[Anonymous]

[EkPlat73]

As a Platinum Member of Skyawards with 189.900 tier miles with in this cycle and already pre qualified for Platinum for 2017 to 2017 cycle I am astounded at the lack of customer service I receive from EK. On a recent flight myself and my Wife were booked in F from HKT to MAD return, paying 7 K Euros per person. Prior to flying I sent EK an email asking why we both had dupe bookings both in F&J class for our return leg DXB to HKT to which I have never received a response. Two day prior to the return Journey I receive an email from reservations asking me to contact them urgently to reschedule my flight as the aircraft had changed and F class was not available……. I emailed called over four times to speak to a supervisors but to no avail! Many promises to return my call but guess what nothing……..

So due to connecting flights we had no option but to fly on our chosen booked dates with the last leg being downgraded to J.

On my return to HKT I wrote to customer affairs requesting a refund of the fare difference for the down graded leg, attaching my original communication re the dupe booking, and every one of the 10 or so emails i had sent them.

I received the Standard response stating that they offered me to change dates where F was available and as I did not do so they would not refund me anything but offered me 14.000 miles……… IS THIS HOW YOU TREAT YOUR PLATINUM CUSTOMERS???????? As I already have over 400.000 air miles this really did not interest me!!!!

So again write back explaining my issues and the total lack of customer service that as a Platinum member I feel I deserve. This time I wrote to the Chief Marketing Officer and the VP who Welcomed me when I achieved platinum status. I also requested Sir Tim Clarks email so I could write to him personally. The response again was by the same jobsworth offering me additional miles now totaling 39.000 per person stating that this was enough for an upgrade for the leg where I was downgraded. This in fact is not true as the J to F is now in fact 57.000 miles. two days ago I had enough of being treated like an idiot so I wrote the following letter to EK giving them 24H to respond to my communication. Of course they did not respond………

Please see my email below.

DXB/X/IZ/170815/7056362

Dear Inas Zaki,

Thank you for your reply. I am still not satisfied with your response for the following reasons.

Your response to my original reply is unacceptable as my communication was not addressed to you but to Mr Thierry Antinori, Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer. As yet I have not received even an acknowledgement from a member of Emirates Senior Management. Again I urge you to escalate this to Senior management forthwith.

Secondly on your response below you have now offered both myself and my wife 39.000 miles when in fact 57.000 miles are required to upgrade from J to F for the HKT to DXB or vice versa.

So in short yet again your highest tier loyal customer is not satisfied and you do not appear to want to regain my trust? I urge you to escalate this to senior management so I can communicate with somebody with authority to discusses my situation and finding common ground ensuring that I remain a Loyal Platinum Customer.
Again you have not responded at all, to my email of August pre this whole charade (pre journey commencement) when I enquired why I had a dupe booking both for J and F…………. had you answered at this point this whole debacle could have been avoided.

As my Faith and Trust in Emirates is currently shattered I have had no option but to turn to your competitors for solace. The national Airline of the UAE are more than happy to treat me as a premium passenger and on informing them face to face with a senior VP last week in Abu Dhabi, have offered me status match with their Guest Program. BTW I flew them last week and was astounded at how good their customer service was!!!! Please see attached by boarding passes for your reference. On receipt of my status match I will send you a copy as well. (Not that you will care!) Having Flow 189.900 tier miles within this cycle and already pre-qualified for Platinum status for the next cycle Jan 2016 to Jan 2017 one would think that you would look after me, from my experience as reiterated many times in the numerous communications since the above mentioned event this does not appear to be the case!

I will now kindly urge, request that I am contacted with in 24h to resolve this situation once and for all or I will communicate my woes via every review site, industry forum and social media. Perhaps this will have the desired effect of actually getting a serious and overdue response along with the recognition that I believe I deserve.
Thank you and the ball is in your court.

I do not expect as response from you as mentioned umpteen times but some who will address all the points I have raised and treat me as a Premium member.

PS, quote from your email “Thank you for allowing me to review this matter and for your continued choice of Emirates.” You are currently no longer my choice and how presumptuous and arrogant you are! My current choice is the national airline of the UAE, however your senior management team have the power to change that if you wish.
So dear Emirates you are failing miserably please feel free to contact me ASAP if you wish to keep the large amounts of money I and my family spend with you every year!

Also its worth mentioning that the National Airline of the UAE has already provided me with a status match so unless you speak to me and sort this out forthwith good bye to my business.
EK Platinum member 280 559 650 .

[TheRealBabushka]

It is curious that you wanted to speak only to a supervisor…

What did you want that the other agents could not provide when you rang them in those 4 instances prior to your flight in Business?

Presumably once an airline changes an aircraft, which impacts the availability of a cabin, the only other option if you choose not to travel on another day, is a refund. Was that specifically requested for or did you think Emirates could change the aircraft just because a supposedly esteemed member had insisted he flies in First?

In short, did you ask for realistic compensation?

[DoorsToManual]

Interesting…I had a VERY similar experience with Jumeirah Sirius. It appears that all our favourite Middle Eastern brands get the customer experience right with the product, flight, hotel etc. When it comes to service recovery after the event and talking to their call centres the level of training and ability to escalate issues is non existent.

[SimonS1]

I would suggest to get the desired solution a shorter, more punchy email is required setting out the facts and your preferred solution. I had lost the will to live by the time I got halfway through it.

