I don’t like being lied to when talking to airlines on the phone!

The Flight Detective
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Being lied to by customer service representatives is really annoying. It is entirely possible the person made a mistake, but I count these people as having a shred of professional pride. That means they should know what they’re talking about.

I suspected I was being told porkies on the phone, but decided they probably know better. Turns out my initial suspicion was correct and what I was told was completely and utterly wrong.

Being Lied To? Or Just Sloppy Service?

Sometimes I check flight prices online after I have made a booking. It takes two seconds and it gives me a picture in my head of how the pricing is changing and if the flight is popular.

For an Aer Lingus service from Nice to Dublin, I noticed that the day I was flying was listed as “Sold Out”. At the same time a few other days on the seven day calendar had the same thing. As this usually means the flights are no longer operating, I called Aer Lingus.

The guy I spoke to on the phone assured me the flight was still operating. His explanation for it being sold out was that the airline was limiting bookings on the service and was now full.

I’d never heard of that before, but you know, everything has been thrown out the window thanks to the pandemic. I had no reason not to believe it… until I received an e-mail from Aer Lingus. It states my flight is no longer operating and that I was being moved to a different service. So, my initial thoughts turned out to be correct.

Overall Thoughts

Nobody likes being lied to on the phone. Had I been told the service was no longer operating, I would have moved it myself. It is entirely possible he thought he was being truthful though, because again, lots of changes are happening at the moment. Having worked in a call centre before, I doubt it though. They are usually very good at communicating things to the staff.

To add insult to injury, the e-mail states, “If you have already selected a seat for your flight, we have attempted to ensure you will get a seat in a similar location or of equal value to the one you originally selected even though your seat number may have changed.” Naturally no seat assignment was on my new booking so I had to call them to assign it. The silver lining is there was no wait.

Have you ever been given blatantly incorrect advice that verges on being lied to by customer service representatives? Thank you for reading and please leave any comments or questions below.

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jason

When you called, the operations team may very well have been in the process of cancelling the service, and zeroed-out availaibility can be an indicator/precursor (especially now) of a flight subject to cancellation. However, it’s likely the information you were given was correct at the time it was delivered. If the phone rep saw an availability display with seats zeroed out rather than a specific indication the flight was not operating, that’s really all they could confirm with you. It’s irresponsible and likely against policy for the agent to speculate beyond the information in front of them in the CRS.… Read more »

Stephanie Woods

I was on a phone call to book a time share hotel stay. I asked to stay at the Hilton time share complex that was on the shore in Carlsbad, CA. I was told there was no timeshare unit there-even though I was looking at it right on the website. She also told me the one she wanted me to book was close to the beach, and the hotel ran a shuttle to the beach. That was also a big fat lie as it’s half an hour inland, and the shuttle just runs around the hotel site itself.

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