Providing solutions that work.
14 Mar 2014
So I’m wrapping up my first business trip working for Unicon. Unlike at Eastern, I was responsible for making all of my travel arrangements so I thought I’d use an online “travel agency”. My first thought was back to the cute little gnome ads, which led me to Travelocity… but I was quickly disappointed.
I easily booked my three flights (on two itineraries) and my rental car at my final destination. After I did this, I created a Travelocity account and wanted to link the itineraries to my account. After spending some time looking all over the Travelocity website trying to do it, I gave up. I finally called them thinking it would be a quick call. It was anything but quick or easy…
The agent that took my call didn’t understand what I was asking for. She put me on hold several times apparently to ask for help. Eventually she understood that I wanted something on the website to work. So she brought up the web page and helped me do it step by step… Unfortunately she was only helping me to pull up my itinerary. Finally she got what I wanted to do. Again, I went on hold.
After about 45 minutes of being on the phome she told me that it was impossible to link itineraries not created with an account to a new account. The only thing that they could do was cancel the itinerary, give me a refund, and then I could purchase the flights/rental again under my account. Really?!?
Being a computer guy I was shocked. Why was this seemingly easy process not available. Pretty much every airline I’ve ever used has let me connect an itinerary to my airline account after the fact. Even as I write this, I can see the location on the database table where my itinerary sits with a null account key. Why couldn’t I just reach in and fix it. sigh. I have concluded whether right or wrong that Travelocity is probably such a legacy system that it’s not feasible to add such functionality. I also noticed that Travelocity insist on storing my name in CAPITAL letters. To me, this totally smacks of mainframe.
So, I had them cancel my flights, but I was not going use Travelocity again. So I looked elsewhere.
My wife suggested Orbitz, so I took a look. I didn’t actually do a true test and re-create the itinerary before creating/logging into an account… but I noticed immediately that Orbitz’s website was more fluid and just seemed more polished. Re-creating my flights was just as good, if not, a better experience. I was pleased.
So my question(s) to fellow Netizens is, “Is Orbitz the best online travel agency? Is there something better? What do you suggest?”
*This post reflects my views and does not necessarily represents the views of my employer: Unicon, Inc.
Tags: [travel