The old runaround
While I sit here on hold, allow me to vent a bit. I had to cancel a trip last spring, so I notified the travel agency I booked the flight through that I had to cancel. They said I could use the credit toward another trip within a year, no problem. Just call the airline and give them the ticket number and you’re good to go.
So, now I’m trying to do just that. I called the airline, and found out that the travel agency didn’t cancel my ticket, so it isn’t any good after all, but the airline can work with me on it. The airline agent I spoke with said she just had to explain the situation to a supervisor and they’d sign off on it. Which she did, then made the new reservation and applied the credit to it. But–she couldn’t book it because it had to run through the agency because of the IATA number.
OK, so I call the agency, and they can’t find any sign of the original ticket. I gave him the ticket number, the locator number, the dates, etc., etc., and eventually he admitted that the original flight did exist but, because I didn’t cancel it (I did, they didn’t), it was worthless. So I explained that I already went through all this with the airline, and they were all set, it just had to be booked through the agency. He said there was no way he could do that, that I had to go back to the airline and say they were no longer our agency (as of 1/1/07 they won’t be, and I’m not sad about that). I pointed out that they’re still stuck with me until Monday.
I finally got him to actually call the airline, and now they’re saying they don’t have anything about the ticket being signed off on in their records, and we’re back to square one because I didn’t get the name of the airline agent I got on the 800 number so I can prove I’m not making it all up. He’s also telling me that I should have documentation that I called the agency last spring to cancel the original flight. How I would do that I have no idea. *sigh*
Two hours later, I’m still on hold, but I don’t foresee this having a happy ending. I guess I could live with eating the $280, but the holiday Muzak the agency has on while I’m holding just may make me homicidal.
I feel better now. Thanks for listening.
December 27th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
Sometimes I think that’s the best part of blogging - a place to vent even if no one reads it.
By the way, situations like this drive me crazy. If just one person would take this problem and decide to handle it for you until it was solved, you would have been off hold and done 90 minutes ago. Getting hourly wage employees to take ownership is probably the hardest thing to do and not a single management book in the world I have read has the solution. Oh, and if any authors are reading this now, “Give them stock options” - doesn’t work - it’s simply not enough to motivate them.
December 27th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
Tough luck, Sue!
The captcha code for submitting my comment was “BLOW”. Looks like your blog commiserates with you. This does blow.
I had a canceled trip from last year as well, but I didn’t get to use that ticket after all.
December 28th, 2006 at 10:16 am
Thanks for the laugh, Jane! I needed that. The conclusion we finally got to was that the agency could “open an investigation,” which would take 30 days or so, and possibly result in me being able to use the ticket. Unfortunately, my trip will have come and gone by then, and I don’t have anything else coming up before it expires, so I’m SOL.
Funny how this came up right after I posted about the excellence in customer service contest, isn’t it?
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