vI’ve just gotten back last night from a packed trip to Bangalore, and this whole trip came up last minute because I was dragging my feet on booking it. Shipra was away on a very long work trip overseas, and somehow I wanted to have her back in India before booking up this trip because I wasn’t sure if she’d want to travel or not within 24 hours of landing back in the country. Also, the on-the-ground situation in Bangalore added to my indecision.
Anyhow, on Friday, we decided to pull the trigger on the trip, and I started researching ticket options. Three of the tickets fitted in very nicely. From Mumbai to Bangalore, we took a red eye flight, since it was significantly cheaper to the early morning ones. We decided we’d sleep it off in Bangalore once we arrive in Bangalore. For Shipra, who was arriving back in Mumbai on a different date than me, we also found a flight around the times she wanted.
However, for myself, I needed to be back in the office on Monday, so I wanted to fly out on Sunday night out of Bangalore if possible. So, I wanted to pick a Sunday night flight. However, for whatever reason, now the Sunday night as well as Monday morning flights were all looking pretty expensive, like ₹ 7000 upwards. So, I decided to scout for mileage flights.
Air India had a seat on their flight early evening, did not work for me. Vistara had killed their Bangalore Mumbai flight. Jet Airways was the only resort. So I checked the JetPrivilege website for a redemption. The last flights out of Bangalore did not have award inventory for the time I wanted.
But sometimes, Etihad Guest has access to invisible inventory at Jet Airways. Etihad Airways is the part owner of Jet Airways, and hence Etihad Guest has access to redemption inventory on Jet Airways. So I called them on Friday afternoon, and voila, they had access to inventory on the exact flight I wanted.
You may all know that you need to ticket 14 days out on a Jet Airways flight with Etihad miles, but this rule was recently changed and you can have a ticket when you are at least 24 hours out. Since Etihad Guest tickets are now more expensive than Jet Airways’ JetPrivilege tickets in terms of the number of miles required, usually it is a bad idea to use EY miles for 9W redemptions. But the amounts I was looking at were absolutely crazy, so I preferred to redeem miles over cash then.
That is where my tyranny with Etihad Guest started. Etihad Guest’s India call centre cannot issue tickets if you are paying taxes with an Indian credit card. This is because the Reserve Bank of India disallows any transactions in India on Indian Credit Cards without authentication. So, Etihad Guest generates the PNR, and passes it along to their central team in Abu Dhabi who can then issue the tickets after collecting taxes in Abu Dhabi and generating the tickets. The usual timeline for this to happen is 24 hours.
In my case, it was almost 24 hours but no call came. No biggie, since sometimes you just need to call back and they remind the central team to move your request on a higher priority. Usually, the second time around, you get a call back within 2 hours.
I started getting edgy since ticket prices were creeping up by the hour. So, I started pinging them on Twitter, and every time a new agent would tell me that I’d get a call back. I still did not have a ticket to get to Mumbai.
@EtihadHelp Etihad guest needs to call me to collect payment for a flight N issue tickets for tomorrow. Haven’t heard from them in 24 hours.
— Ajay Awtaney (@LiveFromALounge) September 17, 2016
.@EtihadAirways my ticket for tonight travel still not issued. Can you get someone to issue the ticket urgently?? Have been waiting 36 hours
— Ajay Awtaney (@LiveFromALounge) September 18, 2016
@EtihadAirways already sent to @EtihadHelp last night. I was told I’d get a call right away
— Ajay Awtaney (@LiveFromALounge) September 18, 2016
I’ve spent plenty of hours in the past year or so helping people redeeming their miles, and a lot of time on the phone with the agents, but this was where I was on the edge of irritation because the whole system was being irresponsible. So, I did not call the Mumbai call centre one more time, but I called the Abu Dhabi call center this time.
My oh my, why did I not see this coming. The agent on the line told me my itinerary had been dropped by Jet Airways since it was not ticketed in time. She guessed that this was because I had tried to book a ticket 52 hours prior to travel, while I had to book 14 days prior. I informed her about the new policy on Jet Airways ticket, and I was promised a call back.
A while later I was called back by the Indian call centre again. I was informed about the same thing. My itinerary was dropped by Jet Airways, conveniently missing the fact that Etihad did not ticket it in time and hence the ticket expired. I asked the agent about why was it allowed to expire, and he told me there were a lot of tickets put in the queue, and that there was no priority order, so Etihad Guest UAE missed the request for my ticket.
