Aer Lingus Customer Service (or lack thereof)

Absolut

I'm just after getting off the phone (for the third time today) with possibly the most frustrating and arrogant customer service "supervisor" known to man.

Last November, I booked two flights with Aer Lingus from Dublin to Prague for this Sunday. About three weeks ago, one of the people travelling with me had some health trouble and was scheduled to go in for surgery last week. Since I wasnt sure at the time if he would be fit for travel, I called the customer service number and asked how much it would cost to change the date, destination, or name on the ticket (in the hope of either postponing the trip, travelling to a different destination later in the year, or getting other people to go in our place).

When I was told that the costs of the changes would be prohibitively high, I responded "Ok, so I'll just leave it as it is then, see how everything goes". In my mind that means "Don't do anything. Leave everything exactly as it is". But, apparently, it means "Cancel the flight and refund me 25% of what I paid". At least it does according to Aer Lingus. Of course, I only found this out when I called Aer Lingus today, looking to change the name on the flight - and I was informed that my booking was totally cancelled. Of course, I was less than happy.

I got through to a "supervisor", Eli. Who informed me that "Aer Lingus staff are highly trained - they don't make mistakes like that". After that gem of a response, I got talking to the person who cancelled the flight in the first place, who informed me "I didn't just pull a reference number out of nowhere - you must have given it to me and told me to cancel it". Obviously the Aer Lingus staff are indeed highly trained, with excellent communication skills. I asked for the log of the call to be reviewed, and to check if it had been recorded, which it conveniently wasn't.

So, right now, I'm out of pocket by about €150 for the initial flights. I have to try to cancel hotel bookings, airport transfers, not to mention the time off work I had taken. The advice I got from the customer service "supervisor" in the end - write a letter to the complaints department (since they don't have a phone number) and they "might consider" a partial refund - in the meantime, theyh asked if I would like to be transfered to the reservations department to book new flights (at a cost to me of approx. €400).

Needless to say, I'm less than happy with Aer Lingus at the minute. I'm just (relatively) glad I didn't end up going to the Airport on Sunday expecting to be going to Prague.

jimmycrackcorm

Small claims court TBH.

jimmy2shoes

small claims court online, asap. really.

TheDriver

don't they record all their calls for monitoring purposes?? If they are that "highly trained"??

Absolut

TheDriver wrote:

don't they record all their calls for monitoring purposes?? If they are that "highly trained"??

That's what I would have thought. I know a lot of the companies I deal with seem to record all their calls, or at least keep a detailed (and usually accurate) log of what was said during the call.

It would be interesting if somebody working in Aer Lingus can tell us that they do(n't) record all their calls.

What is really annoying me about this (apart from the whole ruined holiday thing) is the total ignorance and generally bad attitude of the supervisor I was talking to. I'm planning on preparing a letter tomorrow (seen as I won't be going to Prague) and sending it registered post Monday morning if I can find somebodys name and address relatively high up in the customer services department. And I'll look into the small claims court too - thanks for the suggestions.