I am in the midst of planning my holiday abroad and have been booking hotel rooms, buying advance fares for trains - the usual things one would do when travelling.
There were a few instances when I thought - this would NEVER happen in Malaysia - especially when it comes to their customer service.
I had booked a room at a hotel a few weeks ago for a certain rate, after being assured that this was the 21-day advance super saver what not. Recently, for lack of something better to do, I dropped by and made a mock booking at this same hotel chain and was surprised that the advance rate has dropped by about 25%!
Of course, I understood that hotels have the right to set the rates according to the projected occupancy but I personally thought that it was unfair to me as I had done my booking well in advance. I would have understood if they said there was nothing they could do but I thought there was nothing I could lose in asking.
So I did - I emailed the manager and asked if they would consider giving me the cheaper rate as I had booked so much earlier. Afterall, if I had known this would happen, I would have left all the room bookings till much later. The reply came about a week later and he actually gave me the cheaper room rate!
The next instance concerned train travel - I had bought advance fares for travel from Liverpool to York but then discovered that we would have to delay the trip for a few hours. The website states that no refund can be given for advance tickets but for a fee, one may change the date and time. What they would do is give you a refund for the old tickets after you had purchased the new tickets. The two ways that you would be able to do this was by calling the help line or turning up at the train station.
Now, these websites usually would have chat lines for people to ask questions in real time. I immediately contacted one of the officers and asked whether I would be able to do this via the online chat?
She then rattled on about how this can be done by phone yada yada yada - and I was telling her that the cost of a phonecall would probably not make it worth my while and if I leave it till when I am in the UK, there wouldn't be any cheap advance fares left so I might as well forget about getting some money back and just purchase a fresh set of tickets.
She duly agreed and I was about to disconnect and was saying thank you when she suddenly said, However, as a gesture of goodwill - if you can purchase your new tickets and give me the reference number for this new trip, I would be able to put in a request for a refund for your old ticket.
I was speechless with shock for about 2 minutes not believing my good luck and proceeded to do as she had suggested. She even waited online as I completed the transaction. So instead of losing GBP33 and spending a further GBP27 for the new tickets, I managed to get a refund of GBP13, making the cost of my two new tickets only GBP14. On top of that, she said I would be able to get my money back by the end of this month.
I am still waiting for my airport tax refund from a certain airline after 5 months of emailing back and forth.
So how about that?
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