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REPORT FROM ELECTROLAND
Travelocity Steps Up
The online booking agency Travelocity is making a push to raise the e-travel bar for service. Last week, it issued a " customer bill of rights " that includes several new promises.
For one: If you mistakenly book the wrong dates for a trip and alert Travelocity ( http:/
Travelocity is also promising to respond to customer e-mails within four hours and to prioritize phone calls so that customers already on the road will be dispatched quickly to a special call center with agents trained to fix on-road problems.
New technology also allows Travelocity to alert customers to problems that are reported by other customers. For example, if travelers call to complain that their hotel is being renovated and the pool is closed, Travelocity can identify all customers slated to go to that hotel. "We'll call them and offer to fix the problem before they know they have one," said Tracey Weber, a company vice president.
Most other changes boil down to this: Travelocity is promising to do its best to work with suppliers when something goes awry.
So is this a solution to e-travel's infamous black hole of blame ? You know, like when an e-travel company says, "Call the airline with your problem." And the airline says, "Call the e-travel company that sold you the ticket."
CoGo can't know how well the promises will be kept but celebrates any and all attempts to add more service to the e-travel arena. Stay tuned.
HOTEL KEYS
Funny Money
CoGo reader Barb Sauers of Falls Church recently booked a room at the Marriott Hotel Tverskaya in Moscow and got an e-mail confirming a nightly rate of $175 . But she saw upon checking out that she'd been charged $208.38 a night. What's up with that?
Her bill, she said she was told, had been translated into "currency units." The only explanation of a currency unit was this cryptic phrase: "It tracks the euro."
Despite protests, Sauers ended up paying the higher amount. Back home, she took her complaints to Marriott; attempts to get a refund of the difference, she said, "were unproductive."
