May 16, 2005

Travelocity
11603 Crosswinds Way
Suite 125
San Antonio, Tx 78233

Attn: Manager of Customer Services

Re: Travelocity ID#: 747670757878

Dear Sir/Madam:
I am writing to let you know that I have had what I consider an extremely upsetting experience in using your travel services and I would appreciate a response to my questions at the end of this letter.

My traveling partner and I planned on visiting Costa Rica for some time now and we had been watching airfare prices for the past several months. We had discovered a good rate from DFW to SJO and, even though we live in Austin, we didn’t mind the drive up to Dallas since we had friends we could stay with before and after our flight.

We booked our travel on Travelocity on March 3, 2005 and received our paper tickets about one week later in the mail. We occasionally checked our Travelocity ID number (online) to be sure everything was ‘ok’, which it was.

On April 25 we received an email from Travelocity indicating there was a change to our tickets (made by the airline). We checked online and the change was a one minute difference. About 30 minutes later we received another email from Travelocity telling us we have been issued tickets and we’d be receiving them via FedEx or Priority mail. Several days went by and we never received new tickets so we called Travelocity on May 4 th, and we gave the agent our ID number. He verified everything for us saying we would not be receiving new paper tickets despite what the email stated.

Here is where the problem began. On the day before our trip, May 6 th around 6pm, I went online once more to verify everything was ok. When I entered the trip ID number I received a message in red stating “Your reservation is no longer active or has been cancelled”. I immediately called the number listed in the message and got through to a Travelocity agent. I explained the situation to them including all the emails and phone calls between us and Travelocity and we had no clue why as of 3 days prior our travel ID number was ok and now it shows cancelled. The agent “Angela” had me on hold for literally 45 minutes before she finally came back on and told me that she was unable to get in touch with a supervisor. She suggested I called back in 30 minutes and try again. My traveling partner and I were absolutely frantic now. We were supposed to be doing last minute things, running errands, and making final ‘trip’ arrangements but now we didn’t even know if we were going on a trip! I tried to get “Angela” to escalate this any way possible instead of us having to call back and I didn’t want to have to go through this explanation (again) to a new agent if I did call back. She assured me that she would put enough notes in the system to let the next agent know what was going on.

I called Travelocity back at 7:15pm and spoke to a new agent, “John”. I asked him to review the notes that “Angela” had left. He then asked me how he could help me!? I felt that if the notes were that poor that he had to ask me then I’d have to re-explain the entire story again, which I did. John tried to then get to a supervisor or someone at the airline that marketed this flight (Taca ?). This process again literally took 45 minutes of hold time and when he finally got the other airline in the same call he (“John”) left the line!!! I was now on the line with a Taca representative who had NO IDEA why I was talking to him. I explained the same story again and this agent apologized but said there was nothing he could do on his end. He asked if he could check another date to fly! By this time I was furious that I was getting the run-around and it was 8:30 with no help in sight and I had not gained any headway in the last 2.5 hours.

I called back to Travelocity around 8:45pm and spoke to “Irvin”. Again, the notes were not good enough for him so I am now explaining my story for the 4 th person. I was very upset and insisted that he not put me on hold for more than 1-2 minutes. He promised me that he’d be back on the line in 1-2 minutes but it literally took another 45 minutes before he came back onto the line again only to tell me that all Travelocity could figure out was that the airline made a one minute schedule change and they were responsible for canceling our reservation. Of course I tried to press for more details and information but “Irvin” could not tell me anything more. Irvin suggested that we could purchase a different ticket but the fare would be around $500 more!!!!
I insisted on speaking to a supervisor at Travelocity at this time. A few moments later “Harry” (a female supervisor) came on the line. She read my notes but I had to explain my story again since the notes were proving to be useless to any Travelocity agent. “Harry” asked me what she could do for me and I insisted, as I did with all the agents before, that they “fix” whatever problem happened and put us on our original flight with our original seats. “Harry” and I were on the phone for another 60+ minutes and all she could do was to tell me that our flight was cancelled by the airline. She could answer none of the obvious questions I had and she could not “fix” this problem.

