Online booking and ticketing is making its way into Philippine homes. Convenient! Or so I thought….
Our 2 boys are headed for the province soon so the other night, I logged on to Cebu Pacific’s website and began booking their tickets. It was a cinch! The pop-up windows first showed me the available promo rates for the date I chose, then after my selection, it began asking me for passenger details. Processing my credit card did not pose any problems at all. Soon after processing, the e-tickets of the boys were emailed to me pronto! Wow, I thought to myself, what a comfort to do things from home rather than have to troop to a ticketing office.
I thought too soon. Our niece who came to Manila for a convention and who was traveling back home with our boys needed to have her e-ticket rebooked. I went through the website. Nope, there was NO ONLINE WAY TO REBOOK! Egads!
There was a 24/7 telephone number though so I promptly dialed it. A friendly customer rep assisted me with the rebooking. Okay, so far. But then, here came the bad news. The e-ticket had to be reissued and it could not be done online. I had to go to the nearest ticketing office to get it done. Huh? May record locator naman. If they could email me a newly-purchased ticket, why couldn’t reissuances be done online via email as well? Beats me…
So yesterday, I went to their Galleria ticketing office. Sheesh! With their P1 promo just announced, the place was packed! I took a number — 69. But to my dismay, the guard pointed me to the number being flashed above, which said 99. In other words, it was about to revert back to zero, meaning 68 people were still to be processed ahead of me.
I was there at 5pm, had to kill time walking around the mall (and doing a bit of shopping). After an hour, I returned to discover they were only processing #10. I was resigned to the possibility I would be there till they closed at 9PM. Thankfully, on my second return at 8pm, the number had jumped to 59 (probably because some of those ahead of me did not bother to wait and left). I got out of there by 8:30PM.
Here’s what I wish Cebu Pacific would consider. They should not only making initial ticket purchases easy. They should do the same for rebookings. After all, it is a fact of travel life that passengers have to rebook under certain situations. But to put us, their traveling clients, through hell to rebook after tasting a bit of heaven in purchasing their tickets is, I think, a big disservice.
In this day and age of online transactions, a simple thing as a rebooking and reissuance of an e-ticket, which should take no more than a few minutes, took me 3 hours and a half.
Are we still in the IBM stage? (Meaning….It’s Better Manual)? I have flown on Singapore Airlines and have done everything from the comfort of my home, including selecting my seat on the plane. Why can’t we go the distance here?
Cebu Pacific, wake up! If you shape up your online ticketing system to make it truly an online system in all respects, I would gladly change my review of your company.
Congrats, Jane. A beautiful blog. I just wanted to say I empathized with you as I read this piece about CP. Last month I went to their Makati office at about 1:30 PM and left 5:30 PM. This is one area which they have not been able to address. I understand 90% of their flights are also delayed nowadays since they got the new aircrafts. Oh well there is no perfect airline I guess.
Thanks Ricky! Yes, the previously on-time airline is now just as delayed as the other 2 major airlines. It’s sad that what used to be their prime edge over the rest could not be sustained. Hope it’s not a case of ningas cogon….
i love online reservations and ticketing.. its so convenient
can somebody help me? i was so excited to book on their 0 fares for macau that i inadvertently typed in the WRONG SURNAME on my sister’s details. When i called them, all they could do was to put an annotation on my e-ticket which says….”PASSENGER NAME SHOULD BE READ AS XXXX” Will this be enough? Has somebody gone through what i did? This is so idiotic of me! HELP!!!!
Don’t ever try purchasing tickets and use credit card ONLINE. I made two transactions using two different cards. Both transaction said it is CONFIRMED and found in my statement of accounts. Only to found out in the airport that they won’t let us board becuase they want us to pay the ticket in cash. When I asked CP desk officer what’s the reason, she said my the bank (credit card) declined my transaction. After paying cash, later when I called their call center, they said that the reversal of the amount to my card is on the process. The other ticket booking I made was already 3 months and yet they haven’t found that out!
i like that
Jane,
Tnx really for d info me and my famiy in switzerland r coming and want to fly with cebu pacific.Then i saw your post here at lease it helps me coz it also happened to my frend anyway tnx and god bless.
Irish Grob
I have been taking so much time to book for a lower fare on CEB online, when I have seen a chance, a instantly booked for a round trip flight from Iloilo to Cebu, as excited as I am going to BDO to pay for the ticket, the teller told me that the account number that Cebu Pacific generated for me was not a valid account. I rushed to the Cebu Pacific Airlines ticketing booth at the lower part of the mall to ask for some information, then they told me to call the call center of CEB. It was almost 6PM and the bank closes at 7PM. What a waste of time and effort. Cebu Pacific Air E-Ticketing is a failure, there are no perfect airlines though but CEB is the worst one ever.
I am working for a Korean School here in Bacolod. It is normalcy for students to cancel or rebook their flights schedules, because of course, there are things that happen beyond our control. It is always a pain to explain to them why they have to pay penalties almost equal to the amount of their tickets. Rebooking and no show fee of 1,600 pesos! Para kang ninakawan! Kahit 50% nalang okay na sana. We can’t even reserve or rebook or cancel flights after 5pm!!! Ano ba yan!!! Sometimes I think sinasadya na di ka makapag rebook so they can charge more people of a no show fee. And what is this thing with the Travel Fund??? Naku nakakaloka itong airline na to.
jane thank you for sharing your life journey shift.
On line booking is pretty risky. My internet connection was suddenly cut when I did online booking w CEB once. There was no confirmation email that came so I thought the payment process did not push through. I even called up Unionbank and CEB and they assured me that i wont be charged with the ticket but came my credit card billing from Unionbank visa and included there of course my online booking charge.
It took 2 weeks (with my insistent calls to both parties) for Unionbank Visa to refund me. It was a waste of time and energy.
Unless one is booking for a cheap one way ticket, I suggest to do it on any ticketing outlet. IBM Jane. 🙂
its nice but how about those who doesnt have credit cards? most convient that they can get..reserve now and pay later.
i want to ask how much ticket from taiwan to cebu…that would be on march 16 to go home cebu and march 23 go back taiwan….thank you