Background
To book a domestic flight ticket, you would either go to cleartrip, makemytrip, ibibo or the respective airline website. As I embarked on 45 days of professional work for Pune, I thought of booking a ticket for my wife and my 11-month-old kid. The journey was to be made on 28th April 2015 and as my booking was already done on an indigo flight, I thought I would book the same for my kid and wife. In what appears to be a blunder judgment on my part which I regret to this day, I decided to to book through makemytrip.com. Why did I choose this over others like the clear trip, well Makemytrip people found a cute way to lure people to their website. They show the price of your ticket before the discount whereas as clear trip will show the final amount that you have to pay.
On 17th April 2015, I booked the return for 28 April 2015 and 5th June 2015. It cost me Rs 14k but was refundable. It was later decided that I had to stay till 12 June in Pune but my wife wanted to come back. So I decided that I'd ask my mother to visit Pune and accompany my wife on the return journey since my wife was a little nervous traveling alone with an 11-month-old baby.
I searched for cheaper tickets and found out that if I canceled my previously booked ticket and booked 2 tickets on Spicejet I would save 4k. Not bad at all. But I wanted to be sure about the refund.
On 30 April, after returning from the office, I decided to perform some cancellation operation on makemytrip and hoped that in the course of this action, I could see what would be refunded and hence I could decide to cancel it eventually or keep it henceforth book an additional ticket on the same flight. To my utter surprise, the cancellation operation was completed without giving me alerts about the refundable amount or telling me that I needed to contact the airline to know the refundable amount. It got canceled and in makemytrip lingo, called a partial cancellation. Since it is a partial cancellation, I would not be told about the refunded amount until it eventually comes into my account. And the painful, frustrating journey began...
MakeMyTrip - the synonym for dysfunctional internal departments, unprofessional handling, inexperienced customer care
I called the airline to inquire about the refunded amount. To my surprise, the ticket wasn't canceled. I asked for the refundable amount in case I decide to cancel it. The total saving was not what I was expecting. The second error in judgment, I decided to call to make my trip and request them to ignore my cancellation request. I called them a number of times. It was a pathetic experience in itself. You would be asked for a 10-15-digit booking ID and would eventually be told to stay online while they transfer my call to the other department. Talking to these customer care executives, I realized that there was so little collaboration between the departments. To compensate for the lack of effective collaboration, they created a rule which made no sense. And these naive executives expected the customer to understand these rules as if they were god written. Some of the instances are
[Executive] "Sir, You have to wait for 48 hours and we will call you in order to confirm whether you want to cancel your ticket or not"
[Me]: "But I am telling you that I don't want to cancel anymore, why would I wait for 48 hours to tell you this"
[Executive]: "Sir, these are the company policy. There is a different department"
[Me]: "But the ticket price increases every day. Can you tell me if it is canceled or not? I want to book another ticket "
[Executive]: "Sir, usually it will not be canceled unless we call you for confirmation"
[Me] Thinking: " WTF :-/"
There were no calls for the next 2 days and I decided to call them eventually, Some executive told me that my cancellation request had now been ignored and I could go ahead and book another on the same flight. I was already spooked, so I asked in written
I received the following reply,
Satisfied with the written reply, I booked another ticket on the same flight using Make My Trip just in case there is a problem in the future. The tickets cost me 8k. All was well until on 25 May my wife decided to do a web check-in. To our utter shock, the airline told us that the ticket was canceled by make my trip. I made numerous attempts to call customer care, and each time they told me to wait for 8-9 days without giving me assurance that they would settle it. I have to book another set of tickets for 4th June instead of 5th June as prices sky rocketed. I can't describe the pain, anger, and frustration they have caused me. Look at the complaints I have made so far,
To this date, not a single penny has been credited to my account. Every time I call them, they acknowledge their mistake and tell me that they will refund the amount in the next 6 working days.
Summary
I am contemplating legal action as I believe I have a very strong case. I don't care less about the money I will spend pursuing or the money that is not been refunded so far. It is the unprofessionalism, lack of respect for the customer, anger, and frustration they have caused me.
I would strongly suggest against doing any kind of business with make my trip. After this, I keep hearing similar stories from my near dear ones. Just google "makemytrip pathetic" and you will see loads of this. If you still decide and make a booking through it, be ready to join our club :). Not Looking forward to seeing you.
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