- Joined
- Apr 2, 2014
- Posts
- 79
- Qantas
- LT Gold
- Virgin
- Red
I'm reaching the point where I am afraid that people might think I'm just whinging, but here we go anyway.
Wanted to book a complex (sarcasm) itinerary from Hervey Bay to Sydney return in December. As I wanted a "comfort seat", EXST, I can only do so by calling the call centre.
Told 15 minute wait time, answered after 43 minutes, no callback offered.
I was prepared with flight numbers, airports and times. The call was answered and I could hardly her the tiny voice on the other end. Asked where she was, "Fiji" she responded. Hy heart sank. Anyway, this was so simple a request that I pushed on.
It took 5 attempts to get the 4 sector itinerary correctly confirmed, each time conducted at a glacial pace. She clearly had no idea what the difference was between 13:10 and 3:10pm. I continuously corrected her to make sure it was a 13:10 departure and NOT a 3:10pm departure.
She went off to "enter the booking into the system". 12 minutes later she returned.
Of course, the itinerary read back bore little resemblance to the one confirmed earlier, her response, "sorry, I didn't remember that!" REMEMBER!!! WHAT??
Anyway, we did that twice before she confirmed the price plus a $45 assisted booking fee. I reminded her that as I can't book an EXST online and MUST use the call centre that there is no assisted booking fee. She agreed.
I then confirmed that the quoted price was for both the passenger and the EXST, twice. She confirmed that to be the case, twice.
I supplied credit card details and was told that the booking would be ticketed "within 24 hours". I felt a sense of relief as we moved onto my second issue being another call centre made booking made in July which was paid and confirmed but not yet ticketed despite this being my 4th attempt at getting the booking ticketed.
Anyway, while she was investigating, the just purchased ticket arrived in my inbox. I checked it immediately, then went to manage the booking to assign seats and immediately noticed that the blocked out seat, the EXST, was not showing next to the passenger.
So, when she returned to tell me that she would need to call me back on my other question, I asked her why the EXST was not showing in the ticketed booking.
On hold again and another 21 minutes later she returned to say that "it looks like the system did not ticket the EXST". "But I confirmed it 4 times", I said. "You also waived the assisted booking fee because I can't book an EXST online."
The usual, sorry, sorry, sorry followed by the piece de resistance. "We will need to cancel the booking and start over again and we will refund the payment made by Friday of next week.
Having been on the phone for, now, over 2 hours, just to find out that the entire experience had been a total waste of time, I did not feel myself being of an agreeable disposition to doing this all again. I respectfully declined her invitation.
The other booking, un-ticketed since payment on 26 July, for which I was promised a callback "when the problem had been identified" has, as of the time of writing, noon, Monday, not yet generated any callback. I have zero expectation that it will.
You know, there was a time when booking travel was an exciting, thrilling, inspiring experience, looked forward to and enjoyed. The tete-a-tete with competent, understandable, knowledgeable agents made the first (and arguably most important) phase of booking travel, I would go so far as to say, inspiring. These new call centres have turned booking travel into a loathsome, stressful, time wasting, unpleasant experience fraught with all manner of worries, risks and pitfalls. I find myself concerned that I will end my call centre interaction in a far worse position than I was in at the start. The voice on the end of the phone is clearly disinterested, distracted, knowledge-less, vacuous and the overwhelming impression you get is of someone just passing the time to get paid. On Saturday, I was left with the feeling that I had just had a frustrating conversation with a bag of feathers.
Further, QANTAS invested, what, $150 in time, systems, training etc over that, more than 2 hour, interaction and ended up failing to sell the $1,400 of tickets that I called to purchase because of blind incompetence.
I think that the $2 billion loss last year may just be the beginning!
Wanted to book a complex (sarcasm) itinerary from Hervey Bay to Sydney return in December. As I wanted a "comfort seat", EXST, I can only do so by calling the call centre.
Told 15 minute wait time, answered after 43 minutes, no callback offered.
I was prepared with flight numbers, airports and times. The call was answered and I could hardly her the tiny voice on the other end. Asked where she was, "Fiji" she responded. Hy heart sank. Anyway, this was so simple a request that I pushed on.
It took 5 attempts to get the 4 sector itinerary correctly confirmed, each time conducted at a glacial pace. She clearly had no idea what the difference was between 13:10 and 3:10pm. I continuously corrected her to make sure it was a 13:10 departure and NOT a 3:10pm departure.
She went off to "enter the booking into the system". 12 minutes later she returned.
Of course, the itinerary read back bore little resemblance to the one confirmed earlier, her response, "sorry, I didn't remember that!" REMEMBER!!! WHAT??
Anyway, we did that twice before she confirmed the price plus a $45 assisted booking fee. I reminded her that as I can't book an EXST online and MUST use the call centre that there is no assisted booking fee. She agreed.
I then confirmed that the quoted price was for both the passenger and the EXST, twice. She confirmed that to be the case, twice.
I supplied credit card details and was told that the booking would be ticketed "within 24 hours". I felt a sense of relief as we moved onto my second issue being another call centre made booking made in July which was paid and confirmed but not yet ticketed despite this being my 4th attempt at getting the booking ticketed.
Anyway, while she was investigating, the just purchased ticket arrived in my inbox. I checked it immediately, then went to manage the booking to assign seats and immediately noticed that the blocked out seat, the EXST, was not showing next to the passenger.
So, when she returned to tell me that she would need to call me back on my other question, I asked her why the EXST was not showing in the ticketed booking.
On hold again and another 21 minutes later she returned to say that "it looks like the system did not ticket the EXST". "But I confirmed it 4 times", I said. "You also waived the assisted booking fee because I can't book an EXST online."
The usual, sorry, sorry, sorry followed by the piece de resistance. "We will need to cancel the booking and start over again and we will refund the payment made by Friday of next week.
Having been on the phone for, now, over 2 hours, just to find out that the entire experience had been a total waste of time, I did not feel myself being of an agreeable disposition to doing this all again. I respectfully declined her invitation.
The other booking, un-ticketed since payment on 26 July, for which I was promised a callback "when the problem had been identified" has, as of the time of writing, noon, Monday, not yet generated any callback. I have zero expectation that it will.
You know, there was a time when booking travel was an exciting, thrilling, inspiring experience, looked forward to and enjoyed. The tete-a-tete with competent, understandable, knowledgeable agents made the first (and arguably most important) phase of booking travel, I would go so far as to say, inspiring. These new call centres have turned booking travel into a loathsome, stressful, time wasting, unpleasant experience fraught with all manner of worries, risks and pitfalls. I find myself concerned that I will end my call centre interaction in a far worse position than I was in at the start. The voice on the end of the phone is clearly disinterested, distracted, knowledge-less, vacuous and the overwhelming impression you get is of someone just passing the time to get paid. On Saturday, I was left with the feeling that I had just had a frustrating conversation with a bag of feathers.
Further, QANTAS invested, what, $150 in time, systems, training etc over that, more than 2 hour, interaction and ended up failing to sell the $1,400 of tickets that I called to purchase because of blind incompetence.
I think that the $2 billion loss last year may just be the beginning!
Last edited:
