REALLy annoying travelocity experience
 

Found a great D class fare on travelocity. Problem was that the segments travelocity came up with were not the ones I wanted. It was fully refundable/ exchangable, so I had no prob purchasing with plans to call customer service to make the changes.

OY! I should have known better from past experiences. First I have to answer to the voice promts. They could not understand me at all, and it took a few tries to enter my trip number accurately. I am then put on hold for 10 minutes , and when the agent finally gets on, she asks me for my trip ID. (Why did I bother punching it in?)

Where are the agents anyway? Not in Texas anymore, that's for sure.

I tell the agent what I want to do, and first she puts me on hold to find out of my fare is changable. Three minutes on hold. It is (which I could have told her). But she must transfer me to the exchange desk.

15 minutes on hold.

Agent then asks my trip id, then tells me that since I bought the ticket just today, they will do me a "one time favor" and wave the $100 change fee. I explain that my ticket was fully refundable, but the agent didn't understand.

I tell her what I want to do. I had to repeat it 3 times. She puts me on hold.

10 minutes.

She comes back and says, "We can reissue the ticket and there will be a $500 credit in your favor!" She sounds so happy for me. I then say, "How can that be? Did you keep it in business class?"

"You did not ask me to do that."

"I asked you to change one flight to a different flight time! I didn't ask to change the entire booking." I then asked her to go back and book the segments in "D." She told me "D" was not available on any of the flights. I told her that I just booked the itin in D and it was available. She told me that she was doing me a favor. I asked for the sup, and while she resisted, she finally transfered me.

I told the sup what happened, and he said, "Unless you specifically ask to be in business, we automatically put you in Y." I said, "that makes no sense if you have a business booking in front of you."

He was of no help, and we ended up cancelling and refunding. Of course, he said to me, "As a one timeexception, I'll waive the cancellation fee."

One time with Travelocity was more than enough for me. I only use them for pricing info now....never for booking!

Yeah, I've been pretty unhappy with some experiences with Travelocity, but if it makes you feel any better, I had an almost identical experience with one of DL's Indian callcenter reps...

"Hello, I need to move this comlicated itinerary up by one day, but I want to keep everything exactly the same, just one day earlier"

"Okay, sir, thank you very much for calling, I will put you on different flights at different times in different cabins....it is my pleasure to assist you."

:rolleyes:

Grr.... took me 45 minutes to get it straightened out...

But here's a tip that I learned the hard way-
Even if you buy on travelocity or expedia or somewhere else, you should make changes directly with the airline. The big sites now charge "service fees" on top of airline imposed change fees. I paid $30 to change a fully refundable ticket once, then called DL and they told me I could have done it though them at no charge...

(Not justifying what they did or said, but it's possible that in buying from them, the fine print says that they can charge you a cancellation fee even for a refundable ticket.)

I did try going through UA, but they could not replicate the fare, and they told me I needed to go back to the agency.