moondog

As I've mentioned in other threads, one of the things that I love about Ctrip is that their customer service operation is awesome. Whenever I have issues with airlines or hotels, I would much rather talk with those guys and let them handle it than deal directly with the travel providers.

But, when I called them today, I struck out on both of the phone numbers I've had saved to my phone address book for ages (400 619 9999 and 021 5251 4569). So, I went to Google to see if they had updated them; Google provided the exact same numbers.

Next, I tried chatting with them (in English) and the man I spoke with gave me three numbers: 1. US; 2.Taiwan; 3. 3008 3268 (I have no clue where this is supposed to be, but I tried it and received an automated "this number does not exist" message).

As a last resort, I decided to search Baidu instead and the following numbers occupied prime page real estate:


I only tried the first one because it worked like a charm (after I successfully stymied the bot), and they resolved my issue within 90 minutes (i.e. they did their thing and called me back when they said they would).

I'm puzzled by why I had to resort to such detective work to simply figure out how to call them. And, I'm equally surprised to see Google showcasing the outdated information + Ctrip not seeming to know or care about that.

Oh well, all's good now; hopefully my runaround will result in saved time for some of you guys at some point down the road.

IluvSQ

Funny, their webpage has contact numbers for everywhere in the world except China.
https://www.trip.com/help?locale=en-XX&curr=USD

narvik

I think they're presuming: ctrip.com for China, trip.com for rest-of-world.

Still annoying though.

tauphi

I don't think Google is spending any money fixing search results in China, and this stuff requires investment.

moondog

I agree that Google probably doesn't care so much about this, but ctrip asking Google to clean it up would presumably be super easy.

889

Weirder still, you can't change language on trip.com to Simplified Characters, only Traditional.

YariGuy

Guess they're not targeting Singapore or Malaysia then

889

But trip.com claims to be headquartered in Singapore.

moondog

This is the (Shanghai) number all of them (some say ctrip, others say trip.com) have been calling me from since they opened my new case yesterday.

narvik

Yep, every time I got a call from customer service of a trip.com booking it was from 021.....

moondog

It seems pretty obvious to me that the main reason they are able to negotiate such impressive exclusive rates is because of the massive purchasing power they've been able to accumulate among their Chinese customers, as opposed to their high value domain name.

So, pretending they are two different companies seems kind of silly to me.

Booking's overall portfolio is different because the many of the brands they acquired through acquisition actually do have distinctly different customer bases and flavors (e.g Agoda v Priceline).

And, I would argue that tiktok and douyin really are different walled gardens even though the platforms are the same.

​​​​​​

uanj

I think they have to be (at least) two difference companies in different domiciles. China data protection and security laws conflict with local laws in other countries, so they have to keep them separate.

moondog

Legally speaking, of course they need to have different entities in specific markets. Variances in regulations aren't quite as marked as they are for industries like banking or telecom, but the principle is the same.

But, this doesn't need to entail trying to confuse customers.

I have noticed that the Chinese app/site often includes properties or room types that aren't available on trip.com or the trip app, but this discrepancy disappears for the most part when you are logged in.

tauphi

Does Google even have a sales office in Mainland China?

tauphi

There is a Chinese wall between trip.com and ctrip.com.