Are you sure you want to book online?

Over the last month, I have listened to my colleague practically screaming in frustration to an unnamed online booking company. This is a grown, professional woman I am talking about, being forced to use small words and explain things to this representative on the phone in grammar school terms. I wasn't even on the phone and I was almost as frustrated as her.

Here is the story.

The company I work for does not specialize in cheap airfare pricing. Just like everyone else, we have to search for hours to find our clients the best possible airfare price. It just so happens my colleague found it online at this unnamed online booking company and she booked it for her client. Since that time, she has spent countless hours trying to fix their errors. Not knowing the whole story, I will tell you just what I know for sure.

It does happen; the flight changed. My colleague was notified that there was an urgent matter with her purchase and to please call unnamed company immediately. When she called she was passed around to different representatives that had no clue what she was talking about. After hours of trying to figure out what was going on, the call was disconnected. This happened over the course of a week a couple times. The last time was horrible. She was on the phone for 3 hours trying to figure out what the deal was. Now it ended up that a change had to be made, it totally messed with the already confirmed itinerary of the client, and even more changes needed to be made. Again, this happens. But the customer service and difficulty of getting this fixed was absolutely unacceptable. My colleague spoke with so many people who made promises to call back, email back, and they did not follow through. There were email addresses given to a general mail box that everyone at the unnamed company gets but no one replies to. She spoke with several supervisors and managers who refused to take responsibility or be held accountable for the lack of service provided by their representatives. Just terrible.

Now this was just one booking, of one airline ticket. Imagine if this was a full trip. What would you do? Would you give up after 5 hours on the phone and just go buy another ticket? How much time do you want to put into planning a vacation?

I ask these questions because it is so important for people to think about just what goes into planning a vacation. Hopefully nothing will go wrong, but if it does, who do you call?

My clients know that if anything is just slightly off, they can call me directly at my home office, or at the corporate office. They can email me and expect a reply within 24 hours maximum. And get this.... they know they are getting me. It's not just a shot in the dark to see if someone can help them properly. They get me, everytime. If I can't fix it, I will make sure somebody can. THIS is how travel planning should work.

So please, the next time you are looking online to book a hotel, airline tickets or anything else, please make sure that you can contact someone directly and immediately should a problem arise. You may also want to make sure that the company is willing to be held accountable when they make a mistake. Without doing this, you can cost yourself thousands of dollars..... frankly, I would rather spend that on vacation clothes ;)