Sunday, October 05, 2008
Feeling Like a Bitch
I'm feeling like so much of a bitch these days. There are 3 organisations that I need to talk to. I think it was probably brought up by the entire SIA fiasco where I am currently rather upset of the fact that I was misled into spending money into buying a pair of airfare on SIA.
I also need to call up Standard Chartered to ask them to cancel my Prudential VISA Card which they had NOT cancelled after they upgraded me to the Platinum version. I thought it was just some system issue until they decided to charge me annual fees for that card! Why would I want both versions of the same card type? Doesn't make sense right?
Also need to call up UOB and ask them whether they will be doscontinuing the UNI$ system, because when I was offered the UOB ONE Card months ago, the CS claimed that the UNI$ system would be discontinued. The ONE Card is really cool because of the VISA Pay Wave technology but otherwise it's not really working for me. You have to achieve $300 dollars a month before you even qualify for a $10 cash rebate. Therefore, if you don't spend more than $300 a month, you also lose out on the UNI$ you could have gotten for the purchases you DID make. Oh yeah they will tell you that they give you SMART$ but that's only applicable at SMART$ merchants.
These two are but minor inconveniences. My main beef is with SIA. So I'm actually flying off to Japan on the 18th of October and will be there till 3rd of November. After some discussion with my friend, we decided to fly SIA even though that meant the airfare would cost us approximately $300 more than if we had flown with Cathay Pacific.
Now, I hold a Krisflyer Amex card and being the point junkie that I am, I wanted to book the tickets online from the SIA website since I would get double points for the purchase. Unfortunately, once my friend confirmed that she would fly SIA, I was no longer able to get the website to display the open jaw itineraries for economy class in order to puchase them. The system had no problems with Business Class ititneraries though. I called and had also sent in an email to ask SIA about the problem and they acknowledged that there was an issue with the website. On their end they tried logging in and they couldn't as well. Well, thinking that it was a SIA website, such issues should be resolved very quickly, I decided to just camp the website till it was ok. I was obviously hoping to get my double points!
About a month had passed and it got into August. I decided to call up the reservations desk to check with them on the issue. This time I was told that the problem was existing but was ONLY on the open Jaw Japan system. Well, I was pretty surprised, but I guess that IT is weird sometimes, no? The reservations officer offered to book the tickets for me on the phone and waive the booking fee for me (if I had bought online, there would be no booking fee charged.), I explained that I was hoping to be able to use my Krisflyer AMEX card to get the double opints on the purchase.
Now, at this point in time, I was told that I could call Krisflyer the next working day and get them to adjust my points manually. I was fairly surprised and of course happy that I could still get my points and therefore told her that if I can get my double points, I would book the tickets through the phone. I then happily completed my airfare reservation.
The next working day, I called up Krisflyer. Guess what? They told me that they do not adjust the points and that I had to call AMEX. I was wondering why this was AMEX's problem but I guess they had some kind of arrangements down so I called AMEX. AMEX was not able to give me an immediate response, so the CS said that she would refer the question to the people in charge and get back to me. When the CS finally did call me back, AMEX confirmed that they were not able to do this adjustment.
So back to calling Krisflyer I went. This time, it was a complete waste of my time. All I can say is that for about half an hour, all the CS could tell me was in summary "I can't help you with that."
That was all.
I think the CS was rather noobish. When I made a sarcastic comment on "so it's too bad that I had been misled into buying something that I might otherwise not have bought?" she said "Oh I wouldn't put it that way"
"Of course not, you're an employee of SIA, I would be really surprised if you did! So is this going to be considered a dropped case now with no resolution?"
"Uhm, yeah"
No attempt to explain why I was led to believe that I could get double points when in fact I couldn't. It was a I can't do anything. Too bad for you. Would you like to hang up now kinda feeling.
This coming from SIA.
I was told that if they managed to find a solution they would call me. Hahahahaha. I didn't for one second think that they would call me back.
"We will call you if we come up with a solution"
"So most likely I will not be receiving a phone call right?"
"Uhm.. yeah"
"Well, then if I"m free I will call you guys up and check."
"Oh hahaha I don't think you'll be so free lah"
Yeah you think.
