On-line Booking Madness

[Thomas Ralph]

Originally Posted by ACustomer

Yesterday I booked two 1st class Cork-Dublin tickets for business colleagues (total cost €174). They were due to travel at 1530, but this morning they had to change plans and needed to travel at 1830.

Apparently you can't change on-line bookings. They were told they could get a refund (3 weeks wait), and re-book, presumably lashing out another €174. Now I thought the whole point of high-priced business travel was flexibility (at least that's how the airlines operate). So IE can take a load of money off you in seconds on-line, but cannot refund your credit card in a simialr fashion, or heaven forbid, allow for a change in your booking.

Indeed, it doesn't work that way.

Originally Posted by ACustomer

I also find that the e-mail I got from IE confirming the original booking was very similar to what in the airline business is an electronic ticket. In case anyone form IE is reading this, I do believe that these electronic tickets are all the rage nowadays. So why is the IE "electronic ticket" not a ticket at all: why do you have to exchenge it for the real old-fashioned ticket at the booking office?

Bah!

Airline tickets and boarding passes are verified by checking them off a computer system when they're tendered for use. IÉ tickets are not so verified at the ticket gate or on the train, so they have to be relatively forgery-proof.

Originally Posted by Mark Gleeson

Alternatively you can simply buy a monthly first class return and pay the 3 euro online reservation charge, booking allowed up to 30 minutes before departure

That'll only give you a standard-class seat reservation. And it's €5 now On top of that, ACustomer was on about single tickets, not returns.