So I posted last week that I booked around 15 flights for my vacation in September all in the matter of a mere 5 hours. I was quite impressed with myself, that was until this Sunday when I started transferring all my flights into my Google Calendar to help me plan.
Turns out that one of the flights I purchased for March 17th instead of September 17th!!!
I have no clue if it was the site’s fault or mine but regardless if I didn’t want to lose $217.30 CAD I would need to find myself in Budapest tomorrow! So on Sunday I phoned Alitalia to straighten out the mess… They didn’t answer. So I e-mailed them and waited until today… No reply. So today I picked up the phone. The first girl put me on hold and came back saying she could do nothing. I asked for the customer relations number. It was basically just for baggage issues. So I phoned back.
This time I got Anthony. Anthony questioned why I didn’t phone within my 24 hours to correct the problem and restated that it was too late to void the ticket. I explained that I booked 15 flights that night on various airlines and it wasn’t until the weekend I spotted the error. I also pointed out I tried to phone them and they didn’t answer. This still wasn’t good enough. I explained that it wasn’t like I was trying to pull a fast one on them. I am not even in Europe at the moment.
Finally I mentioned this website and that I still wasn’t satisfied with our outcome. It was at that moment I was give the option to pay a $94 change fee and have the ticket re-issued for September. I was pleased, met him half way and paid the $94.
So let this be a lesson for you all. Verify, verify, and verify your online purchases. Either that calendar switched on me, or I saw September when it said March. I can only imagine what would have happened if I didn’t notice till September. Budapest may have had a new resident.
It is after I hear stories like this that I am glad to be a paranoid freak with dates and times. I check, re-check and just to make sure it didn’t magically change, I check again. I remember flying home from Australia, I checked my plane ticket probably 50 times just in case a little elf got in my bag and changed the time on it. I guess missing my first college final exam because I had the time wrong has stuck with me over the years.
Glad they were finally able to help you out.
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Congrats that you found it, but I can’t help think about the Neil Adventures that would have happened if you hadn’t noticed…
maybe you would have found a ride on Kylie’s tour plane….
or maybe you would have joined a religious march across europe…
so many options that could have made one of your trademark adventures!
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admin Reply:
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Hahaha I especially like the religious march idea! I shall keep that in mind should I run into problems.
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For the life of me, I’ll never understand how airline companies get away with the things they get away with. Why is it such a big deal to change a flight? It shouldn’t be a big deal if the flight is not fully booked. This phony charge for changing a flight is robbery. Seems to me this should have ended up costing you less since it changed to September. Wouldn’t that be a lower rate?
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admin Reply:
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
I 100% agree with you of course! As for the lower price in September airlines like to keep costs higher till the last minute when they see the seats aren’t selling. Side note the flight also lands just before Oktoberfest…
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Yes double triple check! It happened to me in january. While i was partying at 5am i checked my flight on my phone to see if there were any delays n right there I realized booked it for the wrong time!!! I left the party by 5:30am went home to pack and was at the airport by 6:30 am for a 7am flight!!! not a good time. lol
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