bad online travel agent

i learned from my colleagues that i had to clear half of my annual leave by dec 17. such "unstated" policies are practices that are expected of employees so that the company do not end up with too many uncleared leave by the end of the fiscal year end-mar. and so, i decided to take a break overseas over the deepavali week. deepavali was on wednesday and i took leave on thursday and friday. this gave me a 5-day straight period where i could go on a holiday.

as usual, bee ended up not being able to go. this time round, it was because his passport had expired. and for me, i had wanted to leverage my staff travel benefits (i am still a travel nominee of an ex-colleague) and so i had to book my tickets as late as possible to ensure there are seats for me. things was a little tricky cos i couldn't really find a location that suits my holiday criteria: weather - it must be cool. and with this one single factor, my choice got a lot limited to locations in korea, japan, china and australia. had to look through all the different locations the airline fly to and finally zoomed in onto osaka, kyoto, seoul, melbourne, tasmania, nanjing, etc. thing was - the hotels across most were very expensive... anyway cut the long story short, there were so many limitations related to flight time, hotel cost, etc that i eventually decided to use an online travel portal that sells flight and hotel packages. by that time, it was already wednesday night and i had lost one day. and to maximise my overseas stay, i chose one where the flight out of singapore was on thursday morning. so, after looking through the different portals, i decided to book one on zuji.com. that was the start of my nightmare. 

after selecting the flight, hotels, etc and made my payment, the website advised me that my payment did not go through and that i had to call the agent. time check then was 7pm. that was what i did and after speaking with the agent for almost 45minutes and doing multiple checks, i was told i should call them in 2-hours to allow them to trace the issue. before i hang up, i asked for the airline pnr number, which i was given. i then headed out for dinner and to ensure things went ok, i called my bank who assured me that the payment went through. at 10-ish pm, i call the call center again and another call agent handled my call. this one was a little bitchy and after tracing the issue, told me that they have some issues with their support team cos the airline couldn't confirm the take off and that they will resolve the issue with the airline. having worked in an airline before, i knew this was pure bullshit, but i kept quiet about it. the call center agent insisted that despite "the airline issue", i should just trust them to resolve the issue and that they will call me at about 3-4am to advise if i should proceed to the airport. 

omg, i needed to wait for their call at 3am? my check in was supposed to be 5am and they will call me at 3-4am to confirm if my holiday plans are good to go? too risky wasn't it? anyway, i hung up the phone and called the airline myself and learned that the issue was that zuji couldn't get the payment done and thus the airline couldn't issue a ticket. and piecing the whole picture together, i learned that my bank had paid zuji but zuji couldn't get the payment through to the airline. i decided to just cancel my booking and do the full booking direct with the airline and the hotel myself. and so i called the call center. this final call made me blow my top. the call agent started off sounding hostile, and then went on to give all sorts of cock and bull story blaming the airline, the hotel, etc. i told her i was from the airline industry and knew every processes in it and that she should stop blaming the airline and providing all sorts of excuses. and when i insisted that i wanted to cancel my booking, she said the booking with the hotel has been finalised and that if i chose to cancel it, the hotel will charge me full and she would only refund me the air ticket. i tried to explain to her that my contract is with zuji and not the hotel and i have every right to cancel my contract with no liabilities because nothing was issued to me at all. anyway, i was pissed off when she refused to let me talk and kept going on and on about all their policies and guidelines and how i should not insist on this and that, etc. 

i totally hated it when people refused to let me talk and kept interjecting me even as i speak and tried to explain how i cannot accept their recommendations to call me at 3-4am. she interjected me non-stop and what totally pissed me off was she said something to the effect that i have myself to be blamed for booking a flight that departs the next morning. i totally lost myself when she said that as she continued to interject me until i raised my voice and told her to stop! stop talking! don't give me all these bullshit. if zuji thinks they cannot fulfil a booking that occurs the next morning, then zuji should jolly stop selling anything and not allow people to book. and since i was managed to book an itinerary, they should very well work towards delivering the service according to the contract! and she should stop blaming the airlines with excuses cos i was from the aviation industry and i know airlines will only stop accepting new bookings 4-hours out from flight time. so to tell me they will call me 3 hours before the departure is unacceptable! and as for her, should behave like a call center agent. i was a call center agent trainer and i know how call centers work and so stop giving me all the bullshit and talk to me respectfully like you would a customer as you are trained. and above all, don't put the blame on me when i had done my checks and the issue was one of zuji not being able to make the payment and not because the airline cannot take off! when she realized i knew inside out of the aviation industry and how call centers operate, her tone changed and she stopped giving me anymore excuses.

i told her i cannot accept this and i wanted to cancel my booking and demanded a full refund - hotel, flight and insurance. and this was where she tried to full a fast one again - i'm sorry, i can get my support team to do a refund of the flight but the hotel has been confirmed and you will be charged in full the hotel charges. damned, i went back to my firm tone again! hey, hey, i have signed a contract with zuji.com and i have not signed a contract with the hotel and the flight separately. i am cancelling my agreement with zuji.com and since nothing has been delivered, i am terminating any agreement with zuji.com and expect a full refund. and she told me she had to call her hotel agent, eider yadda eider to sort this or that out... and that she would call me back later. i refused to hang up and told her i will hold the line and expect a respond from her - a respond no lesser than a full refund. i don't care whether or not the hotel agent agree or not, that is for zuji.com to manage, i reminded her. anyway, to cut the long story short again, she came back after a couple of minutes and told me they will refund me the full amount, and apologised for her behaviour. 

that was my superbly negative experience with zuji.com. i will never use them anymore.