It was now going on 10:30pm. My travel partner had an idea to contact American Airlines on another phone line, which he did. He explained our situation to them and they asked for his airline ticket number. They were able to confirm that we were definitely still booked on them and that, indeed, there really was NO problem. They were able to figure out that there was a one minute schedule change and there was a “second reservation” made and there was a “timeout” with that reservation. We don’t know what all of that means but the AA agent (Amy) reassured us that we were ticketed and we were confirmed for that flight! My travel partner explained that I was still on hold with Travelocity and she advised that we just hang up the line since we’ve been having such a difficult time with Travelocity.

I didn’t hang up with “Harry” because now I was afraid that somehow Travelocity would somehow really mess up our confirmed reservation so I waited another 20 minutes for her to come back to the line. I explained what we had done on our end and asked here why couldn’t Travelocity have done this on their end??? I had spent the last 5 ½ hours on the phone various agents and a supervisor from Travelocity and the problem was resolved because of something we figured out to do!

This entire fiasco should have NEVER happened.

Following are my comments and questions I would like answered in full. Of course this letter does not convey the range of emotions we experienced 24 hours prior to our trip. I have had a good trip and time to reflect on what has happened and to collect my thoughts on how I would like to handle this when I returned back.

Comments:

1. My experience in dealing with your travel agents was absolutely terrible. Each agent was obviously from India and in most cases very difficult to understand. I had to ask many times for something to be repeated or spelled to understand. The cultural difference under these stressful situations are very difficult to deal with since the agent is unlikely to have experienced similar situations and cannot relate to me the way an American agent could. In situations like this there should be an AMERICAN person that can be dealt with. This experience has given me reason to only want to do direct business with those companies to do not outsource to other countries.

2. Travelocity was supposed to be our “travel agency” who looks out for our best interests. Instead, your company was the reason for a great deal of stress, frustration and starting a trip off in a very negative light. I still get upset thinking about what Travelocity put us through.

3. Travelocity never gave us a reason to believe that they were going to take care of us. Each phone conversation was “new” to the agent. Each agent appeared to be reading from a ‘script’ or following some type of “response” cards. I never once heard an agent even imply in any way that we weren’t at fault and Travelocity was going to “fix” this, whatever it took.

Questions:

1. If our trip really was cancelled, for whatever reason, then why weren’t we notified especially since I had a conversation with an agent 3 days prior that used my trip ID number to look up our trip??
2. Why were my traveling partner and I able to ‘fix’ this in one quick phone call by calling American direct and finding out that we really were on the flight?
3. Why did I have to spend a total of 5 ½ hours on the phone less than 24 hours before my planned trip with Travelocity? What were the agents doing in the background? Was I simply on hold so the agents could talk to other customers?
4. Why doesn’t Travelocity have the ability to “fix” this problem? The agents could see the trip was “canceled” and they said it was done by the airline and they knew we were in a total panic 24 hours before our flight. Why wasn’t Travelocity there for us?
5. Why was “Irvin” trying to ‘up sell’ us on another flight?? That was totally upsetting. He should have been focusing on fixing our problem.
6. In these stressful situations why doesn’t Travelocity have someone a customer can talk to and relate to? When I explained to the last agent that I spoke to that she chose a man’s name (and spelling) as her “American” name, she was surprised. She, as a ‘supervisor’ was as unhelpful as the prior agents. If she can’t even choose an appropriate American female name how can I expect that she will be able to relate to my problem and come through for me as my travel agent?

My experience with your company was the most upsetting travel experience I have ever encountered. You might say that all’s well that end’s well because I did get to go on my trip but that cliché doesn’t apply here. We are still very upset at this experience and I expect a phone call or a written response to the questions I have asked.

Travelocity's response to this letter:

Travelocity did email me about two weeks later and recognized there was a problem and apologized for it. Although they did not answer my questions point by point they did issue us a full credit for one of our airline tickets. The email we received was personally written and didn't appear to be a 'form' letter so we felt that Travelocity really did try to make things right with us and, for our part, we accept their apoligy and appreciate the refund.