This is with reference to trip ID 1010048057. I am currently in Copenhagen (Denmark). On 4th October 2010, I booked an itinerary for to and fro journey from Copenhagen to Bhopal via Amsterdam & Delhi, between 4th dec and 25th Dec 2010. Total cost of the journey was 37, 396. This complete itinerary was available in the cleartrip.com website for booking as well, but to be on a safer side, I called and got this itinerary booked directly through cleartrip customer care on 4th Oct 2010. The customer care representative named Ravi, checked the itinerary, confirmed the availability of ticket and finally
Booked the ticket for me on phone. An amount equal to Rs.37, 396 instantly got debited from my credit card. But moments later, I was told by the same representative that the ticket booking got failed even though the amount got debited from my credit card.
When I asked to book an alternate Itinerary, I was told that they will not provide me with any alternative as there is a price difference. Moreover, When I asked to return my money instantly so that I could book another ticket from another booking website, I was told that they will not refund my money on same day as it is not in their policy. Customer care representative said that the CLEARTRIP policy is to refund the amount in 15-21 days approximately.
But since an amount equal to Rs.37, 396 got debited from my credit card, I was not even able to book another ticket myself due to shortage of credit in the credit card.
I called CLEARTRIP customer care several times on 4th and 5th Oct 2010 to sort the matter quickly. I spent over 1000 Rs. on ISD calls from Denmark but yet got to face the most pathetic Customer service ever :-
1. Cleartrip customer care do not make any ISD calls even though they provide international flight
ticket booking.
2. They do not make any ISD call but when I myself called them from Denmark through ISD, each time
they put my phone on hold and wasted nearly 30-40 mins with no quality information in return.
3. CLEARTRIP customer care center only operates between 7AM – 10PM IST unlike other booking
websites like MAKEMYTRIP.COM where the customer care is 24*7.
4. I got to speak with many different customer care representatives but none of them seemed to be
interested in solving the issue and every time they transferred the call to another department and
person. Twice the customer care people diconnected the call after keeping me on hold for almost
25 mins, another time they did not even answer back after keeping me on hold for more than 35
mins, and finally I had to drop the call as it was increasing my phone bill.
5. I got to speak with representatives named Ravi, Sajesh, Puneet (Senior person), Nikita
(International department), Sumeet, Jayesh (Customer handling department) and Rahila. Everytime
I was told at the end of the call that some senior person from CLEARTRIP will make a special ISD
call to talk to me in next 30 mins , but amazingly not even once out of the several instances I got a
call back from any CLEARTRIP personnel.
6. I was also ready to adjust my travel dates and time to a certain extent to get an alternative ticket, but
the customer care did not listen and were in no mood to provide any sort of assistance to sort the
matter.
7. I called them on all of the present CLEARTRIP customer care phone numbers which are
02241554914, 02241554915 and 02241300300. The wait time to connect to and speak with a
representative was pretty high.
I called them last on 5th Oct 2010 evening and it was told to me by CLEARTRIP refund dept. that I would get my refund latest by 7th OCT 2010 Morning. But its already 13th Oct 2010 and I am yet to receive my refund.
Now I can’t understand who has given rights to CLEARTRIP to keep my money for 15 days when they are not providing me any service. Especially when it was a mistake or error of CLEARTRIP and not mine, as I did not cancel the ticket , but their system could not book a ticket for me, Cleartrip should bear the expenses due to delay and not me.
There should be a policy to immediately refund the amount in cases where there is fault of CLEARTRIP.COM in booking tickets, moreover why should the customer bear the price difference if
the price of the alternate ticket increases by the time CLEARTRIP refunds the amount in 15 days as per their current policy.
This is height of Unprofessionalism from CLEARTRIP.COM. I am a frequent traveler, but I have never encountered this sort of customer service from any travel booking website before.
The worst part is that the same failed itinerary from Copenhagen to Bhopal is present in the CLEARTRIP.COM even today i.e. 13th Oct 2010 even after many reminders about the same. This gives very serious doubts about the IT support capabilities of CLEARTRIP.COM and could make many other people like me face similar problem.
I would strongly recommend MAKEMYTRIP.COM for international booking. I had a very similar problem with MAKEMYTRIP too in the month of MAY 2010 when I booked a to & fro itinerary from Copenhagen(Denmark) to Toronto (Canada) and booking failed but the amount got debited from my credit card. I called their customer care only once and explained the issue, within 2 hrs they called me back and provided an alternate itinerary for exact same dates of travel and also
did not ask for the fare difference even though the new itinerary was more expensive. MAKEMYTRIP customer care is 24*7 and they also do make ISD calls.On top of all MAKEMYTRIP.COM makes you feel that they value their customers.