Cathay Pacific and Flight Centre customer focused???

[baef47]

In July last year we walked into Flight Centre, Neutral Bay and told them we wanted to fly to Italy for a holiday on 8/1/2012 and return on 25/1/12. We told them that we liked what Emirates were offering for the flights.

They talked us into flying Cathay Pacific on the basis that Cathay offer a ‘better service’ (complete joke that turned out to be) and that we could accumulate QFF points.

We booked the flights through Flight Centre and received confirmation for the 4 legs of the return journey. On Monday night (less than a week before departure) we went on the Cathay website - and just by chance I happened to notice that the departure date from FCO (Rome) to HKG appeared as the 23 Jan not 24 Jan (date on the e-ticket we hold). It is an absolute miracle that I even noticed the change. Everything else remained unchanged. Cutting a long story short, it turns out that on 1/9/11 Cathay cancelled its Tuesday flights on this route. We were not notified of the change. Cathay say they told Flight Centre on 1[SUP]st[/SUP] September. Flight Centre denies this.

When they opened for business after the Christmas break, I rang Cathay Pacific (and actually managed to get through their appalling Customer telephone system) and they grudgingly agreed to schedule the HKG/SYD so that it linked with the other rescheduled flight. They offered nothing by way of apology and continued to blame Flight Centre for not informing us.

The change in schedule has marred our special holiday – cutting short the Rome part of our holiday to only 1 day. Will we see much in Rome in only one day? If we had wanted to change our flights they would have charged us penalties yet they can they unilaterally change a contracted arrangement without penalty? Why were we not communicated with by either Cathay or Flight Centre?

 

[The Rok]

Rome was not built in a day, so I can't imagine you will see much of it in a day.

 

[reductionist]

We were not notified of the change. Cathay say they told Flight Centre on 1[SUP]st[/SUP] September. Flight Centre denies this.

Since you booked this through Flight Centre you should really be pointing the finger at them.

I have booked directly with Cathay many times and they have notified me directly when there's been changes to my flight.

Things change when you get a travel agent involved. I will never use one again unless I absolutely have to. Most of them are muppets.

 

[baef47]

"Things change when you get a travel agent involved. I will never use one again unless I absolutely have to. Most of them are muppets."

Couldn't agree more. This is the first time in recent years that we have used an agent .... and sure enough a .... up ensued.

 

[SeatBackForward]

"Things change when you get a travel agent involved. I will never use one again unless I absolutely have to. Most of them are muppets."

Couldn't agree more. This is the first time in recent years that we have used an agent .... and sure enough a .... up ensued.

I concur, read my latest experience here: AFF Link

 

[thewinchester]

Well I can't speak as to how you might maximise your tourist time in Rome, but I would concur with the other posters that Flight Centre has to bear the responsibility here.

They have a responsibility to keep passengers they book informed of changes that may affect a booked and paid itinerary. It flies in the face of the Australian Federation of Travel Agent's marketing line: "Without an AFTA travel agent, you're on your own"

AFTA's Agent Code of Ethics states:

NOTICE - AFTA members operating tours will promptly advise the agent or client who reserved the space of any change in itinerary, services, features or price. If substantial changes are made that are written within the control of the operator, the client will be allowed to cancel without penalty.

Now while the "operating tours" wording negates most of its relevance to the OPs situation, this document makes it reasonably clear there is a moral obligation on the part of a travel agent to keep customers informed of changes that affect them.

Where to next?

If you don't get anywhere at store level with having this resolved or some fair consideration for Flight Centre's failure to inform you of changes that would affect your itinerary, call their national Customer Relations Centre on 1800 117 747 (M-F 0900-1700 AEST) or email [email protected].

If you still don't get any satisfaction, your next step is to make a complaint to the relevant consumer affairs body in your state. You may also be able to complain to AFTA directly, but they don't make information available on how to do this despite them having a complaints and investigations function on behalf of industry members.

 

[mannej]

Schedule changes occur quite frequently.

I have had CX sms me 18 hours before a flight to tell us that it had been cancelled. The advice was to get to the airport to check in as normal.

There have been cases on here where Travel Agents have not informed passengers of these changes, so you would not be the only one.

