had a typically bad experience with ai when cancelling an award booking....

i had booked 2 business class del-lhr tickets but had to cancel one of them....now its important to point out that while booking the ticket, the t&c clearly state that if i cancel the ticket 3 days prior to the flight then 10% miles will be deducted as a penalty & the remainder will be credited to my account....here is a screenshot i took:


called ai to cancel the ticket since the website wouldn't allow me to do so....the agent confirmed that 10% miles will be deducted & the balance would be credited immediately....i told the agent to go ahead & do so....the ticket was cancelled but only 80% miles were refunded....i questioned the agent on this & he said he was not sure what happened & put me on hold to investigate....after a brief hold he comes back on the phone to state that the penalty is not 10% but rather 20%....i ask him why he gave me incorrect information before canceling the ticket & why the t&c state that it is 10%....he had no answer to that & kept repeating that its an automated process & the penalty is 20%....so i ask him to connect me to a supervisor....

the supervisor comes on & i tell her what happened....she gets extremely aggressive & starts blaming the situation on me....she says its my responsibility to know what the cancellation policy is when booking the ticket & that the agent told me nothing wrong....i told her that i knew what the t&c said & the agent gave me the same information as the t&c....however, both turned out to be incorrect as double the amount was deducted as the penalty....she says the t&c clearly state that the penalty is 20% & i probably asked the agent wrong information like making a date change which attracts 10% penalty in inr....

she refuses to accept the fact that the t&c say 10% so i tell her to book another ticket for me while i'm on the phone....we go through the process & when we get to the page that has the t&c i ask her to read out what is written....she pauses for a bit & i can hear her colleague stating in the background 'he is right, this does say 10%'....she still decided to hold her ground & says that her screen is showing that its 20%....

at this point i lose my cool & tell her that what she seems to have forgotten is that all these calls are being recorded & that she probably doesn't know but ai has a vigilance team that works with the police to identify fraud....i told her i was going to send a notice to the vigilance team to listen in on this phone call & that she was trying to cheat me out of 10% of the miles....after hearing this, her tone completely changed....for the first time she apologised on behalf of the earlier agent for giving the wrong information & she said she could connect me with a supervisor if i wanted to escalate this further....i questioned her on the fact whether she was a supervisor as she had claimed earlier, once again reminding her that this call will be heard by the vigilance officer....she sheepishly admitted that she was a senior call agent but not a supervisor....

i didn't want to deal with her any further so asked her to connect me to a real supervisor....she apologises a number of times & asks me not to send the notice to the vigilance officer....i tell her to just connect me to a supervisor so she put me on hold for a minute & then came back saying no supervisor was available & she would arrange a call back....i told her i would hold till a supervisor became available but she kept stating that no one was there & it would take a while to connect me to one....she promised a call back when one was available but of course no one has called back & i don't expect anyone will....

its not at all surprising since this is air india....customer service has never been their strong point....