[TominScotland]

Am I alone in finding the KLM online booking tool clunkish, very slow and by no means intuitive? Just spent a seriously long time on a simple GLA-AMS-SVG… BGO-AMS- GLA reservation

[Thuky]

Yes – their website is clunky and buggy. And their customer service in the USA really sucks big time. I used to be a regular KLM business class traveler and their inflight service is quite good. During the pandemic I had to change some flights and between their crappy website and crappier customer service (they don’t pick up the phone, and insist you send them whatsapp messages which are responded to in a random and haphazard fashion). I will avoid KLM as much as I can in the future. They have no special access for business class passengers.

I was a collector of their houses and have about 80 of them. But you can now buy them online so they have no particular cachet any more.

[maxgeorge]

Agreed.

Website cancellations are tortuously difficult to achieve.

Confirmation e-mails are not sent.

Trying to track a refund is an exercise in frustration.

Cancelled Dec 19, still waiting.

[tomwjsimpson]

Cancellations have been a hit or a miss depending on whether this is done on the phone or via the website. I’ve had both immediate responses and others which have taken time. Thankfully, the codes sit under vouchers and can be redeemed from there even if the confirmation email has not come through.

[Thuky]

I canceled a ticket on July 10 and still waiting for a refund. Then there is this issue of Air France and KLM – I bought an Air France ticket but all the flights were on KLM who (mis)handled all the Customer Service but then asked me to contact Air France for a refund. I finally wrote a letter to the CEO today – hopefully she will expedite the refund.

[LetsFlyNow]

I’ve come to the conclusion that no airline website is a perfect as i’d want it to be offering you all the information you need like booking classes etc.
KLM seems to be abit clunkier than say LH. But i find their customer care to be exceptional. I can only sing praises about them. From replying to messages on twitter or whatsapp i just love how they do it. While i still do most of my flying with LH out of convenience i’ve found myself on more KLM metal in the last year as i’m so impressed with them. I’ve called their customer care when i couldn’t complete a simple booking on their website and they then complete the booking for me and send me get a link to complete the payment. Should be easier than that but these days my expectations are low. I’ve found their App to work better at times.

As a point i make sure to book directly with KLM even if flights are operated by AF. AF is still as nasty as it’s competitors LH & BA when it comes to customer care and refunds. That way i only have to deal with KLM if things go haywire. I truly hope that KLM remains as independent even after Pieter Elbers sadly leaves next year.

1 user thanked author for this post.

tomwjsimpson

[Thuky]

I did write to the office of the Air France CEO. I received a very nice reply from an employee (Jeremy) from her office who explained the problems (that I understand as it has been a difficult period) for all airlines and assured me I will receive the refund in a reasonable amount of time. I was pleased with the response because it was empathetic and was clear in its explanation. I now await the refund.

[Thuky]

I don’t understand what is inappropriate about my comment. Its pretty factual.

[Tom Otley]

No, me neither, so I’ve cancelled that. Sometimes it gets pressed by accident.

[Montysaurus]

I can’t speak re KLM but Iberia website is a bit of a pain. I booked return flights LHR to Vigo via Madrid on BA site. Flights are operated by IB. I had to go onto Iberia site to select seats but had to input all my passport/nationality/etc details again. I thought recent BA web shutdown was to align Exec Club/One World systems. On the IB site it said I had no seats booked so I selected seats. I was then advised to input my missing details, nationality/passport details again. I checked back later to ensure all was well and it wasn’t. I had to re-input all my details and re select my seats. Having done so again I checked back. All information had disappeared again. I had tried using both the BA booking reference and the IB one but got the same results.
The flights are confirmed on my BA EC account but who knows what IB will do when I turn up. Luckily I have a few weeks to try to sort it.
As an aside I booked the flights and put a 72 hour hold on them for £5 while I confirmed the dates. When I went back to confirm and pay the BA site would only accept cash not evouchers. I had to rebook and lose the £5 as I have over £2000 worth of evouchers to use up.

[ASK1945]

[quote quote=1199539]As an aside I booked the flights and put a 72 hour hold on them for £5 while I confirmed the dates. When I went back to confirm and pay the BA site would only accept cash not evouchers. I had to rebook and lose the £5 as I have over £2000 worth of evouchers to use up.[/quote]

I had a slightly different experience on the BA website: I booked business class flights and a hotel to Rome for later this year, but tried to use my e-voucher. Received a message that this particular one cannot be used for flights + hotel bookings, as it was issued for a flight cancellation. If I removed the hotel from the booking, it would accept the voucher, but then I would lose the £400 discount being applied for the combined hotel/flight booking (and of course the ATOL certificate). I confirmed this discount first by comparing BA with the hotel’s and various other websites.

So you and I have to wait until we are booking flights only, to get the use of our four-figure vouchers.

[Author]

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