Yeah I know, I'm a poor person trying to fly in SIA economy class. Why did I ever think that I could even qualify to step on an SIA plane? Poor plane gonna be sullied by the ilk of me, so I shouldn't even have thought about flying SIA. They probably have to disinfect the plane after I get off it. What a waste of disinfectant.
Anyway, I definitely could not let this matter stop here. After all, the CS did mention sending in an email. So I did. I tried to use the feedback function on the SIA website and guess what? It conked out on me. It would not submit the feedback.
The best way to avoid receiving negative feedback is to make sure people can't send it!
So I called up the reservations desk, the only relevant number I could find on the SIA website and waited 32 minutes before I managed to get connected to a reservations officer to get an email address to send the email in to.
After I got the email address, silly me sent the email in without including my particulars. I had entered the particulars on the website but I had forgotten to include them in my email after being out on hold for 32 minutes. I was prepared to wait a few days for a reply, therefore on the 2nd working day after I had sent my email, I was quite surprised and happy to see an email in inbox asking for my particulars. They are fast this time I thought. When I realised I had made a booboo, I immediately sent in my particulars. After that, every working day I was looking forward to an email response from SIA.
This is now the 22nd day and 15 working days since I sent in my email. Apart from the email asking for my paticulars on the 2nd working day, there has been no further response. 3 days ago I've just sent in another email asking them if they had received my reply on the 2nd working day. I wonder if SIA has any KPI with regards to Customer Feedback. I'm sure if they had any, this will be an NC.
I checked the list of SQC companies..... SIA is NOT SQC! No wonder they take forever and a year to respond.
Oh and for anyone who says such things are normal, other companies also like this, other companies are worse..... Look, I'm talking about SIA. Compare with a company of the same footing and we'll talk ok? Also, just because someone else does it does not give anyone an excuse to do it as well.
Quite simply, if SIA cannot ensure that all Krisflyer AMEX card users are able to get the promotional double points because they cannot purchase the airfare online, then they should state that upfront somewhere. They should also get their website in gear, in this day and age, can you imagine a company like SIA having a broken website? How difficult is it to engage people to maintain websites? Their CS also needs to get their information straight. Can we do it, or can't we do it?
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I'm feeling like so much of a bitch these days. There are 3 organisations that I need to talk to. I think it was probably brought up by the entire SIA fiasco where I am currently rather upset of the fact that I was misled into spending money into buying a pair of airfare on SIA.
I also need to call up Standard Chartered to ask them to cancel my Prudential VISA Card which they had NOT cancelled after they upgraded me to the Platinum version. I thought it was just some system issue until they decided to charge me annual fees for that card! Why would I want both versions of the same card type? Doesn't make sense right?
Also need to call up UOB and ask them whether they will be doscontinuing the UNI$ system, because when I was offered the UOB ONE Card months ago, the CS claimed that the UNI$ system would be discontinued. The ONE Card is really cool because of the VISA Pay Wave technology but otherwise it's not really working for me. You have to achieve $300 dollars a month before you even qualify for a $10 cash rebate. Therefore, if you don't spend more than $300 a month, you also lose out on the UNI$ you could have gotten for the purchases you DID make. Oh yeah they will tell you that they give you SMART$ but that's only applicable at SMART$ merchants.
These two are but minor inconveniences. My main beef is with SIA. So I'm actually flying off to Japan on the 18th of October and will be there till 3rd of November. After some discussion with my friend, we decided to fly SIA even though that meant the airfare would cost us approximately $300 more than if we had flown with Cathay Pacific.
Now, I hold a Krisflyer Amex card and being the point junkie that I am, I wanted to book the tickets online from the SIA website since I would get double points for the purchase. Unfortunately, once my friend confirmed that she would fly SIA, I was no longer able to get the website to display the open jaw itineraries for economy class in order to puchase them. The system had no problems with Business Class ititneraries though. I called and had also sent in an email to ask SIA about the problem and they acknowledged that there was an issue with the website. On their end they tried logging in and they couldn't as well. Well, thinking that it was a SIA website, such issues should be resolved very quickly, I decided to just camp the website till it was ok. I was obviously hoping to get my double points!
