Travelocity are usually pretty good with bookings and so I’ve used them for a few trips. I also use Deckchair and ATP (when I want weirdly cheaper routings via Amsterdam). I also had Trailfinders recommended to me last night by Clare because they’re apparently consistently cheaper for her. Worth a look. Anyway, Travelocity were used to book my flight to Amsterdam to connect with my return flight via here (for that cheaper routing) but late at night (because I had limited holiday available). Now that I’ve changed jobs and got a little more flexibility on that front, I wanted to get an earlier flight and have some time to wonder around Amsterdam in the afternoon. Their original reply went:
Dear Mr Masters,
Thank you for contacting travelocity.co.uk.
As per the airline fare rules, you will need to pay a change fee of 30
GBP/45 Euros to change your flight times (Trip id LLHGWD). Please let us
know if you wish to go ahead and change your flight as we do not have
availability of different flights on 12th Jul. Below are the different
times available to book your seat:LH/BD 6587 LONDON HEATHROW AMSTERDAM 1230 1445
LH/BD 6589 LONDON HEATHROW AMSTERDAM 1445 1655
LH/BD 6585 LONDON HEATHROW AMSTERDAM 1040 1300
LH/BD 6591 LONDON HEATHROW AMSTERDAM 1620 1840We look forward to hearing from you.
Then I asked about return flights, if I wanted to go back via Amsterdam. Obviously this represented a whole new flight in itself and I wasn’t sure it would be ok. They quite reasonably replied as follows:
Dear Mr Masters,
Thank you for contacting travelocity.co.uk.
Please be advised that you cannot add a return flight to your existing
booking. You will need to make a new reservation.Kindly call our Customer Service Center in the United Kingdom if you
wish to change your existing booking:Within the United Kingdom-
Telephone: 0870 111 7080
Fax: 0870 8766 555Outside the United Kingdom-
Telephone: +44 20 7852 5501
Fax: +44 20 7852 5533Monday through Friday, 9 am to 8 pm; Saturday 9:30 am to 5 pm and Sunday
10:30 am to 3:30 pm (Local UK time).
But they were at least willing to change the existing booking. Cool. I left this for a while until I recently decided I should get around to having the booking changed. I called up and got routed through to a random call centre somewhere. The person at the other end of the line told me, “I will surely get back to you”, but didn’t. They had said that changing the booking was impossible but would ask about it anyway. After about a week or so went by without any word from them, I decided to mail them again:
I tried calling to do this but was told that it’s not possible. You’ve
already told me that it /is/ possible and I’m sure that it is – could
someone at Travelocity please figure out why I’m being told I can’t do
this and tell me?I’d like a morning flight, just please go ahead and change this to the
10:40 flight and charge my credit card or whatever – it shouldn’t be too
hard to do this, I use you guys often enough. I’d like to think I don’t
have to switch to using Deckchair more often for this stuff.
Which was enough for them to sort this out immediately:
As per our request on the current request there was seat availability we
have changed your reservation to an earlier flight.Name of the passenger:
MASTERS/JONATHAN
Itinerary: LH6587W 12JUL LHRAMS 1230 1445
OPERATED BY BMI
So at least they can change the booking. I wish they would just pay/train their staff more at these places but then, you can’t go for the cheapest fare and expect to not have a little trouble with call centres in this modern day and age – we stopped caring about quality of service years ago. It was, then, nice to see that Travelocity could sort this out promptly and curtiously in the end to my satisfaction. Thanks guys.
Jon.