Flights booked (Flightbookers)

Member Name: EazyDude

Product:	Flightbookers
Date:	09/08/01 (1233 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Deal with one person the whole time (you get their personal phone number, not a switchboard), Very helpful, Friendly

Disadvantages: Very busy people

What a nightmare I've had so far in getting my holiday organised! For those of you about to delve in, this is going to be an account of my booking troubles so far, and how Flightbookers has been able to help me, from a week ago, until today. Flick to the end for a summary.

The account
------------
Right, now where the heck do I start? I have a 3 month period in my course (I'm a medical student you see), which allows me to study in a hospital of my choosing around the world, on the provision that I'm accepted to study there of course. My aim was to try and get to Australia, and sure enough I got a place there. The time before my placement started was enough to squeeze in a rather large holiday, so these were my plans.

1) London -> Dubai (Emirates)
2) Dubai -> Delhi (Emirates)
3) Delhi -> Calcutta (Air India)
4) Calcutta -> Delhi (Air India)
5) Delhi -> Colombo (Air Lanka)
6) Colombo -> Singapore (Emirates)
7) Singapore -> Sydney (Emirates)
8) Sydney -> Dubai (Emirates)
9) Dubai -> London (Emirates)

Phew! Well, that wasn't so much what I intended to do, but the route I was given my my local agent to get to Calcutta, Colombo, Singapore, and Sydney. Everything was booked, hunky dorey (£1300), but then the Tamil Tigers decided to get a bit excited, and blow up a few of Air Lanka's planes. :-O This threw things right off track as there were no longer any planes by Air Lanka flying from Delhi -> Colombo. To my local agent's credit, they did try and get me onto the only other airline to do that leg, Air India. These were all full to the teeth and the only other way of getting me from Delhi to Colombo, was via Madras, for which I would have had to cough up an extra £300 on top of what I had already paid! I had to say no thank you and asked if I could change route to leave India out of my travels as I had called Emirates earlier and verified that I could change route due to the circum
stances without incurring any extra charges.

My local agent could only get me a flight to Colombo from London, via Dubai on the 16th August, which was a good 13 days after I had intended to fly! I thought that I might just try phoning Flightbookers to see what they had available, as a friend I was travelling with was on the same set of flights after Colombo. I asked to speak to the same person my friend had dealt with, Max. Marvellous, they could get me out to Colombo on the 11th for a total of £780! I put a deposit down to hold the flight. I was told this was normally nonrefundable, but given the circumstances, he would make it fully refundable. I thought I might just try phoning one other agent that my parents usually use, and found they could get me out on the 10th for £750, sounding even better. I chose to go back to Flightbookers as that would mean we would book with the same agent in the event anything happening.

Max scratched his head at the better price and flight and tried hard on his computer for a good 20 minutes to try and match the quote I had. He managed to find the flight that I had been quoted and booked me on it. Fantastic! I went into London and collected the tickets the day after.

Flights sorted, or so I thought.

Max called me up this Monday (6th) morning first thing to let me know that the flight I had out of Colombo, had been cancelled, but he could put me on an Air Lanka flight the day before. I guess I had no choice, I was not going to cancel again. With such short notice on the flight, I was told that a new one would be issued on check-in, I'll tell you what happens in an update when I get back in October.

Right, now the flights were sorted. (Fingers crossed)

Now for the accommodation. I had forseen myself getting off at the relevant airports and booking hotels/hostels/motels along the way. This only applied to Singapore (and Malaysia - where I intended to go during my time in Singapor
e). I casually called Max and left a voicemail. He got back to me almost immediately, well I exaggerate, maybe it was 10 minutes. I managed to book a couple of nights in Singapore in a 3* hotel, for only £18/person/night excluding breakfast for two. He was due to send me out vouchers in the post first thing as it's so close to my flying date and whether I get them or not... I'll let you know. Otherwise he's offered to fax them to me, and fortunately for fax to email gateways, this will be no problem. He also gave me details of the hotel on the phone and a web address. Realising that this offer of £18/night was terrific compared to prices I had seen quoted both on the net and in the official Hotel Guide from the Singapore Tourist Board, I phoned back and booked more nights as well as some in Malaysia for similar prices. This was more than I expected Flightbookers to do, from looking at their name you realise.

Anyway, 1am now, and all is well. Fingers crossed.

To summarise...

Advantages
-----------
- Very helpful
- Deal with one person the whole time (you get their personal phone number, not a switchboard)
- No credit card surcharge
- Prompt return of calls
- Price matching
- Fast turn over of tickets
- On the ball for flight cancellations

Disadvantages
--------------
- Very busy people (more messages left than directly answered calls)
- Didn't return all messages left
- Erm...

All in all, I would thoroughly recommend them, so far. Ask for Max if you phone through to the London branch, I'd give him a thumbs up here if I could. If you live in London all the better, you can pay a visit in the morning and have your tickets printed by the afternoon. They're a big company and unlikey to go down, and if they do, they're a member of every acronym I've seen for travel agents.

Lets just see if the goods are as good as the sales people...
r>** UPDATE 21/10/01 **

Just a few quick words on the results of the service that I was given...

Unfortunately, when I got to Gatwick, I was told my connecting flight from Dubai on the way out had been cancelled, and my scheduled one hour or so stopover had then been converted into a grand 9 hour stopover, in an airport. Fantastic. I could not express my joy more. I picked a bone via Emirates' customer service and got a nice reply when I got back telling me exactly what time they had notified Flightbookers to tell me, even with a reference number. I haven't taken it up with Flightbookers, as its probably more hassle than its worth.

Otherwise my hotel bookings were sort of OK. I had most of the bookings confirmed before I left. I also had them faxed through to a number which then forwarded it to my email. Isn't technology wonderful? However, I had one booking as yet unconfirmed and had to await it to be faxed (and emailed) to me whilst I was away in Sri Lanka. This never quite came through though and I used my mobile to text my brother to chase this up. A couple of days later, and a bit of chasing, the email cropped up. This was a mild inconvenience seeing as email access was not great in Sri Lanka, and I needed them before I hit Singapore.

To Summarise the update
-----------------------
Flightbookers let me down a bit, firstly by not letting me know of my flight postponement and secondly as I didn't have all the paperwork I needed for the hotel before I left the country. Fortunately for the wonders of the web, I was able to receive my fax from abroad and print the hotel vouchers out. Down one star Flightbookers...