I would also leave out the threats about Etihad etc. Whilst this may be the case I generally find in business that if someone sends me a threatening email it gets left to last to be addressed. If however someone makes a polite complaint I try to deal with it straight away.

Emirates customer service is, I would agree, very average.

[EkPlat73]

Thanks, Have already tried that to no avail! Have written over 14 emails so my fuse is a little short as I am sure you can imagine. After all I am only looking for a refund for fare difference for the downgraded leg which they have refused……… offering me miles from Economy to J!

[EkPlat73]

The reason I wanted to speak to a supervisor is due to all the agents stating that my claim could only be dealt with by one!
Yes you are quite correct I simply asked for the fare difference between F and J to be refunded which they refused………… so one month later and 14 email hence my frustration…………

[EU_Flyer]

Sounds like this could have been handled much better by Emirates – although the aircraft change was probably un-avoidable but their communication (or lack thereof) after the event has been unfortunate.

They should ideally compensate you for the downgrade with a refund of ther fare difference between F and J and give you some miles as compensation given your loyalty.

I am not sure of your position or influence, but in my experience demanding to speak with senior management rarely gets results unless the incident was very serious (safety/health related) or involved serious negligence/ criminal behaviour.

A simple downgrade and bad follow up service is not something a VP would be interested in dealing with, no matter how high your status. If EK are likely to lose a multi-million dollar corporate account perhaps they’ll get a VP involved but anything less is unlikely – especially for an airline the size of Emirates.

I hope you get somewhere and are given reasonable compensation. Perhaps a clamly worded follow up to the above might help.

All the best!

[Charles-P]

I’m a regular flyer with Emirates and this does.not.sound typical in any way. Yes things do sometimes go wrong that’s the world we.live in but their customer service I have always found superb on those occasions. Compared to joke airlines like Turkish they are way better

[EkPlat73]

Thanks Alex Fly.

I do agree with what you say however as I had dupe F & J bookings on the EK App for the leg where I was downgraded prior to the whole journey commencing, which I emailed them to clarify with no response I am disappointed as the whole debacle could have been avoided had they answered my email and responded informing me in advance of the aircraft change. Informing me two days before flying was to short to change other connecting flights which of course they would not have covered the change cost!! Thanks again for the advice!!

[rferguson]

If this was a revenue reservation in F (ie not using points) and no alternative flight was available on the same day offering the cabin booked I agree with the OP. I don’t think refunding the difference in fare between F and J is unreasonable at all. It is no difference if I was booked to fly in J and the cabin was overbooked and I was downgraded to premium economy – i’d expect the difference in fare as a MINIMUM. Aircraft substitutions are not something outside the airlines control so they should accept responsibility.

I agree also with DoorsToManual – the Middle Eastern airlines have a great product but are useless with post service recovery. Two of my own experiences – one with QR following two aircraft subsitutions to an inferior product and the other to Etihad about their cancellation without notice of a ‘mistake fare’ went with an auto reply and nothing further, not even an apology.

However…. expecting a reply from the Senior VP within 24 hours ust ain’t gonna happen….with any airline.

[EkPlat73]

yes revenue reservation First Flex.

[rferguson]

In that case EkPlat73 I completely agree – EK has not offered you what you paid for. This was not due to circumstances outside their control. They did not give you ample warning (as you yourself realised the issue far in advance). And they were not able to offer you a reasonable alternative (ie a flight with F on the same day).

I’m actually amazed they didn’t offer the difference in fare from the outset in addition to miles for the inconvenience and disappointment.

What happens when you call them and ask to speak to a supervisor? I’d imagine they have a dedicated Platinum line? I would call and from the outset – without going into details of the issue – ask to speak to a supervisor. If the Agent then says ‘can you tell me a bit about the issue’ i’d say ‘no thanks – i’d like to speak to a supervisor’. If they say they will call you back again decline ‘no thanks, I will wait’.

Co-incidentally reading the ‘letters’ section in the current issue of BT there is one there from a F class EY flier who had a malfunctioning seat AUH-LHR. It seems EY took the EK approach – initially offering 20K miles and on refusal doubling it to 40K miles. The writer still declined this offer as it costs 55K miles for a one way AUH-LHR flight in apartments. EY in their reply says that the passenger accepted their compensation – which I am assuming was more than the last declined offer of 40K.

So…persevere! And remember the grass isn’t always greener 😉

I wish you luck!

[mrgeeee]

A similar thing happened to me recently on another airline with a downgrade from J to Y. After several attempts at contacting customer services by phone and email I finally got a pathetic apology with a promise of a partial refund within a few days but I’m still waiting 5 weeks later.

I’m getting tempted to put a comment on their facebook wall and joining twitter just so I can put a public tweet on their page too as that seems to help slightly.

Failing that, if you paid with a credit card you could apply to dispute the charge (as you didn’t get what you paid for) or write to their legal department setting out your claim for a breach of contract.

Emirates do have a refunds claim form on thier website where you can claim for a refund for downgrades but I assume you have tried that?

http://www.emirates.com/uk/english/help/contact-emirates/ccre/cancellations-and-changes/refunds

[EU_Flyer]

Sounds like EK were hedging their bets and – in anticipation of using an aircraft with no F – did a dupe booking in J to ensure you were guaranteed a seat in the J cabin on the new aircraft. A bit sneaky.

They’d probably argue that it wasn’t until 2 days before the flight that the aircraft change was confirmed.

It’s very frustrating and clearly EK have failed big time in their service recovery!

[Author]

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