Not Customer Service Friendly At All

SmartFares - www.smartfares.com
★★★★☆
4.4
93.0% of users recommend this

cheftonj's review of SmartFares - www.smartfares.com

“Not Customer Service Friendly At All”

★★☆☆☆

written by cheftonj on 02/04/2015

4/1/2015, I made an online reservation but accidentally clicked the wrong button and got a return flight leaving from Sacramento to Dulles airport in DC but it's connecting flight left from Reagan National and would leave me having to find my own transportation between the airports in a city I've never been to with a time constraint that left me uncomfortable so I called customer service. I asked the representative to simply change the return flight for me but he refused stating that I would have to pay $300.00 more because that offer was no longer valid even though this whole interaction happened over the span of about 15 minutes. I wasn't going to pay that much so I cancelled the flight and he credited my account but not before charging me a $75.00 cancellation fee for the "free cancellation" offered on their website. I got back on the computer 4/2/2015 to find the exact same flight that I tried to get yesterday when I hit the wrong button, the exact flight that I had asked the rep to change to, the exact same flight that the rep said was no longer available unless I wanted to pay $300.00 more and not only was it available, but it was $489.20 instead of $491.50 and a $15.00 coupon code thst I found online gave me the ticket for $474.20. A lot of people would say "well you got the ticket cheaper so what's the problem?" My problem: As an Executive Chef I too deal with the public. My rep was so busy spouting policy that he didn't take time to realize that he was, in fact, making what should have been an easy fix much, much more difficult than it had to be and the fact that English wasn't even his first language made it even worse. I spent 45 minutes on the phone with this guy while he kept telling me about his policy and putting me on hold which shows that he had no respect what-so-ever for my time. He wouldn't even try to do or offer anything to make me feel better about the company or their business practices and when everything was everything, I paid $549.20 when adding the $75.00 fee from the mistake. And whereas it does leave me with a bad taste in my mouth about smartfares, I also realize that I am a very small fish in a very big pond so nothing is likely to happen to make their service any better.

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