Monday 12 January 2015

I will also be ranting about customer service


Alone in my mind, doubting my sanity, upset, close to tears (or blood boiling) dwelling on the events of the day and swearing blind it would never happen again......

That's where it all started.


This blog is tribute to all those who had fallen prey to bad customer care and moved on. To all of those brave souls that made a complaint to make sure that no one else had to suffer. To all the people who though ...wait a minute they can't control this, they shouldn't have to deal with me" and raised it to upper management. This is to all of those who rose and fell in the sea of 
BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE.



We will be raving (YAY) and ranting (BOO) about different customer experiences in Dubai (and maybe parts of the Middle East) so that you don't have to. If you have an experience to share, be it from the customer's side or the "other" side , please do! 

And so it begins....

@FlyDubai - Flight 666

Not so long ago I took a very short trip with my brother to Jordan, the land of :

"Eish Ya Zalemeh?"
 
I booked seats on Fly Dubai for myself and my brother through www.ClearTrip.ae (Which BTW is awesome) a month in advance of the trip. 

A week before the trip I printed our electronic tickets like the good little traveller that  I am.

Keep in mind we travelled on Thursday night, spent Friday in Jordan and had to fly back Saturday morning (Please don't ask why it just happened)



Thursday


On the day of the flight we got to Dubai airport three hours early, checked in at those weird checking in machines, picked our seats, printed out tickets. So far so good.

Then comes the BOOM.

That will be 470 Dirhams please.... Ummm wait a min WHAT?


Apparently (they don't bother to tell you this when you book, on your ticket , or that weird check in thingy) you're only allowed 7 KGS hand luggage on board and you have to pre-buy any extra weight.
The ironic thing is i came with hand luggage but Dad asked us to bring some stuff along in true Jordanian style (Oh your not over your luggage allowance? let me send some stuff along with you!)
 - God bless of course we will ! :)

Anyways, I pointed out that we weren't aware, the lady at the checkin counter , clearly used to people not knowing because Fly Dubai clearly doesn't commuicate it well enough, simply shrugged her shoulders and said I know it sucks I'm sorry but what can I do? 

She was so nice about it we didn't say anything and accepted to pay.

Of course to pay you have to go a counter at the other end of the airport , wait in line (to pay for something you don't think you should pay for) and then realise you don't have that kind of cash on you (BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO JORDAN PLEASE) and then have to go withdraw money, go back and pay :(


Day light robbery? Why yes please, one shovel-full please!


Anyways, we dutifully follow the carefully created maze past all the checkin points and xray machines and taking off shoes and avoiding all the perfume ladies threatning to spray you with the lastest thing and made it eventually (after a nice cup of Costa) to the boarding gate.

Fast forward , once we start boarding, so literally after they check your tickets again to make sure your going on to the right plane and when you step out of the airport and as soon as I put my foot on to the bus (you know that one that takes you to the plane) this insane woman starts screaming "MISS! MISS! MISS! MISS!" I tuned around to see what the fuss what about and it turns out the lady was calling me!!!

Apparently the handluggage that i bought from the hand luggage section of the store, that i double checked fits their hand luggage dimentions on the site (i checked before i travelled really) that they allowed me to take on as handluggage at the checkin counter , is now apparently TOO BIG to take onto the plane!

"Um excuse me but i don't mean to point out the obvious but you let me take this on", "Yes but the pilot made a mistake and we have to take the hand luggage because it won't fit on the plane"

Is she seriously blaming this on the pilot? Like he controls the size of the cabins in the plane that hold the hand luggage? Like he's in charge of putting the dimensions on the tickets? Seriously?

"Sorry I purposely package handluggage so that I could bring it with me on the plane" - "Oh don't worry" she says "you won't get charged" WHAT THE BLEEP! I can't believe she said that, i mean i know im flying economy but that is NOT why i don't want to do her bidding!!! My brother eventually forced me to give the hand luggage up (They let him keep his no wonder he didn't mind) and away we go

Me fighting over my hand luggage

Get on the plane and off to Jordan - (I must add the air stewardess was very nice)

Friday

(the day before we fly again) we thought to ourselves "Well if the service was THAT bad we might as well purchase the extra baggage allowance on the way back just to be safe".

Two words:

Big. Mistake.

If you think their ground staff were bad then there telephone staff are even worse. OMG the pillava we had to go through and in the end didn't even get the service we wanted!

First of all, we waited for 30 mins on the phone on a long distance phone call. Second of all, apparently you can't pay it on line, and you can't pay it over the phone. You have to go the Ansari Exchange (IN THE UAE) to do it.

So after making a few desperate phone calls, my brother gets one of his friends to go make the payment. When he gets there they tell him that the FLIGHT HAS BEEN CANCELLED.

Angry Freaking Out animated GIF

So another 30 minute hold later, we finally get in touch with them and (i don't know how i did it ) but calmly explained the situation - only to have the lady on the other end say "So you want the extra baggage allowance?"

NO. NO I don't want it now. - But brother now insists. Anyways it doesn't work we fight and drop the topic with me saying "look, ill just pay the extra it's really not worth all of this - at least they've confirmed the flight"

I did make sure however to email them my complaint.

Saturday


Off to the airport, three hours before , with only our "hand luggage" head to the check in - hand luggage granted  only for the guy at the desk to say.

"Your names aren't on the system - Go talk to that guy"

WHAAAAAAAT

Beaker Confused animated GIF

You can image the state I was in by then.

Turns out they placed the "order" for the extra weight allowance and if we don't pay then we can't fly.
WHY DON'T THEY MENTION THIS STUFF WHYYYY. I decided at this stage that I had to leave before I caused a scene. We paid , got the tickets and went through to find the gate. In this time however, I made sure to lodge my complaint on Twitter as well.












They didn't even reply

Here come the good guys - they are the only ones who replied and it wasn't even to do with them. But I love them more for it:

So there you go, that's the experience. 
What are your thoughts? what was your experience like with Fly Dubai?