It is your Travel Agent who should have informed you of this change, I would be telling them that the change is unacceptable, to see if they are able to work a solution in your favour.

 

[Mal]

Flight centre issue. Escalate with them, if you need their complaints number, go to their website, click on contact us and the number is hidden right down the bottom of the page.

Seems like they don't like receiving complaints so hide the number away....

 

[ozbeachbabe]

CX has told you when the flight cancellation happened at which time they would have 'queued' the booking back to Flight Centre. I have no reason to disbelieve CX.

What should happen is that the agent should go through their 'queues' in Galileo a couple of times a day to monitor & action any changes ie communicate those changes to the passenger.

At some stage FC at Neutral Bay would have queued your pnr off to their ticketing centre so your ticket could be issued so I don't know whether it got queued to them instead of the actual travel agent.

Either way Flight Centre or their ticketing agent have deleted the booking off the notification queue and you haven't been advised & they're not taking responsibility for their stuff up. It's not Cathay's fault as they have advised you via your travel agent who is acting for you.

FC would give a huge amount of money to CX every year & Flight Centre would have a Cathay Sales rep who would look after their agency so if they gave a rats they would call them & see if you could be rebooked to another date if there was a suitable alternative for no fee as the sked change was involuntary. TBH I don't think they could be bothered doing this as they've made their money now & they would see it as a non-revenue, time wasting activity.

I would ring CX admin in SYD & ask to speak to their Sales Manager & see if anything can be done.

Also this bit about 'CX has better service' (which I'm not disputing) sounds a bit fishy to me. FC are not interested in what airlines give their customers they're interested in making money. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if there was an incentive that month with FC & CX & there was either a lot more commission to be made for the agency or some kind of travel consultant incentive happening.

Financial advisors must now disclose the commissions they will be paid from any insurance super you sign up for through them but obviously the travel industry hasn't yet caught up with this practice.

 

[Clarkes]

Flight centre employs 12 year olds. My experience of them is "It's your responsibility to check". A friend got caught short when a FC employee didn't check a VISA validity. Again it was "our fault" for not checking. Book it yourself and then if it stuffs up, then you can only blame yourself!

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Flight centre employs 12 year olds. My experience of them is "It's your responsibility to check". A friend got caught short when a FC employee didn't check a VISA validity. Again it was "our fault" for not checking. Book it yourself and then if it stuffs up, then you can only blame yourself!

Even if the OP did check their eticket itinerary receipt against their itinerary they would have got at the time of booking it still would have shown 24 Jan FCO/HKG when they thought they were travelling & not 23 Jan which was the new date.

When FCI say it's the customers responsibility to check, what sites are the customers supposed to be checking their travel documents with - the airline website, checkmytrip or equivalent or the latest itinerary they had from the agent which in the OP's case didn't reflect the flights that the airline was holding?

The best travel agent to use is you + AFF as your wingman.

 

[Leumas]

Flight centre employs 12 year olds. My experience of them is "It's your responsibility to check". A friend got caught short when a FC employee didn't check a VISA validity. Again it was "our fault" for not checking. Book it yourself and then if it stuffs up, then you can only blame yourself!

IMHO, there's a difference between checking whether your flight times have changed versus ensuring you/the traveller/the customer has the appropriate documentation to travel.

Yes, the agent should check and notify the customer of time changes, and they may tell/ask you to check if you've the right documentation, but it's ultimately the traveller's responsibility to see if (s)he has the right documentation.

 

[MEL_Traveller]

The change in schedule has marred our special holiday – cutting short the Rome part of our holiday to only 1 day. Will we see much in Rome in only one day?

yes - the good news is that you can see a lot of Rome in one day!

many of the sites are situated close by each other. I would recommend the colosseum, trevi fountain and things like the pantheon.

the key is walking... almost every turn you come across something amazing.

given your limited time, the Vatican might be too far out of the way... and probably wise to leave out the Sistine chapel.

food is the other major attraction... so walking and eating for a day and you will get a taste of Rome, no problem.

to do Rome properly you need days...

 

[Travel Guru]

It's definitely not an issue with CX, they've done nothing wrong and are well within their rights to reschedule flights which happens on a daily if not hourly basis in travel.

