Customer service woes

breaking_free

Manxman_in_exile said:

Thank you for writing to Singapore Airlines.

We would like to confirm you that as you did show up for your flights from AKL-SIN-LHR and you did not receive any refund from us as you had booked a new flight from AKL-SIN-LHR for return...

You haven't explained what (if anything) they might mean by that.

They appear to be saying that they didn't refund you because they transferred your tickets to a different flight.

Hi all. My partner started this thread but I will carry it on.

Manxman, I've highlighted and italicised your bit in bold: that is exactly right. The replies from Singapore do indeed make it sound like like they didn't refund us because they transferred the value of those tickets to the new flights - but this is not what happened. 

Original tickets were cancelled by us over online chat. We purchased new flights via online chat. We didn't receive a refund or credit for the unused tickets because they were non-refundable.

Every answer I've had from Singapore airlines is ambiguous, like the one I've quoted above. Here is another one:
Please be advised that, as we checked, you weren't a no show for your 22 March flight as you had rebooked yourself on the flight that was on 03 March.

And another response:
Upon checking your booking, we see that the flight are all flown from CHC to LHR via SIN on 03rd March 2023.  For your confirmation, the E-ticket receipt has been sent on the registered email address.

I just want a statement from them that says "You did not use your original tickets. You did not receive a refund or credit for these tickets."

I tried their online chat again yesterday and got yet another non-native English speaker. This person told me that they will escalate it to another team - I don't know why they did this as I thought they could just give me a statement in the chat but hey ho, I will have to wait for an email from this other team.

tightauldgit

If it's just the language barrier I would suggest you write out exactly what you want them to confirm in concise clear bullet points, send them that and just ask them to confirm that the below information is correct with a yes/no.

Have you called the UK office number? At least their English will be better presumably. 

breaking_free

tightauldgit said:

If it's just the language barrier I would suggest you write out exactly what you want them to confirm in concise clear bullet points, send them that and just ask them to confirm that the below information is correct with a yes/no. 

Believe it or not that is exactly what I did! This is what I wrote the other day:

+++++++++++++++++++

The previous answers I have received to my questions are ambiguous. Would you please reply Yes or No to the questions below.

The attachments original flights show our original return flights on page 2 of each document. 

1. Did my partner and I cancel these original return flights? Yes/No.

2. Did we receive a refund for these original return flights? Yes/No.

This elicited the response:
Thank you for writing to Singapore Airlines.

Upon checking your booking, we see that the flight are all flown from CHC to LHR via SIN on 03rd March 2023.  For your confirmation, the E-ticket receipt has been sent on the registered email address,
++++++++++++++++

But yes, it does seem to be a language thing. Five attempts to ask the same question and five fails - six fails if you include the online chat I used last night "sigh". 

Manxman_in_exile

Have you tried presenting this response from SAL to your insurer?

breaking_free said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

Thank you for writing to Singapore Airlines.

We would like to confirm you that as you did show up for your flights from AKL-SIN-LHR and you did not receive any refund from us as you had booked a new flight from AKL-SIN-LHR for return...

You haven't explained what (if anything) they might mean by that.

They appear to be saying that they didn't refund you because they transferred your tickets to a different flight.

Every answer I've had from Singapore airlines is ambiguous, like the one I've quoted above. Here is another one:
Please be advised that, as we checked, you weren't a no show for your 22 March flight as you had rebooked yourself on the flight that was on 03 March.

And another response:
Upon checking your booking, we see that the flight are all flown from CHC to LHR via SIN on 03rd March 2023.  For your confirmation, the E-ticket receipt has been sent on the registered email address.

Assuming the return tickets you are trying to claim for were the ones booked for 22 March, I would take the above as confirmation that you actually rebooked and returned on the 03 March flight, and didn't use the 22 March tickets.

I know they've said "... you weren't a no show for your 22 March flight..." but I'd tell the insurer that what SAL mean by that is that although you didn't turn up for the flight you weren't techinically a "no show" because SAL already knew you'd cancelled the 22 March tickets and had returned on 03 March.

I wouldn't try to get any more sense out of SAL unless your insurer tells you that their responses to date are insufficient to show that you didn't use the 22 March tickets.

breaking_free

Thanks Manxman - your summation is correct and I may very well do this. I'll wait to receive whatever email reply they come up with in response to my latest attempt and if it's not better than what we've had thus far I'll go with your suggestion. 

