Sky no more

When you are taking a 4 day break to the states, arranged on the internet at the last minute, you need to be sure that it's going to work out. When there are bad weather conditions looming and your tickets have not arrived, you need the support of your travel agent.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am not a happy customer. I was due to fly to Washington DC on 30th December from Manchester. Since the tickets had not arrived by the morning of the 28th, I rang your customer services and spoke to Elli. She told me (incorrectly) that all UK airports were shut and that the courier had not been able to deliver my tickets. She assured me, indeed guaranteed to me, that she would organise a ticket on departure, which I could pick up at the airport.

I later found out that an email (below) had also been sent offering a ticket on departure.

When I arrived at the airport and went to the US Airways desk, they had not received ticket on departure instructions. The US Airways staff member contacted you in order to get approval for the ticket to be issued to me. As you can imagine, after braving the weather to get to Manchester, we were distressed to think that we might not be able to go. An Expedia staff member reportedly objected to giving the information required for ticket on departure because she was a bit too busy, the US Airways person had to point out that, since the passengers were standing in the airport waiting to go, it really had to be sorted out there and then.

We got our tickets in the end, but I am not happy because:

Elli, though trying to warn us about a potential weather alert, worried us greatly with inaccurate information.
Elli's guarantee that the ticket on departure would happen was worthless.
Your email's offer of ticket on departure was also incorrect - it had not been organised.
Your staff member's reticence to release ticket on departure information to US Airways, while we were standing in the airport, was ludicrous.
The eventual delivery of tickets to my home, on either the morning of the 30th or 2nd was futile.

I expect you to do something to make up for these errors. At the very least, I do not expect to pay courier's fees. I would also like to know if this level of service is to be expected from you in the future; if it is, I will have to reconsider any further business that I may put your way.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Ashley Frieze