The person you should be angry with and the person I'd have been going to first before speaking to the airline is Flight Centre...they cannot abscond from their responsibility to you by suggesting it's up to you to check, with a time change that serious, it's up to them to notify you of the date/time change and to sort out an acceptable resolution direct with the airline on your behalf.

Had you turned up at FCO on the 24th without knowing about the flight change it certainly wouldn't have been your fault and it would have been up to the FC agent to wear a negative that resulted from getting you on a flight home.

Unfortunately given you've spoken to CX and had them fix it you've really got no comeback with FC should you want to push the flight back a day etc etc, so you'll just have to try and fit everything into the one day you've got remembering that it's one more day than most people on the planet will ever get to spend in Rome.

As with any transaction or service, choose the service provider wisely, I don't buy into the 'most travel agents are muppets thing', and I dare say if I suggested to those who are saying so that most in their industry are muppets that they'd disagree as quickly as I do...there's good, bad, indifferent and great people in every industry its just that most people make really poor decision when it comes to who to trust their travel plans to.

For anyone interested, I've been writing a series entitled '10 Things to Beware of when using a Travel Agent' and have published the first 3 on my Facebook fanpage so far, might be worthwhile reading for anyone considering using a TA (https://www.facebook.com/TravelsGoToGuy)

Happy Travels!
TG

 

[haydensydney]

Would it be possible for you to choose a later CX flight from Rome and therefore you could be there for three days (rather than be angry that your highlight detinstation has been cut down to one day?)

Perhaps if you complained to Flight Centre, they may make this change for you on a gratis basis.

 

[baef47]

Would it be possible for you to choose a later CX flight from Rome and therefore you could be there for three days (rather than be angry that your highlight detinstation has been cut down to one day?)

Perhaps if you complained to Flight Centre, they may make this change for you on a gratis basis.

Thanks to everyone - the help and feedback has been tremendous.

CX appear to do just one FCO/HKG flight per day every day - except Tuesday's which is the day they cancelled. After getting the confirmed e-tickets back in July we went on line to choose our seats. My recollection is that - even in July/August - that a hefty percentage of the seats were unavailable on CX292 (24/1/12) - indicating to me that the plane was well booked. I can't work that one out?

We need to be back home sometime on the 25th.

What I would really like Flight Centre to do is find us a comparable flight home on our original travel date with another airline - given that Cathay do not meet our travel needs. Is that reasonable?

 

[Balwyn3103]

Jumping on the Flight Centre has problems bandwagon here: In Oct 2010 while on assignment in Japan I tried to book a flight home for the weekend and at the same time, flights for my in-laws to visit us in Oz from Poland, both attempts with FC. The website did not seem to allow me to originate a flight in either Tokyo for myself or in Poland for my in-laws. The webpage does, however, offer the user the chance to give feedback about the website which I did. This was sent as an email and bounced right back. So much for wanting feedback.

So I emailed customer feedback outlining my difficulties and letting them know I'd spent >10k at their local shop year to date. An answer from FC? Of course not. Useless people.

 

[Travel Guru]

What I would really like Flight Centre to do is find us a comparable flight home on our original travel date with another airline - given that Cathay do not meet our travel needs. Is that reasonable?

Having spent several years on the front line and in management with them I'd say you've got no chance of that happening.

Yes they inconvenienced you and it was unprofessional to fail to advise you of it, but aside from that the change was beyond their control.

Now had they failed to advise you and you turned up at FCO to find no flight then yes I'd fully expect them to find you a means to get home, though even then they're likely to try and minimize loss by changing you to the next day.

TG

 

[baef47]

they inconvenienced you and it was unprofessional to fail to advise
TG

Sounds triffling. The thing is it isn't just one person ... there are 3 adult airfares totalling over $7,000. A holiday cost well in excess of $15,000 for 15 days which has been cut through no fault of ours to 14 days on the ground.

IMHO I'm struggling to think of any other mainstream industry where this sort of business practice would be accepted in the manner described. This is stuff out of the wild west... cowboys and all.

 

[mannej]

Just because seats are unavailable it doesn't mean that the flight is full.

Airlines block seats for things such as weight distribution and status passengers, which may look like a full flight, but may in fact be fairly lightly loaded.