At
first we thought the concept of the RTW ticket was fabulous. To go
with One WOrld versus Star Alliance was a no brainer. One World had
the dominance of providers in Sough America, as well as presence
everywhere else we wanted to go. So we booked the ticket through
Qantas down in new Zealand. The One World advertisements emphasize
convenience, flexibility and ease of use... Easy to change routing and
times of flights with any One World Alliance member. Great, we
thought, as we bought the tickets. This is perfect for our situation
and our needs. However, until you really need to make a change, you
really don't know if the system works. We first tried to make some
flight adjustments with FinnAir in Bangkok, but they said they couldn't
do any changes, we needed to use a Qantas agent. So we tried Qantas
over the phone in Bangkok, and they also could not help us with getting
rerouting secured and ticketed. We figured that we'd try FinnAir in
Helsinki, their main port of call, but also that office was unable to
help or see our RTW tickets in their system. So we figured we'd use
our time in Spain to get IBERIA to help us with our complete rerouting
of our itinerary from Madrid through Central and South America. After
finding their airport ticketing office of no help and completely
unknowledgeable and unwilling to discuss our RTW One World needs, we
had resorted to emailing and calling Qantas in New Zealand. It
appeared as if they could help us, but after delayed responses and
final conclusion that they couldn't reissue us new tickets, they pushed
us off onto their EU Headquarters office in Germany. That office,
after blowing $30 on a call to them, was rigid, interpreted the
guidelines so strictly and differently than any other agents we spoke
with when planning and purchasing the tickets, became a quickly
negative spiraling conversation, and they also said they were not
allowed to mail new tickets outside of Germany (so much for
transparency of borders in the EU). So much for a One World Global
Alliance. If the member airlines can't help you get changes and new
tickets, what's the benefit? We started to question whether we should
have rather booked our tickets with Star Alliance - at least in all the
airports, they have a well marked desk, and support service visible and
ready to assist passengers.
So
we finally found the Barcelona city IBERIA office address online. No
phone number to call and ask for directions, so off we went exploring
the streets and finally found the office. While there were no phones,
they did have computers, and a woman, Carmen, who also spoke English -
what a bonus! The office was empty of any customers, what a joy for
us. Five agents sitting at terminals, one speaks English, so we work
with Carmen to plot out our completely new route, shifting continents,
countries and cities to maximize our air and land travel over the next
7 months. She tells us she can reissue the tickets within two working
days... Now that's service!
Behind
the scenes her colleague Tony goes to work plotting out flight times
and options for us. I return the following day at noon, just in case
there were any issues, as I didn't want anything to hold up our ability
to get new tickets, and as their office had no phones best way to get
service and resolution I felt was in person.
Walking
in the door, Carmen waves me over. She says if I wait maybe an hour,
Tony will have the tickets issued - wow, 1 day advance of the deadline
she had given me. They also had several questions that we worked
through, and in only 30 minutes, Carmen calls me over, ready to go
through the new routing and nine new flight segments. I pay the
$125/pp fee for the change, and she actually gives us an electronic
ticket - no more having to carry around a book of old fashioned paper
tickets. She even allows us a routing that the Qantas Germany office
refused us with their strict interpretation of the OW guidelines.
Carmen and Tony have completely turned around our opinion of IBERIA,
hats off to them, their flexible, accommodating style and willingness
to provide great customer service. Just in time to also catch a flight
out to Madrid tomorrow!
