My complaint:
When booking, the booking page told me that adding on an extra premium service meant everything I paid would be fully refundable if I needed to cancel. This made me decide to buy then instead of waiting until a few months later to buy tickets.
– a few months later I put in a modification request to change the dates of my trip
-I was called by someone with a very bad connection and echo and they refused to have someone else call me instead who was not having technical issues
-I found the customer service number online and spoke to someone who said the only options for the dates I now needed, or something close, would be over $1,000 extra. However my flights had apparently been cancelled and I could get a refund instead.
-I asked for the refund option and they quoted the refund amount as the ticket price. I asked what about the service fees, given the fully refundable option I added? They said to put in a separate request via the website for that as a different department handles it.
-Tried to put in request with their chatbot. Led me to an option to ‘speak to an agent’. It gave me a form to fill out, which I did. It told me to close the form to get further instruction from the chat window. When I did so, the chat bot simply asked me the same questions again about what I am looking for. I tried this a few times without getting anywhere, with no information whatsoever about where this form was going and what I should expect to happen with it. A phone call, an email? What time frame? Nothing.
-I called again to get more information and this second person told me the services couldn’t be refunded.
-I asked to speak to someone else as now I had been told two opposing things. I was put on hold for over 3 hours, until my phone dropped the call because it had been going on too long.
-I then found 2 different cancellation policies on the website which were both different from what I was originally shown on the booking page.
-I asked to complain about the confusing and misleading service and was given an email address to send it through to.
-I received an automatic email reply that I need to fill out an online form instead.
-I fill out this online form
-5 weeks later still no reply
-I call edreams again and ask for an update and briefly explain my complaint. The person I spoke to this time said of course we will refund you that money, I will just have to escalate it and you will hear from us within 2 weeks.
-I call a week later to follow up again and this person (4th person I have spoken to) tells me my file says ‘I have been told multiple times, including during my last call that the services are not refundable’. All of that is a lie, I was told this once, and the last call was not that time. I keep calling because I have been told I CAN be refunded more times than I have been told I can’t.
-I asked how long complaints take to be responded to and am told 24 hours.
-I ask to speak to the complaints department as I have not had a response for 6 weeks now. I’m told there is no phone number for them, only an email.
-I’m given the same email I was given that other time. I said that doesn’t work, I’ve tried. I then spend half an hour with her while she tries to find where a customer can complain! This should not be anywhere near as difficult as this.
-I ended up being told to submit via the same form as I did the previous time.
-I outlined all of the above in this form submission, as well as expressing that this is extremely poor customer service, that they should train their employees better, have an easier to navigate website, and that at the end of the day I was still misled right from the very start, as well as at multiple points along the way and believe I should receive my service refund even if only for all the trouble I have been caused with this confusing customer service.
-I receive a short email response 1 business day later saying they are sorry to hear this but my ticket price had already been refunded. I made it very clear that the ticket price was not the refund I was talking about so this is a very poor and ‘playing dumb’ response.
-Additionally, it seems that all of the customer service representatives say things in a very roundabout way that wastes time and deliberately misinterpret what you are saying so that they can just stick to whatever talking points they are given by the company. Anything to make the experience as frustrating as possible, presumably so that you don’t want to keep advocating for yourself.
Suggested solution:
Refund the fees of $490.99 I was initially told were refundable, and have been told multiple times should be able to be refunded by some 'other department'.