Yes, right, they missed it and they survived to tell the tale…
In the end, there were 10 phone calls from there on through the evening, where Etihad’s call centre tried to convince me that they had reinstated the booking, so I should allow them to ticket it. No apologies, no shame. One of the high points of the conversation from Etihad went,
Etihad Guest: Sir, but we have enough time to still issue this ticket.
Me: If I called you today, and said I needed a ticket urgently to fly out tonight. The inventory is there, you just need to redeem my miles and issue the ticket. Would you do that?
EG: No sir, we won’t be able to do that…
Me: Then why do you expect to not do your job and keep me hanging on till the last minute?
Eventually, I did come back to Mumbai, but not on the itinerary that Etihad Guest effed up so many times over 48 hours. But that is a different story for another time. Etihad Guest promised to examine their slip-up, and come back to me at the earliest with who to lay the blame on. They insist it is Jet Airways’ fault, but they haven’t convincingly answered me yet on about when they found out the ticket was in a mess, why did they not call me to inform me that they had made a mess of it.
Bottomline
Moral of the story for me was, as should be for you, to keep an eagle eye on your redemption bookings till they are ticketed. Don’t take it easy, and keep following up till you have a ticket on hand.
Readers, have you had any similar experiences with a program where you did not receive tickets in time? Do share your experiences.
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Slightly OT, but thats the way with EY-9W. Ownership, stake, partnership etc is all a big farce.
I booked an EY-9W code share flight this year for our US vacation [AMD-AUH 9W, AUH-JFK EY], but couldnt checkin online on either leg. Called both call centers got the various PNRs for each ticketing system but utter failure.
9W guy was even rude in telling me “this will not be done”, citing the website where it clearly says code-shares can be checked in online.
Primitive systems and service wrapped a nice gold foil!
On a slightly different note, has Vistara stopped BLR to BOM?
“Vistara had killed their Bangalore Mumbai flight”
1. Have been most painlessly been able to ticket reward flights on 9W through KLM – Air France points through their local india call Centre – just CC number, no lengthy OTP process. Done in a couple of minutes.
2. Emirates points on 9W is always a long phone calls to first get flights and create PNR ( they say they have to do manually – whatever that means) + payment procedure with an the OTP and the rest. Is 20 min at the least.
But in both cases, they are able to ticket from the India call centre right away. Wonder why Etihad should be so different – regulations are the same, and clearly permit it.
I had an exactly similar situation around a year back. Etihad a lot to catch up, not only on Cust service, but also in setting-up right systems and processes. Seems they forget that a prospective traveler is expecting them to call back.
9W is a headless chicken more so after the EY integration, I don’t remember taking any 9W flight in the last 2+ years. JP has become trash, and the service on board sucks big time, not to mention their super uncomfortable and ageing 738s.
@Girish where is this about Jet Airways? Etihad effed up here
Have used Etihad for partner redemption few times. Most of the time, I did receive a call back within 24 hours and the reservation was ticketed. However, on the most recent redemption last month, I did not get a call back until I followed it up again after a day. I had 15+ days remaining for my travel so it wasn’t a big issue but there is always a possibility of award inventory drying up before you receive the call. An option to pay online against a PNR would be a good alternative that Etihad should consider.
Unfortunately, the India Call Center for most international airlines are totally useless – for Etihad, use their UK call center – it’s still a hit and miss but you are more likely to end up with an agent that knows the policies well; Similarly for SQ, the US call center number (you actually get routed to a call center located in Singapore) works best and for Emirates, the Dubai call center number. Learnt this the hard way.
How much did you end up paying, Ajay?
This is a similar , and sad experience I had with the Etihad Service Centre ( India ). I had redeemed my miles for a partner airline , and just like you , I did not receive a call from Abu Dhabi for the credit card transaction , for about 24 hours , despite 100 calls made from my end. Unfortunately , my grandmother expired the next day , and call it bad timing , but I received a call from the India office to “reverify” my membership no. ( ??? ) , while I was surrounded by my near & dear ones. When I politely told the gentleman , that I won’t be able to talk , citing the reason , he just went blank. When I asked him if he was able to hear me , he immediately pounced back saying , that a call at a later time would not be possible. Shocking ?? Yes , he really said that , in the most blunt / rude fashion possible. I disconnected the call , and called again weeks later to rebook. But , I never pursued any complaint / feedback against this gentleman , as I did not know his name , and even if I did , it would have been a futile exercise. I know such experiences are not the norm , but I personally lost my faith in this airline since that day.