Amex Travel – Are they always this useless?

[Paul]

Was trying to book a fare today, one way from SYD to HAN. I am able to book the flight combination I want on the Cathay web site and ITA Matrix also shows the fare for the optimum combination ie the one I want! SYD MEL HKG HAN

Indeed Amex Platinum travel website also shows the same route combination but the first sector (SYD MEL) has a 90 min connection while I am looking for a longer connection and using an earlier first flight. The amex site shows just one option while there are multiple options as the SYD MEL route is almost hourly and any SYD MEL service is permitted.

Because of the limitations of the website I called. I provided them with all the flight numbers, the dates and the fare. It was clear early in the conversation on that the agent was lost and then they asked that I hang up, they’d work on it and send me an email.

The email arrived but could not be opened so I called back and got the same agent. They cut and pasted a reply and sent it on and my flights, with a fare of £1579 each, had become £11,800 and they claimed to be unable to find the flight combo I wanted. Indeed they had booked me with a near 30 hours connection which no doubt drove the fare to full J rather than I class.

Despite their web site showing HKG HAN at 08:30 the agents GDS apparently does not show this! There is just one flight a day.

Is this normal? I rarely call them and in most instances book direct with airlines but I thought it would be useful to get the 6000+ membership reward points but frankly this is more grief than it is worth.

[meta]

Have you checked whether other OTAs are offering the flight? It might be that Cathay has not released this longer connection to OTAs.

[Paul]

The great thing about Matrix now is that it offers all the OTE on the far right which you can book the itinerary. So yes it’s widely available and Amex called back several hours later to confirm they could off the optimal routing and the right fare. I declined as I booked it on the CX web site in around 90 seconds. I decided that I really couldn’t face dealing with a third party this inept, in the event of a change etc, so booked direct