Easy to book at but outsourced customer service.
Written: Jan 22 '07 (Updated Nov 08 '07)
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Since I already wrote a review about my Priceline.com experience, I figured it would be a good idea to write a review about the company I finally went with.
I ended up at Travelocity to book an 11 day family vacation to DC (hotel/air). I had originally tried to book it with Priceline.com but after 3 days I gave up and decieded to "Roam with the Gnome" even though it was a bit more expensive.
There are two major areas that I feel make Travelocity a good choice.
1) You can select the exact rooms you want.
Other sites require you to book the trip and then you have to call the hotel and hope you can get the rooms you want. Of course at that point you're locked into the package so if you don't get the room(s) you want...too bad.
2) Travelocity updates your package price/options on the fly as you continue the booking the booking process.
Other sites will just simply send you back to a page and tell you the system could not book the package you wanted. They don't tell you why they couldn't which leaves you guessing as to if it was a problem with the airline, hotel or dates. They may even display the same packages you just tried to book but couldn't. With Travelocity, my first room choice wasn't available so it offered some other options which turned out to be an upgrade but the price dropped slightly. I also ended up with non-stop flights both ways and the price was lower than those with connections.
The checkout process was easy and fairly quick. It helps to create an account ahead of time which saves some time entering info which could cause a delay and therefore cause the package to change. The prices/packages on all these services change by the minute so anything to save time is good.
I wish I could say it was all smooth sailing but the one place Travelocity is really lacking is in the customer service department.
Shortly after booking my vacation I received an email stating it could not add on the travel protection due to "technical difficulties" but I could call them within 7 days and they could add it on for me. No biggie, I said. I called a few days later and found the Travelocity weak spot. It appears their customer service (as with far too many business') is outsourced to someplace in India. The first rep I spoke with was rather hard to understand and couldn't even pronouce our names (very common, very short names) correctly. After explaining I got an email regarding the travel protection and that I was calling to add on travel protection, I was directed to some other companies site where I was told I could purchase it. I went to the site and it was some thirdparty site with a ton of different travel insurance options. After about 2 minutes of trying to figure it out, the site crashed and would not come back up. I called them back and got another lady who at least was easier to understand. I explained that I booked it with Travelocity and Travelocity said to call them to add the insurance. After some going back and forth with her, she said there were only two option, book it at the website I was given or just not get it as she could not add it on after it was booked. I told her there was a third option and that was to get me a supervisor as I just paid $4000 for a vacation and Travelocity can do the work I paid them for. After about 5 minutes on hold, I was greeted by a pleasant gentleman who was very easy to understand (but still overseas I believe). I explained what was going on and that I would not use some thirdparty site who I had no idea who they were. He asked to place me on hold and came back a few minutes later and stated the insurance had been added. He even verified the pricing of it to ensure it matched what I was quoted when I booked. A minute later I got the policy in my email and it was from the company that underwrites it for Travelocity so I know he didn't just go to some other site (AIG wasn't an option at the other site). Hmmmm....seems it can be added on after the booking is complete.
All in all, the booking went smooth except for the insurance glitch. Travelocity really needs to reconsider where they outsource too. I've had a number of experiences with overseas customer service and they have all been substandard. Usually the people are nice but it's very hard to understand them, they aren't always knowledgable about the product or service they are dealing with and many times there's a lag in the conversation which makes it even worse when you add in the heavy accents.
Overall, I would recommend Travelocity. They updates prices/packages on the fly and you can get the exact hotel room and flight you want. They just cost a bit more (mine ran about $350 more than Priceline). NOTE: They offer 24 hour price matching which I didn't discover until 2 days after. Keep that in mind when shopping around if you end up booking at Travelocity. Just be prepared to deal with outsourced, overseas customer service if you have a problem and be ready to ask for a supervisor.
Their sub-standard customer service is the reason I could not give them a 5 star rating. If there's a problem, I need the company to be able to resolve it and I shouldn't have to go all the way up to a supervisor.
FOLLOW-UP: I've had another issue crop up. We booked non-stop flights. Our return flight changed departure times twice which was not a huge deal. I then got an email from Travelocity stating that flight was canceled and we now had a connecting flight which increased our travel time by about 2.5 hours. After a couple of time waisting email to customer service, we were told to call them so they could contact the carrier and work something out. My wife had to call twice and spoke to reps named "Dan" and "Christy" although those were clearly not their names because as before, they were very hard to understand. Both calls yielded no results as according to them, there were no non-stop flights and they both refused to call the carrier as I was told they would. I went over to the carriers (United) website and low and behold, there was our original return flight but it was departing about 30 minutes earlier. This time I fired back at Travelocity. I emailed them the flight info (noting it was our original flight),along with a part of the "Customer Bill of Rights" and I educated them on how I had to do all their legwork because their outsourced reps refused to call the carrier as I was told they would. I got a response back confirming our return flight had been changed to what was our original flight. It should not have been that hard to work through this. Their emails say one thing but their outsourced (and out of country) reps do something else unless you scream and yell and demand a supervisor. Because of this second major problem with them, I've had to lower my rating.
ONE LAST FOLLOW-UP:
It took me a while to write this last bit because I was so ticked at Travelocity. We booked a certain class of room and the hotel was not able to provide them. After we returned I contacted Travelocity's outsourced customer service and explained the situation and requested a refund of the difference as per their policies. It took over two and a half months to get a refund of just $200.00. Multiple emails requesting a status and asking why it was taking so long got me generic responses almost every time. Seriously, I have copies of responses from different people that are exactly the same. WOW...that's real personal attention. This years vacation has been booked with United Travel and so far everything has gone nice and smooth.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Vacation Package
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