Cleartrip — incorrect ticketing leading to denial of boarding

Address:	Mumbai City, Maharashtra, 700065
Website:	Cleartrip.com

Hello,

This has reference to the trip id: [protected], berlin to kolkata (One way) flight ticket for 2 passengers.

They were denied boarding the flight by lufthansa airlines at tegel airport berlin on 07-jan-2018 as a result of this there was a no show in the connecting air india flight from frankfurt to delhi followed by delhi to kolkata.

The passengers were my aged parents and one of them was sr. Citizen.

They arrived at the airport. 3 hrs prior to boarding, at the check in counter of lufthansa, they were told, that there was no confirmation of the ticket from the agency (Cleartrip.com), therefore they can’t be allowed to board the flight and was asked to contact cleartrip to get this issue resolved. They carried a valid e-ticket which was sent to us over email.

Immediately, i had tried to make contact with cleartrip, the call kept me on hold over 40 mins. Finally i could catch hold of an agent named rahul from the cleartrip customer support. He kept me on the phone and seemingly tried to get to the bottom of it. I was on the call for over 2 hours and have been kept on long hold on multiple occasions.

Whilst i was kept on hold, it was time for the lufthansa flight departure. The flight departed leaving my parents behind in berlin airport. So there was no point in sorting the ticket anymore, so i had asked for a full refund as this was not our fault. Unfortunately, he did nothing, just tried to pass the blame on to the airlines and wrap up the call. He has been extremely insensitive to the whole affair and said at some stage of the call that there will be no refund given. How ridiculous statement was that?

The transit time in frankfurt was 1 hr so there wasn’t any chance of taking the next flight which could enable them to avail the connecting air india flight.

My parents were running out of their schengen visa, so they had to travel that night otherwise it would have been an over stay in germany. Just to manage immigration affairs, i booked a new ticket from the airport worth eur 1250 and put them on qatar airways back to india.

I was asked by cleartrip to contact airlines as they claimed it to be an airlines fault. I contacted lufthansa that night, and they checked everything at their end and confirmed it was a fault on cleatrip’s behalf. Cleartrip had not ticketed the trip with lufthansa properly, that’s why the ticket got ‘unticketed’. This was exactly the statement made by the lufthansa.

I went back to cleatrip that night and spoke to quaaid one of the customer support agents and i was asked to call back again at 9.00 am in the morning for a follow up. He promised to investigate the issue and contact the airlines authority and arrange a refund. Cleartrip on that occasion did acknowledge that the issue was with the sales team who did not do the ticketing job properly and that i need to call up during their working hours to sort this out.

I was surprised and thrown by the statement made. Why would i need to call back to get this investigated. Shouldn’t cleartrip show some level of ownership?

I gave them 4 full days to look into it and then called cleartrip back on 12-jan during the work hours. This time i spoke to an agent, again she tried to pass the blame to lufthansa. Then i spoke to one of the supervisors named chandrika who assured that he will get me a resolution by 15-jan and that he will call me back with a resolution but never heard back from him.

On 15th night, i rang cleartrip again asking for the refund. I spoke to omkar and he again asked for 48hrs, it seems cleartrip is not able to contact airline authority (How funny is that, when lufthansa is still running its flights and business, cleatrip wasn’t able to establish contact with its supplier lufthansa in past 7 days). Isn’t this customer harassment? Isn’t this a deliberate attempt to try and get away with customer’s hard earned money?

It was clearly agreed by all the agents on the call, that it wasn’t the customer’s fault.

1. I would like to ask you, why should the customer suffer when its a problem between cleartrip and the airlines? Shouldn’t you pay off the customer first and then get this
Sorted amongst yourself and airlines?
2. Why would you hold back customer’s money?
2. Its an international flight ticket and we are talking about more than 71 thousand rupees and on top of that i had to book a new ticket paying another 40 grand to fly them out
Of the country?
3. Should you not take ownership of the issue and get the customer his dues?
3. Isn’t this a lie that, cleartrip couldn’t contact lufthansa airlines to sort out the issue in the past 8 days?

All these days i have been pushed from pillars to post without any solution to this issue. This is a total day light robbery and an unscrupulous way of making money.

If you care about your business reputation, please arrange a refund.

At this circumstances i would have to think a million times before recommending cleartrip as travel booking company.

You are not at all customer centric but champion in customer harassment.

You have tried to pass the blame showing lack of ownership and break the customer’s trust.

Rgds

Dipyaman
Email: [protected]@gmail.com