About a month had passed and it got into August. I decided to call up the reservations desk to check with them on the issue. This time I was told that the problem was existing but was ONLY on the open Jaw Japan system. Well, I was pretty surprised, but I guess that IT is weird sometimes, no? The reservations officer offered to book the tickets for me on the phone and waive the booking fee for me (if I had bought online, there would be no booking fee charged.), I explained that I was hoping to be able to use my Krisflyer AMEX card to get the double opints on the purchase.
Now, at this point in time, I was told that I could call Krisflyer the next working day and get them to adjust my points manually. I was fairly surprised and of course happy that I could still get my points and therefore told her that if I can get my double points, I would book the tickets through the phone. I then happily completed my airfare reservation.
The next working day, I called up Krisflyer. Guess what? They told me that they do not adjust the points and that I had to call AMEX. I was wondering why this was AMEX's problem but I guess they had some kind of arrangements down so I called AMEX. AMEX was not able to give me an immediate response, so the CS said that she would refer the question to the people in charge and get back to me. When the CS finally did call me back, AMEX confirmed that they were not able to do this adjustment.
So back to calling Krisflyer I went. This time, it was a complete waste of my time. All I can say is that for about half an hour, all the CS could tell me was in summary "I can't help you with that."
That was all.
I think the CS was rather noobish. When I made a sarcastic comment on "so it's too bad that I had been misled into buying something that I might otherwise not have bought?" she said "Oh I wouldn't put it that way"
"Of course not, you're an employee of SIA, I would be really surprised if you did! So is this going to be considered a dropped case now with no resolution?"
"Uhm, yeah"
No attempt to explain why I was led to believe that I could get double points when in fact I couldn't. It was a I can't do anything. Too bad for you. Would you like to hang up now kinda feeling.
This coming from SIA.
I was told that if they managed to find a solution they would call me. Hahahahaha. I didn't for one second think that they would call me back.
"We will call you if we come up with a solution"
"So most likely I will not be receiving a phone call right?"
"Uhm.. yeah"
"Well, then if I"m free I will call you guys up and check."
"Oh hahaha I don't think you'll be so free lah"
Yeah you think.
Yeah I know, I'm a poor person trying to fly in SIA economy class. Why did I ever think that I could even qualify to step on an SIA plane? Poor plane gonna be sullied by the ilk of me, so I shouldn't even have thought about flying SIA. They probably have to disinfect the plane after I get off it. What a waste of disinfectant.
Anyway, I definitely could not let this matter stop here. After all, the CS did mention sending in an email. So I did. I tried to use the feedback function on the SIA website and guess what? It conked out on me. It would not submit the feedback.
The best way to avoid receiving negative feedback is to make sure people can't send it!
So I called up the reservations desk, the only relevant number I could find on the SIA website and waited 32 minutes before I managed to get connected to a reservations officer to get an email address to send the email in to.
After I got the email address, silly me sent the email in without including my particulars. I had entered the particulars on the website but I had forgotten to include them in my email after being out on hold for 32 minutes. I was prepared to wait a few days for a reply, therefore on the 2nd working day after I had sent my email, I was quite surprised and happy to see an email in inbox asking for my particulars. They are fast this time I thought. When I realised I had made a booboo, I immediately sent in my particulars. After that, every working day I was looking forward to an email response from SIA.
This is now the 22nd day and 15 working days since I sent in my email. Apart from the email asking for my paticulars on the 2nd working day, there has been no further response. 3 days ago I've just sent in another email asking them if they had received my reply on the 2nd working day. I wonder if SIA has any KPI with regards to Customer Feedback. I'm sure if they had any, this will be an NC.
I checked the list of SQC companies..... SIA is NOT SQC! No wonder they take forever and a year to respond.
Oh and for anyone who says such things are normal, other companies also like this, other companies are worse..... Look, I'm talking about SIA. Compare with a company of the same footing and we'll talk ok? Also, just because someone else does it does not give anyone an excuse to do it as well.
Quite simply, if SIA cannot ensure that all Krisflyer AMEX card users are able to get the promotional double points because they cannot purchase the airfare online, then they should state that upfront somewhere. They should also get their website in gear, in this day and age, can you imagine a company like SIA having a broken website? How difficult is it to engage people to maintain websites? Their CS also needs to get their information straight. Can we do it, or can't we do it?
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