Recently about 60 days ago I booked a family trip to India from Chicago. Wife and two little kids. Called my agent Air Tours, they quickly asked me for the names, credit card etc. It was not easy to book it as you can imagine this is about the frustration in travel blog. Anyway the first thing this agent wants is a form that you need to sign and fax. This weird thing called Credit Card Authorization form is something they will send you by email but you need to write your credit card number and address and other juicy details and sign your life away. More on this later.
Once I got the tickets paid for I was told that the seats could not be assigned,(I will give you two days to guess the answer).
Here it comes "You booked too far ahead of time. So no seat assignments. 50 days have gone by, I wait for a week before the flight and ask for my seats. The agent from Air Tour tells me, "Dont worry go to the airport, they will assign you seats". For any of you who had travelled to india it feels like you are in a cattle car people jostling to get ahead of you in the line, bags and bags splitting open at their seams. Americans should be proud that they are exporting so much of the Japan goods through their airports.
Anyway my heart stopped when she said that you will get your seats at the airport. I requested her to get my assignments done, It is unacceptable to go to the airport and throw myself at the Air India Maharaja's feet. Worse things have happened with seat assignments in hand, God only knows what Air India will do to you if you go to the airport without seat assignments.
Finally after calling her for three days she finally relented and got me seats for the Chicago to Delhi trip. I continued to force the agent to make good on the seat assignment for the return journey, and still waiting.
In the mean time I decided to try my luck at calling Air India Chicago number. Miracles can happen !, I got through the customer support and the gentleman tried valiantly but lost out, The reason is that there is not a single seat to assign. But he promised me sincerely to go the airport as they will give us seats and not to worry. I am getting a little sweaty now, My breathing is heavy the feet are numb I am blue in my face. And I made my case more forcefully, but could not budge him.
In his own honest opinion people book multiple seats to give themselves room to change their mind at the last. Also he came up with information that this leg is always booked full and so it is difficult to assign seats. Now that made my antannae stand up, my heart suddenly stopped and I started getting goose bumps. He basically said that I should pray and turn up at the airport with my two kids and wife included and throw myself at the Air India Maharaja's feet.
I wish I am a Maharaja, I will love to fire the marketing department top to bottom, secondly fire the airline reservation IT maintenance people. Thirdly get rid of all the customer service department. Why do you need customer service department if they cannot go into the system to assign seats for people who paid for their tickets.
Any way the Saga continues I will write how I hopefully arrived in India with my family intact and what travails the Air India has put us through in the next blog....
If you want to taste the frustrations you are likely to face click here...
Ramana
