easyJet - not so cheap

Phillip_Lamerton

I used to believe that easyJet offered value for money – that they had the cheapest or best prices for flights to Spain and elsewhere in Europe. My wife and I used to fly with them two or three times a year. Then easyJet taught us a lesson - that the cheapest air fares were not necessarily the best.

We fly regularly to Europe but, these days, we never book with easyJet. EasyJet charged us so much for a simple name change that they ended up losing our business.

In October, 2008, we booked return flights to Valencia, Spain for 21 February of the following year. I immediately saw that there was a problem with the names on the booking confirmation – ie my wife’s first name was the same as mine; the booking showed her with a man’s name. I went onto the easyJet web site and, with some considerable difficulty, found the page which allowed me to report the problem. The initial response from the easyJet Customer Experience Team was that they had looked at my email and so provided a web link referring to the Greek strike on the 21st of October 2008, and they hoped I would find it helpful.

Later, an email from a Customer Experience Champion suggested that the error was caused by the ‘autofill’ on my PC, when I was making the reservation and advised me to phone their Customer Services on an 0871 number. This seemed like a reasonable explanation, so I rang the number but I was advised by a recorded voice to contact easyJet via their web page again.

I contacted easyJet again via their web page and explained that I was going around in circles; the 0871 Customer Services number refers me to the web page and the web page refers me to the 0871 number. A ‘personal’ reply came from another Customer Experience Champion: ‘Thank you for contacting us. I would request you to contact our Customer Services on 0871 … … Thank you for taking the time to contact us Mr….If you require any further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact us again via the contact us section of the easyJet web site.’

All this was very frustrating and anything but easy; I put the matter aside until February, just before we were due to fly. The original price of my wife’s ticket was £95.27 but on February 17th easyJet charged me another £149.12 just to change her first name from a man’s to a woman’s name. In total, her ticket came to GBP 244 instead of GBP 95.

We still fly two or three times a year to Europe but, since that incident, we have never booked again with easyJet. We don’t fly with Ryanair or any so-called budget airlines either. We would prefer to pay not much more and have peace of mind with reputable airlines such as British Airways or Iberia.

We felt cheated by easyJet over that expensive name change but easyJet has lost much more in losing our business.

malkie76

You made a mistake and somehow it's EasyJet's fault? Many carriers won't allow a name change at all, and every carrier will charge you a change name fee, and any increase in fare (to prevent speculators).

I'd remove the booking reference from your post - gives out personal information when coupled with your surname, which I'm guessing is your username........

phatbear

Phillip_Lamerton wrote: »

We would prefer to pay not much more and have peace of mind with reputable airlines such as British Airways or Iberia.

Define reputable? When was the last time you heard about easyjet going on strike, now compare this with the reputable BA.

Oddly out of the 7 flights I took with virgin, ryanair and easyjet last year guess which one gave us any problem? yup virgin, they lost Mrs Pb's bag on the way back from NYC in Aug and to date they are still giving her the run around regarding the loss.

Phillip_Lamerton wrote: »

We felt cheated by easyJet over that expensive name change but easyJet has lost much more in losing our business.

And im sure stellios is kicking himself daily with the loss

malkie76 wrote: »

You made a mistake and somehow it's EasyJet's fault?

What he/she said!

richardw

You might of had a better resolution if you had persevered with the telephone contact.

apt

Lots have people have rung up easyJet customer services and had names corrected free of charge when it is a case of a mistake, not trying to switch the booking to a new passenger. I do agree on the wider point that on many routes easyJet are no longer cheap.

phatbear

Makes me chuckle that this happened 3 and a half years ago and the OP has only just decided to post about it, the anger must have been eating him away for this long.

nico26

Beat me how he booked in October and decided to finally try and get it sorted in the Feb just days before they flew. No wonder the price was so high

Phillip_Lamerton

richardw wrote: »

You might of had a better resolution if you had persevered with the telephone contact.

It seems quite evident from my experience and from that of reported experiences all over the internet, that EasyJet (or Stellios, if you like) does NOT care for the individual (or the loss of my custom). Any passenger who has needed to contact their Customer Services is likely to agree.

When I tried to negotiate their automated answering system, (and I actually tried more than once), I concluded that it was the worse I'd ever experienced. I'm tolerant of answering system menus but I suspect that this one was designed to severely dissuade customers from persevering with contacting a real employee.

If I had been given assistance from Easyjet when I requested it, I could have rectified the problem quickly and without such great expense. This is why I think Easyjet failed us.

My wife and I have flown to Europe some 20 times between us since we made the decision not to fly again with Easyjet. However, we have often had to meet people who have flown into the UK with Easyjet and they have often been an hour or more late (i.e. 2 to 3 times out of 5 incoming flights. One time when collecting somebody from Gatwick, the arrivals board was displaying some 15 flights delayed by an average of an hour. I then noticed that ALL except one were Easyjet flights coming from various places around Europe.

We, too, lost a suitcase with Easyjet and it was a nightmare getting it back. First they delivered somebody else's suitcase which the cleaner accepted in our absence. I made several phone calls a day for three weeks before they would accept that they needed to collect the erroneous suitcase and re-open the file on our missing one.

All of this reinforces my belief that Easyjet is not for us.

budgetflyer

Yes you are right. Most low cost airlines could make it easier to contact them. Truth is, their business model is based on a fully automated non human system so they really don't want to speak to you.

Overall Easyjet imo get a much softer ride than Ryanair because Stelios seems such a happy, jolly type character where as Michael O'leary is much more brash.They are both however, equally ruthless, business wise.
As pointed out, you need to take part of the blame for leaving it so long and for not check, check and rechecking before making payment.
Working with auto complete or as some do, 2 browser windows open (for booking multiple flights or one ways) is a recipe for disaster.

BUT
If one of these 2, Easyjet or Ryanair could adopt the much more customer focused attitude of Southwest Airlines then they could really wipe out the opposition.

bagand96

I can see that this sorry experience has affected you badly... I mean its taken over 3 years for you to even be able to talk about it.

Edit: Just seen that phatbear said the same above...

agrinnall

Two points:

1) Last year I made a name correction with Easyjet with one phone call at zero cost (other than that of the call), the call centre was very helpful, had you done this you might not have become an embittered ex-customer.

2) For those who haven't kept up with the news from several years ago, although Stelios is still a major shareholder in Easyjet he no longer has any operational role, have been ousted in a boardroom coup. If you want to blame someone for the way Easyjet is run you could start with Carolyn McCall, the CEO.

http://corporate.easyjet.com/about-easyjet/our-management/board-of-directors.aspx