Saturday, January 26, 2008

When 3 companies are involved, it can't be good

We use Air Miles. Between our Shell gas purchases, Safeway groceries and credit card purchases, we get the occasional free flight out of Air Miles.

This time around Darlene was getting things together for her upcoming flight and noticed that on the Air Canada web site it mentioned that you need your e-ticket receipt along with everything else to be able to check in to your flight. You can get your e-ticket receipt at the Air Miles web site, but when Darlene clicked the link, it didn't work. So she called Air Miles. First, she called the number on the web site, which is long distance to Toronto. After 45 minutes she hung up and had to search a long time before she found a toll free number for Air Miles. After calling that number, she waited at least another 45 minutes before an Air Miles CSR finally told her that the link to print off an e-ticket receipt has not worked in a long time and that the other company (Sabre Virtually There) had yet to fix it - so don't worry about it.

My point? If the airline you're flying asks that you have something and while trying to get that something it fails, and the reason for the failure is that the system is broken - maybe you should consider putting that fact somewhere on your web site. It might save some of your customers a couple of hours of waiting on the phone.....

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