Just as an aside, when I used online chat to rebook the new tickets I had a hell of a time making myself understood - it took over an hour to cancel the original flights and rebook new ones. I wish I'd been offered the chat transcript because the lady quoted around £1000 for two new return flights, which looked to be about half price to me. When I confirmed that this was the price for both tickets and not £1000 per ticket she was adamant that this was the total price and not per ticket. I was not surprised when my credit card was debited for twice the amount as she had clearly gotten it wrong. 

Singapore airlines used to give wonderful service but it's obvious from my own experience and from reading tripadvisor (after the fact) that they've gone down the cost cutting route on customer support and are not even using native Singaporeans to do the work. 

tightauldgit

breaking_free said:

Thanks Manxman - your summation is correct and I may very well do this. I'll wait to receive whatever email reply they come up with in response to my latest attempt and if it's not better than what we've had thus far I'll go with your suggestion. 

Just as an aside, when I used online chat to rebook the new tickets I had a hell of a time making myself understood - it took over an hour to cancel the original flights and rebook new ones. I wish I'd been offered the chat transcript because the lady quoted around £1000 for two new return flights, which looked to be about half price to me. When I confirmed that this was the price for both tickets and not £1000 per ticket she was adamant that this was the total price and not per ticket. I was not surprised when my credit card was debited for twice the amount as she had clearly gotten it wrong. 

Singapore airlines used to give wonderful service but it's obvious from my own experience and from reading tripadvisor (after the fact) that they've gone down the cost cutting route on customer support and are not even using native Singaporeans to do the work. 

Given that they were losing money like a drunk man at the races I suspect that they have had to do some serious cost cutting yes although to be honest I'm not sure how many native Singaporeans there are to work in call centres or online chat centres - as far as I know its pretty much all done in India or the Philippines for just about everyone. I'm afraid customer service is yet another victim of online price comparisons driving everything to be about price. 

Have you asked the airline about getting your taxes back? I would have thought any insurance claim would have required you to do that and it might prompt them to provide you with some paperwork. 

breaking_free

Oh wow, it really is a war of attrition with these guys. Following advice above I contacted them on a different email and attached the tickets along with my 2 questions:
1. Did we use the flights on page 2?
2. Did we receive a refund/credit for these flights?

Exactly as in the previous thread they've written back:

Thank you for the email query.

In order for us to access your booking and assist you further, we would like to request for the following information:

Booking Reference Number/ Ticket Number

Flight itinerary (Flight number + Date of Travel + Departure/Arrival City)

Total number of passenger/s on the said booking

Are you one of the passenger in the booking? Y/N if no, are you authorized to access the booking?

Um, yeah all that information is on the tickets that I attached and those flights are on page 2 of those tickets, like I stated.
I don't believe I have ever received such incompetent customer service!
I will update to let you know how this goes...

tightauldgit

breaking_free said:

Oh wow, it really is a war of attrition with these guys. Following advice above I contacted them on a different email and attached the tickets along with my 2 questions:
1. Did we use the flights on page 2?
2. Did we receive a refund/credit for these flights?

Exactly as in the previous thread they've written back:

Thank you for the email query.

In order for us to access your booking and assist you further, we would like to request for the following information:

Booking Reference Number/ Ticket Number

Flight itinerary (Flight number + Date of Travel + Departure/Arrival City)

Total number of passenger/s on the said booking

Are you one of the passenger in the booking? Y/N if no, are you authorized to access the booking?

Um, yeah all that information is on the tickets that I attached and those flights are on page 2 of those tickets, like I stated.
I don't believe I have ever received such incompetent customer service!
I will update to let you know how this goes...

Are you sending them things as attachments? It may be their system is not allowing them through/access to them. I suspect that customer service folks are NOT allowed to open unsolicited attachments from random emails. 

breaking_free

They provide the ability to upload attachments via their online forms and email so I'm using them. If there is a disclaimer stating that they cannot access the attachments I certainly haven't seen it and so far nobody has said "please don't send attachments". Nonetheless you may be correct.

In my reply I have screenshotted the relevant portion of the ticket and also given them the requested information inline with each of their questions. I couldn't make this simpler for them if you paid me.

born_again

make sure that the attachments is in a format they approve.