[Resolved]  GoIndigo — Issuing a Ticket even if Credit Card Tx fails with Status as Pending

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

I booked a ticket on goindigo portal on 8th December. Payment was made through Citibank Credit card. In the process no where I got a message that the Tx has failed. In fact after I entered all the card related credentials on the micro page presented by the citibank internet payment page the control came back to goindigo portal where the ticket was shown. I understand in the ticket there was a field called Status which was showing Pending. Subsequently i understand on 18th Dec goindigo has sent an email to make the payment which got blocked by anti spam system. Subsequently I was told by indigo that on 28th Dec goindigo tried to make a call to me but since I was out of station so never got the message. Subsequently I got an email on 7th Jan 2014 on my ticket being cancelled. When I called customer care, I was told that the ticket got cancelled since the payment Tx was not successful and I had to book a new ticket now. My objections: 1) On any internet based Transaction a merchant is supposed to execute the order only if the payment is successful. If the payment fails, then merchant portal should fail the Tx request and display appropriate message so that customer can initiate new request. 2) A Tx can fail either because the bank denies the Tx or the request from the merchant platform to Payment GW times out. In either case the merchant portal should not execute the request with a clause like Pending! Pls. note that once the ticket is displayed ...customer will not check whether the payment was successful since the basic expected behavior is that the ticket will be issued only if the Tx is successful. Also how does the subscriber knows what pending means. If you see other sites like IRTC, Air India, book my show etc they will not issue or block ticket with Pending state and expect the customer to check whether the payment was through or not. gindigo customer support comments that this is done to help their customers to have a blocked ticket so that they do not loose out on increased fare is not justified since first of all subscriber will not suspect that the payment has failed since as explained above the conventional expected behavior is that the ticket will get issued only if the payment is successful. I feel goindigo argument that they have tried later after more then 10 days to contact customer about the failure of financial Tx does not make sense since at first place the ticket should not have been booked if the credit card Tx has failed since then customer will know about the same instantaneously and will again initiate a new request. This is a standard practice whether you buy a ticket for flight, train, movie or buy any goods! The PNR of the above Tx was S82NKW I strongly feel it is glitch in the reservation system of goindigo and it is the their arrogance which is preventing them to accept the same.