Harassment by make my trip on foreign holidays
sunil
(Querist) 09 September 2012
This query is : Resolved
Harrasment by Make my Trip on foreign holidays
1. I, had booked a ticket for me as well as my husband to spend holidays in Bangkok, These tickets were booked through Make My Trip and were of Kingfisher Airlnes. I booked these tickets on 5 Jan12 and flights were of dates as mentioned below :
(a) New Delhi to Kolkata 21st Feb 12
(b) Kolkata to Bangkok 21st Feb 12
(c) Bangkok to Kolkata 01st Mar 12
(d) Kolkata to NewDelhi 01st Mar 12
We got confirmation from Make My Trip that flights have been booked. After this confirmation we prepared for our holidays accordingly and booked our Hotels and other outings in Bangkok as per the time of arrival and departure in Bangkok.
2. However on 18 Feb 12 ( just 03 days prior to moving for a foreign country) to our horror we received a mail from make my trip that our flights have been rescheduled as under:
(a) New Delhi to Kolkata Cancelled
(b) Kolkata to Bangkok Cancelled
(c) Bangkok to Kolkata Cancelled
(d) Kolkata to New Delhi Confirmed
Now airlines as well as the brokerage agency (make my trip) must be kidding on this first of all by informing the customers so late about rescheduling and secondly by confirming the last flight in whole itinerary. We immediately dropped a mail to make my trip requesting them to arrange for alternative flights as our all further bookings were depending on this flight schedule. Make my trip, leave aside providing alternative flights did not even care to respond back to our query and just left their customers in despair at such a last moment.
3. As both me and my husband are working and on top of that my husband being an Army Officer, who is posted in remote border areas, we hardly get time to spend together and also as our hotel bookings and other arrangements were already done with no other option in hand we had to book other flights, a day prior to our move that is on 20 Feb 12. In Bangkok, on our holidays we were worried that they should at least cancel the flight which was confirmed in the itinerary (Kolkata to New Delhi) so that we do not have to pay for it. We dropped them several mails in this regards from Bangkok(where we were supposed to on holidays) itself but they still did not respond to any of it.
4. All this fiasco (on part of a brokerage based company like Make my trip, which undoubtedly deals with almost all airlines especially in India and thus could easily have provided us an alternative flights) caused us following problems:
(a) The flights which we booked through Make my trip of kingfisher initially costed us Rs 33094/- and the flights which we booked at the last moment ( Thai Airways) costed us Rs 40808/-. Firstly at last minute it was difficult to manage Rs 40808/-. for a salaried person when other expenses for an international trip are also to be kept in mind. Therefore we had to take a loan from some friends. And it caused lot of embarrassment.
(b) For no fault of ours we had to bear an extra burden of Rs 8000 over and above the cost of flights which we had booked earlier.
(c) There were time variations in the flights we booked initially and the later ones like on our return journey the flights that we initially booked were leaving at a comfortable time in the evening (at 1615h) thus we could have travelled comfortably to airport in metro or any other conveyance which would have suited our pocket, however the flights which we booked at the last minute were leaving from there early in the morning and perforce we had to take a taxi and also had to pay them hefty night charges. Likewise because last minutes blunder we had to spend unnecessary amount at all the places.
(d) On our return to India also we dropped them several mails for more than a month requesting them to at least process our refund however Make my trip just assigned us a reference Id no for our further correspondence and did not at all respond at all to our refund issue. Now after a trauma of more than two months and after lots of unreplied mails they have refunded our amount.
(e) In a middleclass family like ours one earns day and night to plan for a decent holiday with family in a year. However mismanagement of brokerage agency ( Make My Trip) as well as airlines services ended up ruining our holidays as we were going under lot of tension and trauma even before starting holidays as well as during our stay in Bangkok wherein we were desperately trying to contact airlines on mail as well as on airports to get one of our returning flight cancelled. We ended up paying extra in flights, in cabs, pay for an extra day in hotel and several plans of ours were ruined in Bangkok.
5. Please advice what should be done.
Sudhir Kumar, Advocate
(Expert) 09 September 2012
No time to read such a long query.
If you feel that there was deficiency of services you can move to consumer forum
