"Beta can you book me and your aunt tickets to fly back to Delhi from Kolktta?" asked my uncle and I promptly replied, "Yes, of course"

This was on 26th June when I was in Kolkatta to attend the funeral of one of my other beloved Uncle.

A quick call to Yatra.com reaches me to Mansi, who is kind enough to call me back on my Uncle's cell number, when the call dropped in between. She handles the call so beautifully, that I am left with no option but to request to speak with her supervisor Gunjan, to give Mansi a compliment right in the middle of the funeral.

Only that while booking the ticket through my credit card on the IVR, the transaction fails once and I am left with no option but to part with my Credit Card and CVV number to Mansi, to enable her to key in these helself to process the payment.

All is well this far, before I call up Kingfisher airlines to confirm the PNR that Yatra has generated. Instead of my Uncle's cell number it is Yatra's cell number which is published by Kingfisher, and that is something that Gunjan confirmed to me on 14th July was the process. (I wonder if the flight would be delayed or postponed or cancelled, why a two step process needs to be followed, first Kingfisher sending an SMS to Yatra and then Yatra to my Uncle's cell Phone? )

Let me cut to the chase.

Two days later I call up Citibank, my credit card company to be informed to my utter amazement that my card has been charged twice over for the same ticket. Here starts the free fall of caling Yatra and Citibank.

"Sir, this has happenned due to a technical error nd we will be happy to rectify this" was Yatra.com's response. "The money will be credited to your Credit Card in 4 days"

So four daya later I call Citibank, the money is not there. And then I call up Yatra again and keep shuffling from one executive to another repeatedly requesting to speak with Gunjan the Team Leader whom I had passed my compliments to. But Gunjan as I learned today on 14 July was in a training program. And the usual which Gunjan in Yatra.com played its pranks on me too. (Faisal, does the Google Rao ring a bell ? :)

Finally it took this email to expedite matters....

So next time you book a ticket through yatra.com, be a conscious and aware consumer on wht you might be geting into.

RE: 'Citibank=007-818-039' Your Citi Bank Card # 55464

from Puneet Sachdeva

to kohinoor.khan@yatraonline.com

cc indiaservice@citicorp.com

date Fri, Jul 11, 2008 at 6:47 PM

Reply

Dear Kohinoor,

Reference your email to me with details as below.

From: Kohinoor Khan <kohinoor.khan@yatraonline.com>

To: puneetsachdeva

Subject: refund confirmation

Date: 08/07/2008 Time: 12:50:48 PM

My Credit Card Bankers Citibank have confirmed that refund has not been received till eod 11 July.

Their mail is appended below.

I am still awating a call from Gunjan, (Mansi's reporting supervisor to whom I gave a compliment at the time of making the booking, considering I was in the middle of a funeral of a very dear Uncle), something that I have requested for at least 4 times now.

Can I have the name and contact email address of the Head of Yatra as I would personally like to write to him / her and seek their perspective before I go to the media with this.

I look forward to a speedy response.

Citibank,

Thanks for a promt revert. Suraj the gentleman whom I spoke with is really efficient at his job and even took the trouble to outcall me back twice during our interaction today.

Best Regards,

Puneet Sachdeva

Sent from a Handheld Device

"Think before you Print"