Air Asia — Incorrect (Deceitful) rescheduling of tickets

Address:

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

Me, my wife and my 5 friends booked Air Asia return flight tickets from Hyderabad to Kuala Lumpur on 10th Nov 2014. This was booked for travel on 19th June 2015 and return on 28th June 2015. We received the confirmation mail from Air Asia for this booking and before traveling, we also re-checked the travel details online on 16th June 2015. When we reached the airport on 19th June 2015 and proceeded for our check-in, we received the rudest shock of our lives. Air Asia's employee at the counter told us that we are not booked for the flight! Shocked, we called up your call center to understand the issue, but two different stories were told to us!! We tried to understand what exactly happen – However no help was offered by Air Asia official. After an hour, one of your senior official told that he will help us out but what he told us shocked us beyond comprehension. He told us that WE had called Air Asia call center three days back and had asked our tickets to be rescheduled to next month!! Why would we reschedule our own flight tickets and then come at the airport for check-in? We asked your official to share at least one proof that can tell that we rescheduled our own flight tickets. It might be a call record at the call center, a mail from Air Asia about the rescheduled flight details, or maybe even the bank transaction of the rescheduling charges. However, your officials failed to furnish the proof – and how could they when we never asked the flight to be rescheduled at the first place! That time, we were extremely tensed, angry and confused as to why this happened to us. Few o[censored]s broke down because we were not sure on what will happen next. We had paid a huge amount of money to our travel agent (as we were covering 3 countries – Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore) and hence, not going on this trip wasn’t an option available to us. Even after pleading with the Air Asia officials, they refused to even accept that they made a mistake, forget helping us out in this situation. Left with no other choice, we booked fresh tickets for Hyderabad to Malaysia and return from Singapore to Hyderabad through separate airlines for travel during the same time period. You can imagine the cost that we had to pay for booking same-day travel international flight tickets! I cannot even tell you how frustrated, mentally disturbed and embarrassed we are with the whole incident I know that a lot of airlines which cancel flights, deny seats due to overbooking etc. But they LIED to us. They told us that we rescheduled our flight tickets when we never did. They did not provide us with any support even after you committing this blunder. We wrote this complaint even on their facebook page and hence their customer care called us up on 1st July (I dont remember the exact date but somewhere around 1st July 2015). They told that we have called for rescheduling the flight on 17th of June. When we heard the recordings the person speaking was not any o[censored]s. Either the recordings are cooked up, doctored or there is some other story behind those.. And we were surprised to see that they changed the bookings over phone call without any payment confirmation?? Neither we received any confirmatory mail.. This sounds absolutely surprising. No airlines reschedule the flights before payment of rescheduling charges are done. We didn't get any solution through their customer center. So we wrote a mail mentioning the above text to Air Asia global CEO on 2nd July 2015. Got the same reply after lot of followups on 9th of July. Reply is mentioned below: Dear Ravi and Itisha, (This response is sent Without Prejudice.) We thank you for your emails. We apologize for the extended time taken to investigate your feedback, as we consider this a very serious matter. Pertaining to your allegation, we have concluded a thorough investigation into the matter, inclusive of listening to the voice logger. Kindly allow us to explain the necessary. Booking HEYLFQ 10 Nov'14 : Booking purchased for 5 guests, and payment successfully received via VISA credit Card belonging to Esha Urvil Shah. Departure date 9 June'15 and return 28 June'15. 17 Jun'15 : received call from Archan regarding booking HEYLFQ on on cancelling the flights by correctly mentioning the flight sectors, flight times and full names of the two traveling guests. Archan requested for cancellation of the flight. Call Centre staff Rakesh, informed that for international flights no cancellation allowed. Archan than requested for a date change since cancellation was not possible. Rakesh informed Archan that it would cost INR1, 900/pax/sector for change fees and an amount for fare difference. Archan requested for a date change to depart on 29 Jun'15 and return 9 Jul'15 Rakesh informed Archan that the changes will require a total amount of INR10, 190 for both persons both sector. Rakesh inform Archan on payment methods. Call via IVR, payment via AirAsia website and Internet Banking. Rakesh asked for Confirmation on the change. Archan answered YES, YES second question "Are you sure" Rakesh informs Archan for the changes to be made he needed additional verification details requesting for contact number and email address. Archan correctly provides the email address [protected]@gmail.com and phone number [protected]. Rakesh request additional verification details and request for Birthday of the traveling passengers. Archan correctly provides the birthday of himself 05 Mar 1987, and his wife's birthday 04 Feb 1988. Rakesh proceeds with the date changes after the successful verification process. Archan informs he will make the necessary payment via the payment channel available. Booking J8FLFF 17 Jun'15 : received call from Urvil regarding booking J8FLFF on on cancelling the flights by correctly mentioning the flight sectors, flight times and attempted to speak in Hindi. Call Centre staff Suresh, informed Urvil to speak in English as he was not comfortable in Hindi and to re-confirm the booking number. Suresh asked for a confirmation of the number of traveling guests. Urvil correctly mentioned the number of passengers : 5 and requested to change the travel dates. Suresh informed Urvil that it would cost INR1, 900/pax/sector for change fees and an amount for fare difference. Urvil requested for a date change to depart on 19 Jul'15 and return 28 Jul'15 Suresh informed Urvil that the changes will require a total amount of INR49, 130 for 5 passengers. . Suresh asked Urvil for confirmation, and Urvil informed to proceed with the changes. Suresh informed Urvil to make the necessary payment via online and asked for the email address to link it for the necessary payment. Urvil correctly informed the email address as [protected]@gmail.com To confirm the necessary changes, Suresh requested Urvil for his date of Birth for further verification. Urvil correctly mentioned the date of birth 21 Oct 1986. Suresh informs Urvil that once the change is done it cannot be undone. Urvil confirms on the changes. Suresh mentioned the new flight dates on the outbound and return flights and asks for re-confirmation. Urvil mentioned to proceed..proceed. Suresh makes the necessary changes and reconfirms with Urvil to make the necessary payment online. Urvil, reconfirms Suresh name before he hangs-up the phone. As you can clearly see, that when you proceed to the airport, your dates of departure were as per the above. Your bookings now have a debit amount as per below that needs to be paid, before it can be utilized for travel on the new dates. Booking HEYLFQ, balance owing INR10, 190 Booking J8FLFF, balance owing INR49, 130 While we appreciate your request for a refund of your AirAsia fares and compensation for the purchase of fares with another carrier, we regret our inability to comply with your request and assure you that we intend no discourtesy. Regretfully we are not in a position to offer you a copy of the voice recordings as both voice recordings are now secured, and will be provided as proof of the call conversations in a Court of Law. Thank you for giving us an opportunity to explain the necessary. Yours Sincerely, Frank Bateman Customer Care - Head AirAsia Berhad Mezzanine Floor, LCC Terminal Jalan KLIA S3, Southern Support Zone Kuala Lumpur International Airport 64000 Sepang, Selangor D.E. Dear Team, request your urgent help in this regard. Thank you. Regards, Urvil Shah