travelselect.com

...bit skewed!

Travelselect.com are a big, popular, well known online travel agent. As part of lastminute.com, their website boasts awards for service and they are even listed as as a British Airways "preferred partner". Their site is easy to navigate and search, and the prices that came up for two round trip tickets to Florida in January were the best I'd found anywhere.

So I didn't hesitate in making a reservation ...
...London Gatwick-Tampa, departing on 31 December and coming back about ten days later. I was pleased to receive an immediate confirmation e-mail. Among other things, the e-mail gave all my details, itinerary and indicated that the booking was to be checked before billing by a member of the Travel Select team.

I didn't worry too much when my credit card was billed. My only slight concern was that they said they aim to post the tickets ... more

Online travel agents have, for the most part, been a great asset to me- I prefer the convenience and ease of booking online, I like being to able run my own searches, and up til now, I always received great service and everything has gone smoothly. Well, it just goes to show you when things go wrong with travel agents, they tend to go wrong in a big way. I usually try to write balanced Ciao opinions, but this episode has been such a disaster I hope I can be forgiven if it becomes a bit skewed!

Travelselect.com are a big, popular, well known online travel agent. As part of lastminute.com, their website boasts awards for service and they are even listed as as a British Airways "preferred partner". Their site is easy to navigate and search, and the prices that came up for two round trip tickets to Florida in January were the best I'd found anywhere.

So I didn't hesitate in making a reservation with Travel Select for British Airways flights from Glasgow- London Gatwick-Tampa, departing on 31 December and coming back about ten days later. I was pleased to receive an immediate confirmation e-mail. Among other things, the e-mail gave all my details, itinerary and indicated that the booking was to be checked before billing by a member of the Travel Select team.

I didn't worry too much when my credit card was billed. My only slight concern was that they said they aim to post the tickets out anywhere from three to seven days before travel. Uh-oh, thought I, it's the Christmas hols. Will the post make it? However, I put it out of mind, as they advised that in case of any problems, ie not getting my tickets, I could simply phone their office.

As of Saturday 28 December 2002, I had not received any tickets from Travel Select, nor had I had any further communication whatsoever. As it was now less than 72 hours until departure, and as directed by the confirmation e-mail, I attempted to phone the Travel Select office.

Welcome to the telephonic abyss! Muzak hell!

I was repeatedly placed on hold, and then would be disconnected after about twenty minutes. Over and over and over again. I spent over three hours trying to get through without success. I also e-mailed to the address in the confirmation e-mail, and this was returned as being an invalid e-mail address!!! In despair of reaching anyone, I finally tried another address from the original booking. My heart leapt when I saw a response and sank again when I read the automated response indicating it would be “some time” before anyone was able to deal with my query. I didn't have some time! I had less than 72 hours!

Now becoming frantic and weepy, I phoned British Airways directly to ascertain whether they had any record of our Travel Select reservation. A lovely British Airways agent named Claire indicated that according to their computer, the Travel Select flights had been paid for, but that it appeared we had not been ticketed. She also advised there was a deadline flag on the reservation- in other words, the reservation was due to be canceled by British Airways if not ticketed by Travel Select by the end of that day.

Claire also tried for over an hour to get through to the Travel Select office without success. She was concerned that we were about to lose our Travel Select booking because the tickets had not been issued properly. In the end, I followed her suggestion that we reserve and pay for a (more expensive) separate set of British Airways tickets in case Travel Select did not ticket us in time.

The next day, Sunday 29 December I finally managed to get through to Travel Select. The Travel Select representative indifferently explained that they had been "very busy" the day before. Oh, and they had not been able to send out tickets in the post over the Christmas period, but that I should simply collect my tickets at the check-in desk in Glasgow, and she assured me this was “all arranged” at no extra charge. What about the deadline flag on the BA computer, I demanded. Oh, no worry, says she, it's all arranged. She confirmed the original booking was still in their computer under the booking number as given in the confirmation e-mail.

I left my home in Edinburgh on 29 December (Sunday night) to travel to Glasgow in advance of my trip, and received no further communication from Travel Select by e-mail. And despite the half hearted reassurances of Travel Select, we arrived at Glasgow airport at 6.30 am on 31 December, where we discovered that BA only had one set of reservations in the computer- namely the alternate tickets as arranged by the British Airways sales agent Claire!

There was no record of the Travel Select reservation or ticket number. There was nothing else we could do, as the TS office didn't even open until 9am. So, we flew to London using the tickets as booked direct with British Airways.

Upon arrival at London Gatwick, I immediately phoned the Travel Select office as soon as they opened. I spoke with an agent who informed me that they had no record whatsoever of any booking under our names on a British Airways flight, and that their computer indicated that the only booking they had for us was a KLM flight to Amsterdam-Detroit-Tampa departing on 31 December. I informed him this was incorrect, that we had never received our British Airways tickets as booked, and that there were no tickets for the said booking available upon our arrival at the check-in desk in Glasgow. He was not able to provide any further information as to what happened to our original booking. I fear I may have displayed less than the holiday spirit at this revelation, and made a few, um, terse comments.

I returned to Edinburgh yesterday after a trip fraught with a number of other hassles, and why look, two messages left on my answering machine from Travel Select regarding the booking. It appears that lo and behold, the Travel Select booking was indeed lost because it was not ticketed in time. But don't worry, they told me on the messages, we have arranged for you to go on another airline. At no extra cost, isn't that big of them.

Mmm, somehow I was supposed to be able to re-arrange all my travel plans to accommodate this helpful re- booking on KLM, a flight which I might add went by an incredibly circuitous route via Amsterdam and Detroit. I don't want to fly to Amsterdam and Detroit to get to Florida- this is why I made a booking for a British Airways flight in the first place!!! Apart from the considerable inconvenience this would have caused, it was not at clear how I was supposed to find out about the change apart from going to the British Airways desk at 6.30 am for my original flight, where presumably I was to have been told I was supposed to be on a KLM flight leaving at 6.10 am.

Needless to say, I am now going into compensation overdrive. I want a refund, and compensation for the difference in price of the tickets from Travel Select. But mostly I want an apology for the totally incompetent handling of the reservation. I am still slightly bewildered how this supposedly reputable travel company managed to make such a hash of our reservation. I'd like to blame the holiday period when things often go pear-shaped, but surely one would expect them to be able to cope during such a busy travel time. I booked the tickets over 8 weeks in advance- was it too much to ask to get the tickets sent out a week before I was to travel? And, as an internet company, did it not occur to them to send me an e-mail to alert me there was a problem?

My verdict: great site, easy to book, great prices. But don't bother if you want to be assured of good customer service and actually being able to get the tickets for your reserved flights.
 

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