All You Ever Wanted To Know About the Travelocity "Guarantee"
 

This is what a supervisor at Travelocity had to say about:

• One's reservation confirmation that appeared on Travelocity's website intact, 20+ days after it was made:
  • "Sir, I totally understand that. I am not even disputing with you that it says whatever is says on there. The fact is that it's incorrect. That's what we are calling to advise you."
  
  
• The Travelocity "Customer Bill of Rights": "You have the right to get what you booked.":
  • "That you have a confirmation that has that has that rate on, that's not a guarantee of that price."
  
  
• The Travelocity "Guarantee": "What do we mean when we say that everything about your booking will be "right?":
  • "Travelocity Guarantee is not a price guarantee, no."
  
  
• The Travelocity "Guarantee": "Everything about your booking will be right, or we'll work with our partners to make it right, right away." :
  • "It says we will work with our vendors to 'make this right'."
    
    
  • "What we are 'making right', in this situation, is correcting the rate that we had displayed. So we did work with the vendors, and we realized that we had the incorrect information."
  
  
• The Travelocity "Guarantee": "In those rare cases that we make a mistake you can count on us to take responsibility for it." :
  • "Well, by that, by 'taking responsibility', we are acknowledging that we made the error, we are offering you one free night, or a hundred dollar future travel discount. It does not say that we're going to pay for the whole trip."
  
  
• The Travelocity "Customer Bill of Rights": "These rights are a promise to our customers [..] this promise cover[s] the duration of any trip you book with us":
  • "There is nothing on there that says we will pay for your whole trip."
  
  
• One's confirmed reservation, guaranteed with a credit card:
  • "It is not a guarantee of price what you have. You have a courtesy reservation that's going to be billed by the hotel."

http://svc.travelocity.com/about/main/0,,TRAVELOCITY:EN|GUARANTEE_TVLY,00.htmlMore accurately, puts a smile on their face.



* define "too good to be true".

Well, it's been pointed out before that it was pretty foolish of Travelocity to specifically refer to the Fiji mistake in their guarantee. And I'm sure this language will be deleted. As for the smile on your face, I am smiling about the 50% off my 2-night stays in 4 Japanese cities. I think the Japan offer of one free night is really a pretty clever way to send a message to those who booked an entire summer/year, etc.

Most customers won't judge Travelocity based on how they handle these mistakes. Most customers do, however, expect that the problems they encounter while they are on the road are handled competently. And this is the real shortfall of the Travelocity guarentee. When my trip plans are impacted by some typhoon over Taiwan, I don't want to spend an hour on hold while an uneducated rep tries to verify that Taiwan is a few time zones away from Texas, and that "call back in the morning" won't work. And I don't want to talk to a call center in India, which invariably advises to call the airline. If they define the guarantee as "you never roam alone," this stuff needs to be fixed.

I don't completely agree. I'm with you that #1 is how they handle a problem on the fly.

But for going the Travelocity route, I want to get the price: if they bait-and-switch, and say they do it in a way that they claim puts a smile on my face, I'm wasting my time.

I really doubt any low fare guarantee. They always have some backdoor way to get out because after all, they are there to make money.

This is for a hotel booking, right? :(

I tend to be a skeptical about such guarantees, too. I *wanted* to believe that Travelocity's guarantee was different, but now I see that it's just another marketing gimmic.

Like I posted another thread, USA Today will not write a story like they did with Expedia.
Why you ask? Advertising dollars thats why, Travelocity takes out full page adds. Thats why.

But will the Wall Street Journal? ;)

Pat

Pat, one would hope so.

BTW, my rejection letter:
Dear JON ,

Your hotel reservation has been cancelled. The hotel may charge a cancellation penalty to your original payment method (American Express xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-) according to the hotel policies.

Please print this page for your records.

and I said via email this:

I will never do business with you again.

Simple right? and they said:

Dear Jon,

Thank you for writing to Travelocity.

We would really appreciate if you could take a moment to explain what you found
unsatisfactory about
your experience on our site? Your input is extremely important to us. We are dedicated
to
continually improving our product so that we can provide you with a travel service
that you can use
with confidence, efficiency and enjoyment. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Please be assured that we are committed to provide our valued customers with the
highest quality of
service and customer care. We regret to learn that your experience with Travelocity
was not at all
what it should have been. We realize that earning and retaining your trust is of
paramount
importance and it's a responsibility we take very seriously, every day.

Awaiting your reply.

Regards,

Hazel P

Kvs
 

Hey-

What'd you use to record that phone conversation you posted? That could really come in handy. Did you by any chance use a VoIP box? Thanks.

- Andy

I didn't listen to the recording, so I'm not saying it's the case here, but isn't it against the law to record a phone conversation without notifying the other party first?

That's why many companies will have something like this on their phone systems: " this call may be recorded for training purposes" or something similar...

All I'm saying is that one has to be very careful with recording a phone conversation and using it publicly unless one had "implied permission" to record the conversation in the first place.

It varies from state to state and country to country on whether disclosure by a party to the call is required or not. Remember the Ms. Piggy in the Office-related recordings? Legal in one part of the DC-metro area; illegal in another part of the DC-metro area.

Also, if one party to a call is recording the conversation and discloses such, there may be implied consent that the other party to the call may do the same (i.e., record).

This covers correctly the states I am familiar with:

http://www.callcorder.com/phone-reco...aw-america.htm

And Texas is a one party state.

The Travelocity recording begins by stating "This call may be recorded for quality assurance." That sounds like a grant of permission to record the call. Perhaps Travelocity intended to convey "We may recall the call, but you may not." But that's not what their recording actually said.

I am confident that the OP recorded the call in substantial part to assure, monitor, and record the quality of the service he did or did not receive from Travelocity.