[Resolved]  MakeMyTrip — Fraudulent transaction from makemytrip.com

Hi everyone,

Ok, this is my story. I got this sms and mail talking of a discount on makemytrip. It said "Return ticket at the cost of One-Way: Book an IndiGo Return ticket at the cost of a One-Way ticket*, only on MakeMyTip.com". Since I travel very often on IndiGo wanted to check what the offer was all about.

First, the language in the deal is extremely misleading. The actual deal is this- If you book a round trip of GoIndigo on makemytrip you will receive the lower of the two base fares as a cashback 7-10 days after booking. Example (fictional): Hyd-Kol: Base Fare- Rs. 99. Taxes- Rs. 2600. Kol- Hyd: Base Fare- Rs. 198. Taxes- Rs. 2500. Total cost: Rs. 5397. The offer means, you will need to pay the entire amount of Rs. 5397. Rs. 99 (which is the cheaper of the two base fares) will be refunded to your card as a cashback on a later date. This is bull**** and a case of gross bad messaging.

Two, the offer terms and conditions were mentioned in the T&C page (which is on a different page outside of step 3-5) but throughout the 3-5 step online transaction while processing a ticket under the offer, they never mention the amount you ACTUALLY need to pay net (or the amount you will save/be discounted under the offer). An alert said the actual amount will be reflected in the payment confirmation page. While I tried to get to that page to understand the offer, I was asked to insert all my information- name, billing address, credit card information etc. Once that was done, not only was I taken to no credit-card-has-been-approved and/or xyz-amount-will-be-deducted-from-card-nuber-abc and/or confirmation page but was instead taken to a blank page with an error message saying" Connection stopped" and almost immediately sent an SMS that said "your booking has been confirmed". Note, not once was there any confirmation required before they processed the transaction and billed it to my card. From my 3-4 years of regular online dealings be it wrt to movie/airline/railway/online marketing purchases I have never come across such a fraudulent transaction ever. I tried to reason with officials at makemytrip on phone but not only was I kept on hold for 20-22 mins each time on end but my appeal was completely disregarded. Customer care officer Saba Siddiqui (or she she said her name was) was downright impolite and unhelpful. The cancellation charges for a ticket I never booked is Rs. 2000.

I give makemytrip a big thumbs down for deceptive messaging, poor site quality and poor customer service. I will never return to that portal and recommend that no one else does so too. I will blog and tweet @shaonrc about my poor experience and am happy to share my story with whoever else is interested.

P.S: Price of tickets are always higher on makemytrip than on other portals as travelguru or cleartrip from my experience till date. They keep at least a 200-250 rupees commission per ticket. So if you book a roundtrip you pay at least 400-500 rupees extra.