Booking a domestic trip to Delhi was a different experience altogether.
Calling them, they say 'for domestic travel, press 1' . And when I do, they say 'please book online at makemytrip.com' and hang up on you. Without a word of apology/explanation or anything.
Well, I thought..and went online. Unlike travelguru, these guys atleast take credit cards that are of international origin.
At the last page of booking after evading the travel insurance potholes, I see the option to sign in, or go without it. I say to myself ' I'll probably be doing this again, so let me create an account'. I look for a link to create an account and continue with my transaction. None.
Then I think 'ok, they expect desis to be smarter ', and started a different browser, created an account, and tried to sign on.
Maybe I was too slow creating an account, but they throw up a 'session expired' message and throw me back to the homepage.
Ok, I login and start the booking all over again. They take my mobile phone number, credit card .. and take me to the final page.
The final page doesn't even say 'your booking was successful'. Instead, the first message I see is
"You have previously attempted to make a booking with similar details. To avoid making a duplicate booking, kindly call our Customer Support team at 1-800-11 8747 (MTNL & BSNL) or 1-800 102 8747 (All Major Operators) and quote your MakeMyTrip Booking ID : FLTXXXXXXXX. Thank you."
I was thinking .. "you guys expired the session on me, don't you know that ? Or can't you know that? "
I go ahead and call them and get through after N tries.
There, I'm asked to enter the last 4 digits of my booking id. I do.
Then the voice says 'you're calling from a different phone than the number you've given us. For security reasons, we must have the number you gave us'.
I take a deep breath, but think 'ok .. security reasons.. good'. And enter my mobile number. The voice says 'sorry ..invalid number, please try again'. I try with the '91' prefix. No use - same error. It even repeats back to me my mobile number I entered (which was correct). In fact, the webpage also shows me the number I entered - correctly.
After N tries, and saying 'does not match', it says connecting to an operator.
This was really trying. But I want to make sure my booking is correct/valid. So I wait. While I wait .. I start keying this blog. This entry has come to an end after 30 minutes. The music on the phone is still on.
I go back to the 'error' page. I read on more.. and it turns out it may not be an error page after all.
I see "You will be able to view the details of your E-Ticket online in your account in the next 30 minutes."
I also see "The amount of Rs. 11468 has been charged to , Bangalore . Mobile number: <> ."
Hm.. I think. Maybe I can hang up after all .. or should I make sure?
The music is still on the phone - Kenny G is repeating the first 2 lines of Breathless - playing with a passion he's never before played. He stops at random points and restarts .. I don't mind that. But I do need to hang up if I don't want to have Kenny G nightmares. So, Makemytrip - you win, you have defeated me.
Part of me is really curious. Maybe I can keep this on speaker phone and really see if they ever answer my call. How long will it be ? 1 hr ? 2 hrs ? 5 hrs ? That would be a cool number to put on the blog. And probably a world record to be on the phone support line of any company.
But I finally hang up.. while the sax is screeching on a particularly passionate high note. Hopefully Kenny G hasn't done any lasting damage to my surviving few grey cells.
Final thoughts:
This is India's top travel portal. They're raking in a lot of money owing to the marketing, and probably good prices.
But can't anybody with deep pockets and a little more customer orientation do a much better job than these jokers? If they did, make my trip would probably pick a more suitable profession like 'make my kabab' or 'make my bread' or something.
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