1 Week Out - Please Check Your Flights

[beansf]

I know it has been said before, but I really want to repeat it.

We leave for Australia in one week from today. I went to my United frequent flyer account just to view my itinerary and lo and behold...my connecting flight from Sydney to Cairns (where the tour starts) had disappeared. I have already received the paper tickets for this flight. I was confused because I had a printout from July showing this connecting flight (which is operated by Virgin Blue). So, I called United. They informed me that Virgin had cancelled this flight. I told them I was shocked and a bit upset that no one had bothered to tell me. They said it was the travel agency's (ABD's) place to do that. I guess I can see that. Anyway, I hadn't heard squat from ABD.

So, United rebooked me on Qantas. Disaster averted. However, since I already have paper tickets, I now have to make a special trip out to the airport in the next 72 hours to get my tickets updated or I will lose my spots on the Qantas flight. This is not a convenient or particularly fun task for me.

I called ABD to tell them. They said they would look into why no one had told me about the cancelled flight. However, they seemed more concerned about fixing things for other people who may have also been booked on this flight.


I am left wondering what I paid ABD for when it appears that I am again acting as my own travel agent. If ABD does have other people on this flight, I think ABD owes me a debt of gratitude and at the very least, I think I deserve an apology that they didn't catch this. Imagine...we could have been stranded in Sydney holding paper tickets to a cancelled flight while our $11,000 vacation started without us.

The moral of this story: even though you have paid someone else to do the work for you, remember no one cares about your vacation as much as you do and no one will look out for you with quite the same fervor as you will. Please double-check your flights!

 

[beansf]

Everything is seeming much better today. I now feel most of the blame for the stress is due to United. Anyway, the Air Operations dept. of ABD worked hard to resolve my problems and I appreciate it! Hopefully, that will be our only bump in the road.

 

[redzinner]

Everything is seeming much better today. I now feel most of the blame for the stress is due to United. Anyway, the Air Operations dept. of ABD worked hard to resolve my problems and I appreciate it! Hopefully, that will be our only bump in the road.

I'm happy to hear everything is working out for your travel. It's not a good idea to start out on a sour note. Here's to a happy trip! Cheers!

 

[rkdahl]

If ABD does have other people on this flight, I think ABD owes me a debt of gratitude and at the very least, I think I deserve an apology that they didn't catch this. Imagine...we could have been stranded in Sydney holding paper tickets to a cancelled flight while our $11,000 vacation started without us.

The moral of this story: even though you have paid someone else to do the work for you, remember no one cares about your vacation as much as you do and no one will look out for you with quite the same fervor as you will. Please double-check your flights!

Beansf,
You are absolutely right about that. I check my flights almost daily a few weeks before a big trip. Things change often and it's MUCH better to deal with it before a trip than during it.

I also wondered about your apology comment. I have yet to get any ABD apology for cancelling our Australia trip the week after yours. Other than the phone call with the bad news I have received nothing. I would expect to get some sort of letter apologizing for the trip cancellation.

Have a wonderful trip!! Wish we were following you!!

 

[beansf]

rkdahl,

ABD did apologize to me today for any inconvenience and it made a huge difference to me. It makes it so much easier to handle. I realize "stuff" happens and I think oftentimes the apology is overlooked in customer service. Earlier this month, I was overcharged by $150 at a hair salon (I'll be paying cash from now on) and no one ever said, "Sorry about that." I noticed it on my credit card statement and they admitted it was a mistake and fixed it, but no apology.

I do wish you would have gotten an apology from them on your trip cancellation. Having that rug pulled out from underneath you was terrible. I know they couldn't really help it if the trip didn't get enough participants, but geez...they should know how incredibly disappointing the situation was for you.

 

[eva]

Sorry to hear about your canceled flight. And I'm glad that it is being taken care of. Don't be too quick to blame ABD. It may be their fault or it could be the airline. We booked our own flights through Delta for our Viva Italia trip and our flight from Peoria to Atlanta was canceled a few weeks out and no one from the airline ever called us. Thank goodness I was checking things every so often and found the cancelation just a couple weeks out. Good thing I did too, because the only flight that worked for us then was going out the day before. We had to leave a day early and stay in Atlanta overnight to catch our flight to Italy. We would have been at least a day late for our trip if we had just shown up at the original time. So maybe United dropped the ball here and just decided to blame ABD. I know that Delta's excused was that we were on a call list but it was taking time to notify everyone for all the canceled flights. I still wonder if we would have gotten a call the day before or even at all.

 

[beansf]

Well, United said that it was the tour company's responsibility to notify us of the cancellation. I was surprised that they didn't, but it is likely I noticed the change really soon after it happened. Plus, that flight was linked to my United frequent flyer account and United had my contact info. For them to keep the money for the cancelled flight and not feel like they had to do anything about it is ridiculus, to me. Plus, they pulled another fast one midway through this mess when they told me that they rebooked me on a flight arriving at 11:15AM and by the time I talked to ABD a couple of hours later, United had changed me to a flight arriving at 9:30 at night.

In the end, it is United that I am most irritated with. They don't have a record of good customer service with me, and this is just another example of it. Next time, I will spend a little more and fly another airline.

In any case, I am glad that disaster has apparently (hopefully).