If you are going to fly anywhere,think twice before you take Cebu Pacific. Sure, they have the cheapest fares... because they had to scrimp on their services.
For example, their Reservation Hotline is a huge joke. If you call during the day, you will get nothing but "sorry, all systems are busy now..." If you call at night, you can get lucky and get a line BUT you have to wait a very long time to get someone to answer your line. How long is long? Try an hour. Yup, 60 full minutes. You'll hear all their pre-recorded ads at least 5 times.
Oh, and they have a website too.. and it's also a joke. Try booking and the "Continue" button after you've picked your flights won't work. So much for online booking.
If you do get it to work, you better use your ticket because they have fees plus their voucher system goes through that Reservation Hotline (see above) and their refund system takes 30-60 days (empahsis on the 60 days), if you're lucky. People have complained that they don't get their refunds until at least 6 months later. If you paid cash, then you can refund faster at the place where you paid for the ticket. Just brace yourself for the long queue.
One more thing: Their snacks in flight are NOT FREE.
So, let this be a lesson for the cheapskates out there.
=)K
From my experience it just seems like Cebu Pacific is imitating the system used by Airasia.
ReplyDeleteWhen you are buying really cheap tickets don't expect premiere service.
I have a companion who was not able to use her ticket in July 2007 and is still waiting for her refund to this day.
As for the online booking ... they were doing a site revamp a few days ago so their online reservation was wonky. It is working fine now.
They gave me good service when I made a Cebu trip in '06. Okay, they departed a little late, but the pilot made up for it by being a little liberal with the throttle. I don't know about my co-passengers but I loved it. Guess we should steer clear of the carrier when it's having a growing fit.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry to hear about your experience. I've only flown via Cebu Pacific twice and haven't encountered any problems so far. Both were online bookings although if it were one of their P1 promos, it is hard to do online booking during peak hours. Note also that when you buy a ticket on promo, I don't think you can actually refund but just re-book which costs almost as much as when you booked it the first time. Hence make sure when buying on promo, you'll really take that flight. For such cheap flights understandable that they don't serve snacks anymore but who needs snacks for a 1 hour flight anyway. With anything (whether a tangible product or service), there's also a reason for the amount one pays whether at a discount or at a premium. It's really a question of what's more important to you and what price are you willing to pay? Just sharing my thoughts.
ReplyDeleteBeen flying with Cebu pacific since 06 and I never encountered any problems except last January during the 1 peso promo. I booked my family (6 pax) for a trip to Roxas City but because of the booking traffic that day I wasn't able to get an online confirmation. Thinking my booking didn't go through, I re booked again this time via Iloilo City simply because when I re checked the Roxas City flight it was already on a higher price tag. I received an instant email confirmation for our iloilo flight and thought everything was ok till I received my credit card statement last February billing me for the Roxas City flight. I told their customer services that it would be so stupid of me to book the same group of people on the same island destination (panay) on the same day. I pointed out that it was their system that hang on me as I was confirming our itinerary for the Roxas flight and since their was no email confirmation and I cant get through their Customer Service, I re booked an hour later to get the Iloilo flight instead.
ReplyDeleteWell, I am waiting for my ticket vouchers which they promised me. Good for 6 people din yun and I paid na my credit card kasi ako pa ma charge ng 3.5 interest rate ng bank ko.
thanks for your comments, people.
ReplyDeletei guess what really ticks me off is the fact that they even pretend to have these services. if they offer really low fares in l.ieu of services, then say it outright, that there are some things you shouldn't expect anymore. While these may be apparent to some poeple even without saying it, for most people it still has to be said outright.
the thing that got me going this time was their call center number that is practically unreachable. I was finally able to get through at night but not until after I had been on the phone for about three hours redialing and being their captured audience for their recorded messages. No one should have to go through that, right?
=)K
oh gee... voucher. if you really want to ge those vouchers, you better be prepared to bug them like crazy. they expect you to. some people have complained that when they did just wait, they only found out that they still had to call up to even just to find out something was going on with their concerns.
ReplyDeletealso, when you want to claim your vouchers remember these:
1. keep your original booking information. they will ask for it.
2. don't go straight to the ticketing office. vouchers can only be claimed through their call center.
3.call after office hours and be prepared to stay on the line for a long time. as i mentioned above, hours.
4. they will give you only a couple of days after booking to settle the tickets (redeem them and pay for the airline security fee at the ticketing office)
5. be prepared to wait in a long queue at the ticketing office. bring a book or a gameboy or something.
good luck!
=)K
My worst experience with Cebu Pacific was just 2 weeks ago I was scheduled for the first flight back to manila from bacolod at 6:30 A.M, but left at 6:30 pm due to plane malfunctions
ReplyDeletehehehe I emailed the head of cebu pac legal dept regarding my concerns and she forwarded my email to the head of sales? dunno...not in a rush naman, as i know how terrible their call center kaya im trying to find other channels.
ReplyDeletegood for you. at least you know a backdoor you can use. not many of us do.
ReplyDelete=)K
Just got back from Cebu via Cebu Pacific. Seems that they changed over their system March 31-April 1, so it was bloody there for a while. The online part seems to work well, as long as it's more than 24 hours before the flight. Chaning flights is a nightmare though-- one has to line up at the ticket office or wait forever on hold by phone. I had to fly out of Cebu a couple of days earlier due to a family emergency, and it took ~2.5 hours on hold to get hold of a human being who could change my reservation. Thank goodness we were billeted at a high end hotel, where a lady at the business center took care of staying on hold on her speakerphone while I watched TV in my hotel room. I still had to go to the airport 3 hours before the flight to pick up the ticket and pay for the fare difference, but that took less than an hour of waiting for my number to be called. I guess you get what you pay for-- cheap airline, you're on hold forever; high end $$$ hotel, they take care of your flight arrangements. Oh, and I did ask on a previous flight what happened to the usual dose of C2 and Jack 'n' Jill snacks-- the steward said that based on their surveys and focus-group-discussions, the Cebu Pacific clientele would rather have cheaper fares than snacks on flights (which take only about an hour usually anyway-- not enough time to get hungry). I was lucky-- my flights were on time, and the Manila-Cebu was actually ahead of schedule. On the way back, left Cebu late, but were on the NAIA tarmac on time (well, tarmac, not gate). My students were on PAL and their evening flight was delayed 2 hours.
ReplyDeleteI still miss the good old days of Cebu Pacific though, when I could schedule classes around their flights and they gave out C2, a pack of Piattos, a Hello bar, and some Dynamite. :)
Did they do those in-flight games of theirs? They didn't have one on my return flight from Cebu last December.
ReplyDeleteI miss winning free stuff.