Hutch

So it's 9 days till we fly out to Oz for Xmas -the FIL phones up Cathay to confirm the flights we booked in February through eBookers. Cathay go 'sorry m8 - not confirming these because eBookers haven't paid us for the tickets'. FIL goes 'WTF' (or words to that effect, him being your typical goose-stepping Daily Mail reading bollocks-to-blair, middle class, victor meldrew, NIMBY twat), asks to speak to a supervisor, supervisor tells him same thing. He phones eBookers, claims not to be able to get through, then when he does is told to fax customer services. Instead he phones me.

When I'm done crapping myself I get on the phone to eBookers and before you know it I'm chatting to some clueless numpty in a call-centre in New Delhi. 45 minutes of toing-and-froing later and my new pen-friend decides it's not in his remit and could I please phone the sales team in the UK. Hang up - punch wall - wrap bruised hand in towel - dial new number.

15 minutes of Fur Elise and Moonlight Sonata (well, it beats David Gray I guess) later and I get to speak to someone at eBookers. New person tells me my airline numbers (as supplied by matey-boy in New Delhi) are bollocks. Can't solve problem - will get someone to 'call' me. "When" I says, all coy like, "today" shes says. Great ...

35 minutes later the phone rings. Nope, not the wife asking for the 15th update, or the FIL asking for his 20th, but Emma from eBookers - an Aussie no less. I explain problem for the fifth time - she checks - informs me that Cathay are talking out of their collective bottoms and that everything's hunky-dory, but will phone said airline herself to find out what the ****'s going on. Calls me back 10 minutes later. Tells me that 'as she expected', the flight numbers were in-correct, them having been booked so long ago that they'd changed booking systems from Galileo to Amadeus in the intervening period. I politely request that they name the next system Sherlock in the hope that it aids matters like this. She laughs. Supplies me with new flight numbers. Tells me to say 'hi' to Oz for her and a bon voyage. I thank her and then go and weigh myself to see if I've lost as much weight as I feel. Hand still hurts.

ROBnCAZ

Oh blimey............what HAS the world come to?

Englishmum

There are some good deals on with Lees Travel right now (consolidators for most Asian airlines....I lived in Singapore and many expats there use Lees for travel for themselves and UK rellies to visit them or/and travel Down Under):

http://www.leestravel.com/

(See the 'special offers' page - it's frequently updated so you might want to bookmark their website for future use)

NickyP

As soon as the word E-Bookers was mentioned I wanted to hit a wall as well . We turned up to our E-Bookers flight to Brussels on our reccie trip before moving there to find that they hadn't actually paid for the flights despite taking the money off us. As our flight was early they couldn't get a courier there with a cheque in time to pay the airline so would we mind paying direct and they will get around to paying us back once their system can deal with such a complicated task .
You will be surprised to hear that we haven't used them again.
Nicky

OzTennis

E-Bookers took over Travelbag and some other operators; streamlined operations for cost savings and improved efficiency (i.e. call centres in Bangalore et al).

OzTennis