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Travel Agency that owns up to cock up.
I booked two flights for Dragon*Con for me and my lovely girlfriend- because it was cheaper to do it that way, my flight out goes from Gatwick, but my return comes to Heathrow (about 50 miles apart, for the non-local)- it still hurt, but that's my vacation for 2012/2013.
My email confirmation landed, but it said "Class:First."
First Class. Holycrap.
It also had seat numbers allocated, so I know I'm not really in first class. Not unless they upgraded the whole plane. Not unless they install first class seating on the domestic US leg.
Being a good techie, I thought I better tell the agency, in case the error carries forward and screws something up, or to save grief if some EW decides to stand on their "upgrade."
So I called the local rate customer service line, and had a classic offshore call centre experience, where they couldn't find my "problem" on their script, so proceeded to reconfirm each and every detail of my flight, but didn't understand why I called. They suck.
I then decided to send a tweet, knowing that such things are usually monitored by a marketing droid, who cares about image and reputation, and would therefore be more likely to "get it."
They responded quickly, asking for the email to be sent on so they look at it. I duly forwarded the mail, and got a tweeted acknowledgement, plus a promise to investigate. As a cynic, my first thought was "yeah, right."
This is where they exceeded every expectation I had. A guy from the US-based customer service team called me at work, was exceedingly polite, thanked me for bringing it to their attention, and then proceeded to explain exactly what happened. In sufficient detail to be credible to me as a geek. He then told me he'd pursued it with the airline, to make sure they look into how the cockup occurred -it turns out airline/agency data interchange has a lookup table for cabin assignment, and somebody changed something.
He had also confirmed all my flights with the airline, so the cock up wouldn't affect me, and then said that as a full resolution, and with their thanks, he would refund the cost of one of the two tickets I had bought. This is a £450 ($700ish) refund. No quibble, no asking by me, offered out of the blue. He confirmed everything, including the refund, by email within 15 minutes of the phone call. W00t does not quite cover this.
Thank you for refunding one of my two tickets to Dragon*Con, Expedia. You, on this occasion, rock.
My email confirmation landed, but it said "Class:First."
First Class. Holycrap.
It also had seat numbers allocated, so I know I'm not really in first class. Not unless they upgraded the whole plane. Not unless they install first class seating on the domestic US leg.
Being a good techie, I thought I better tell the agency, in case the error carries forward and screws something up, or to save grief if some EW decides to stand on their "upgrade."
So I called the local rate customer service line, and had a classic offshore call centre experience, where they couldn't find my "problem" on their script, so proceeded to reconfirm each and every detail of my flight, but didn't understand why I called. They suck.
I then decided to send a tweet, knowing that such things are usually monitored by a marketing droid, who cares about image and reputation, and would therefore be more likely to "get it."
They responded quickly, asking for the email to be sent on so they look at it. I duly forwarded the mail, and got a tweeted acknowledgement, plus a promise to investigate. As a cynic, my first thought was "yeah, right."
This is where they exceeded every expectation I had. A guy from the US-based customer service team called me at work, was exceedingly polite, thanked me for bringing it to their attention, and then proceeded to explain exactly what happened. In sufficient detail to be credible to me as a geek. He then told me he'd pursued it with the airline, to make sure they look into how the cockup occurred -it turns out airline/agency data interchange has a lookup table for cabin assignment, and somebody changed something.
He had also confirmed all my flights with the airline, so the cock up wouldn't affect me, and then said that as a full resolution, and with their thanks, he would refund the cost of one of the two tickets I had bought. This is a £450 ($700ish) refund. No quibble, no asking by me, offered out of the blue. He confirmed everything, including the refund, by email within 15 minutes of the phone call. W00t does not quite cover this.
Thank you for refunding one of my two tickets to Dragon*Con, Expedia. You, on this occasion, rock.
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