that I want is competitive - but I'll be particularly diligent about checking any bookings that I make with any organisation.