There was a big promotion going on by Goibibo along with Citibank for a cash back on bookings. We have to enter a simple promocode ’citigo’ in the box provided. Then we have press the button calculate and a pop up box would show you the eligible amount. You then are supposed to pay the full amount and cash back would come by May 2014.
I booked a return flight from Indore to Ahmedabad on Friday night and the calculated cashback was shown at Rs. 1150. I proceeded to pay with my Citibank card. However, the payment gateway wouldn’t open and error ’404’ was coming. On retrying number of times it went through. I made sure that while I entered the payment details of my card, the promocode that I entered was still present in the designated box. Not only it was present, it was also greyed out and could not be deleted suggesting that it was embedded.
After making the full payment and booking the ticket I came to know that the cash back was not allowed!
I tried to call up their 24/7 helpline right away. The toll free number never works. I had to call STD on their other number and the girl on the other side told me to write an email to them about the problem. (Isn’t this strange? Is the 24/7 service only to sell products?)
They replied to the email informing me that the promocode wasn’t applied by me properly so you can forget any cash back.
I further insisted that there was no mistake by me and wrote to the senior management comprising of Sanjay Bhasin, Deepak Tuli and others. I made my point that I used the Citibank card expressly because I wanted the cash back. I have many other cards with me. Further I had immediately called up their helpdesk and if there was any problem they could have rectified it there and then. And there was no denying the fact that I was eligible for the cashback in principle. It was only a matter of rectifying their technical error.
No luck. They keep on repeating single mindedly that nothing can be done.
I asked them to either stick to their advertised offer or cancel the whole transaction.
No luck.
I am in contact with Citibank as well and I plan to raise a dispute with them regarding this transaction.
I am a busy medical professional but would pursue this matter in the interest of honesty and protection of other gullible customers.