Over the 9 months that I've been working in the Philippines my girlfriend has travelled back and forth from Singapore on several visits. Without exception, and including the many trips I've made, we've used Silk Air (a subsidiary of the national carrier, Singapore Airlines). This is for two reasons - good value and more importantly, good service. We could've flown cheaper with other airlines but why forsake legroom and efficiency for a few dollars I say.
That is up until today.
Silk Air has a policy whereby if you make a booking for a person other than yourself (i.e. a third party booking) you must go through a verification process and produce a Letter of Indemnity and copies of your credit card. Up until now, and being extremely remote from any Silk Air offices, I have faxed the form and card details through to their Singapore office and everything has gone as smooth as silk (as the airline's name implies).
Last Monday I went through the same procedure but as we don't have a fax set up in our newly established project office in Iloilo, and not wanting to handover the entire details of my credit card to some dodgy fax bureau for sending, I e-mailed copies to our Singapore office for them to fax it through to Silk Air. Included on the form are contact details including mobile phone, e-mail address and of course the sender's fax No. So if there was something wrong or adrift it would be reasonable to expect Silk Air to get in contact. But this is the airline industry and reasonable is word that no longer exists.
I'd also sent them a message via their webpage e-mail, ticking the box requesting an response, explaining the potential security risks associated in having to send my complete credit card details by fax as I had just done. But I never received a response.
On the day of the flight, as she has done so many times in the past, my girlfriend travelled to Singapore's Changi Airport from Malaysia, also carrying a copy of the credit card verification documentation. At the time she should've have been checking in I received an "Call me - URGENT" text message.
I called her and she was in a bit of a fluster.
"They won't let me fly", she said.
"Why not?"
"Because your credit card details haven't been verified."
"It's okay", I said, "it's just a misunderstanding"
I told her to go to the ticketing office where I would call back and speak to the Silk Air staff to clear up this. I called her back and was put onto the girl in the ticketing office.
"What's the problem", I asked.
"Your credit card needs to be verified".
"But I've already done it - it was faxed last Monday".
"We have no record of it", she said.
"But it was sent. We have a transmission report", I protested.
"Which office did you send it to?"
"Errr, the one I always send it to".
"But without verification we can't allow your girlfriend to fly".
"Well, how can we resolve this because the verification was sent. There wasn't a rejection notice so it must be in your office somewhere and my girlfriend has a copy with her".
"We can't accept her copy. If you can come to the airport and produce your card that will be acceptable".
"I'm in rural Philippines. I'd have to get a flight to visit any Silk Air offices. If it was that simple I wouldn't have made a third party booking", I replied, getting slight agitated.
"Okay sir, we can rebook the flight for tomorrow".
"How does that help? Oh I see, on a Saturday you don't need a verification", I said with a hint of sarcasm.
"No sir, you will still need to do the verification. Your girlfriend can buy another ticket".
"Why does she need to buy another ticket - she already has one. And oddly enough, she isn't carrying enough cash to buy another ticket as that wasn't really on her agenda on arrival at the airport as I've already bought her a ticket".
"Does she have a credit card"
"If she had a credit card she probably would've done the booking herself."
"Then I'm afraid she won't be able to fly - it's company policy."
"Okay then, is there anyone else I can speak to who can resolve this."
"We can refer it to the duty manager."
"Okay then, let me speak to the duty manager - ask him to call me back at on this number." (I was running out of credit.)
"He's not here. He doesn't start work until 9:00am." (the flight was for 9:05am)
"Well that's not very helpful is it?" By now I was becoming a little irritated and the phone was passed back to my girlfriend.
"Put them back on, please", I said.
"They're refusing to speak to you or me any more", said my girlfriend through her tears.
"What do you mean, they're refusing".
"They won't speak to you or me and have told me to go back to the check-in desk and ask them to sort it out."
"Okay, I'll call you back when you get to the check-in desk".
In the meantime I phoned my boss and asked him to double check that the verification form had been sent. He confirmed that it had, without any problem. It's a system that the office uses to book tickets with Silk Air so they were aware of what was required.
I phoned my girlfriend back but by now she was in tearful despair and told me the check-in staff wouldn't let her fly and were also refusing to talk to me or her.
There was no other option. She would have to jump back into a taxi and go back to Malaysia.
I phoned our office in Singapore and asked the girl who does all the travel arrangements to find out from Silk Air what when wrong.
When she e-mailed me back I couldn't believe what I was reading: Silk Air had changed its policy and would no longer accept faxed verification of credit card details.
I hadn't seen that. I went back to their web site and checked. Admittedly, there was nothing to say they would accept faxed verification, but more importantly there was nothing in the text to say there had been a policy change and they would no longer accept faxed verification. So how are you to know? And more to the point, when I faxed through my verification did it not occur to someone in the Silk Air office to get in contact and say sorry, but we don't accept faxed verification any more. So what's the point in adding all your contact details? Or did someone just pick it up and say, "Ho, ho, ho, look at this mug" and then just toss it in the bin?
The upshot was I had to cancel the flight and to really stick it to me they deducted S$150 as a cancellation fee and then to twist it and break it off they also charged me S$150 for a "No-Show". And when I queried this I was given that get-out-of-jail, all encompassing, slippery shoulder excuse: It's company policy.
I've always been a big fan of the famed Singapore efficiency and organisation but to coin a phrase of a former boss, this is rather like finding a turd in your salad.
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