I blogged about our horrid experience with CheapTickets.com (owned by Orbitz.com) here and told how the flight went here.
Well Charlotte Willis from their Customer Relations department sent a letter. "I sincerely regret this disappointing travel experience" is as sorry as she gets. The travel experience was fine (except the delayed luggage), it was their crappy customer service on the phone I was complaining about.
The second paragraph tells me "the airlines reserve the right to change their schedules at any time." Ok, but so not what I was writing about. She copies a huge chunk of legalese from their "Terms and Conditions" which drives home this non-point.
"I do want to apologize that our Customer Care Center did not live up to our high customer service expectations." No crap, lady! Although I'm pretty skeptical about these high expectations. Sheesh.
She ends with an offer of a $100 rebate on my next booking.
Like that's going to happen.
Look, I've worked in the business world. Mistakes happen all of the time. Being able to promptly apologize and make good on the problem is not only good business, it can actually improve your business and make customers happier than if there hadn't been a mistake in the first place.
Let me repeat: CheapTickets.com sucks!
