Serious booking problems at Brussels Airlines

[sn26567]

In April, I seized the opportunity of very cheap flights promoted by SN. I booked two seats on BRU-WAW-BRU for my wife and myself, departure 27 July, return 2 August. I paid less than 200 EUR for both tickets in b.light, a good value.

Then I had to change my plans: we were invited to a wedding in Warsaw on 4 August, and I wanted to change our return tickets from 2 to 5 August. It was the beginning of a nightmare.

I first tried through Internet. Even after correctly introducing my name and booking reference, the system displayed a message error. This was corrected the next day, after a contact with an staff member of SN. I could thus change our reservation, at an additional cost of 300 EUR (the price went up steeply since the moment I had booked) and everything went well until I came to the payment page. I tried 5 different credit cards: the system would not accept any of them, although all of them were perfectly valid. I complained by a message through their website, and the next day I got a reply asking to contact them by telephone.

The telephone number starts with 0902, meaning that it costs 0.75 EUR per minute to call them. I nevertheless called the number. First you get a message saying that the call will cost you indeed 0.75 EUR per minute, then about 2 minutes of advertisements for Brussels Airlines (you, the customer, pay for their publicity), then another lengthy period in which you are invited to press 1 for information, 2 for reservation, etc. After about 4 minutes, you finally get a human person on the line.

The dialogue could begin. The person initially did not retrieve my dossier. Finally, he found it: the whole booking had been deleted because of credit card failure (not really my responsibility!). He then started the rebooking. The price had now gone up by an additional 500 EUR, because my previous class of booking was not available anymore. I refused: I insisted on getting the price mentioned the previous day, when I tried to book on Internet. He had to ask his supervisor, which took another few minutes. I eventually got that price. Then I had to give my credit card references, which had to be checked. After a total of more than 26 minutes, I had my new reservation, confirmed the next day by e-mail.

That telephone call has finally cost me 27 x 0.75 = 20.25 EUR. That is very expensive for something I could have done free of charge if the SN website was working correctly. The least I could do was to ask SN for a reimbursement of that telephone call. Guess what? No answer so far..., not even an acknowledgement that my message had been received.

To be followed...

[dre]

Hello

I must say that i had the same problem with credit card refusal. ALthought my card was perfectly valid and i didnt pass the limits for the card. After calling in the end i had to go to the ticket desk in zaventem to get it solved. I live not so far so it was not the end of the world. It was only for a return flight because i had booked already the first flight seperately with miles. It is not the first time that i have problems booking a ticket via the website. By the way the B light tickets are getting very expensive again and as a frequent flyer i have the impression that i pay the same for a b light ticket than i used to pay for a normal economy ticket.

Dre

[eurofighter]

The same here. The booking process simply blocks, at some point while doing the booking, flight availability, price, payment...

If their website would work properly, they would earn more money, and keep profitable.

[Homo Aeroportus]

Happened to me as well.

I booked BRU-BMA-BRU on Sunday and had the same rejection of my credit card. It is an AMEX with no credit limit.

I tried 3 times and gave up.

Tried again on Monday and .... it worked fine !

Go figure !

[speedbird1]

I have had the same problem with my Amex too. I shall pass the info on to some other people who have had the same problems. Lets hope that someone from Brussels Airlines is reading this and might address it!

Ems

[correctair]

Guys,

Sorry to read this. Difficult to see from a distance what is going wrong.

In case of website problems you must not phone the 0902 number but the helpdesk at the number 0032 2 200 62 34. This number is also mentioned on the web.

Regards

[summersso]

Had a similar problem with a UK visa card being refused when attempting to purchase a codeshare flight from LHR-BRU on Brussel's Airline's website as it was significantly cheaper than buying it firect from BA. I tried twice and both times the page froze so I reverted to expedia.co.uk where I bought the ticket but had to pay a £5 booking fee. Very frustrating.

Is this EB2's fault? Why can't they use a "proper" booking engine like Amadeus rather than this low-cost piece of unreliable software.

[sn26567]

To be followed...

Happy end to the story. I just received an e-mail message from Brussels Airlines saying:

Monsieur,

Suite aux probèlemes que vous avez encourus lors de votre changement de réservaiton en ligne du 21 juin dernier ; nous vous offrons un surcalssement vers la cabine BFLEX ; pour vos deux vols aller et retour, ceci afin que vous puissiez découvrir notre produits BFLEX.

Nous vous souhaitons d'ores et déjà un agréable voyage vers Varsovie.

This was confirmed by a telephone call a little bit later.

In other words, we are upgraded from b.light to b.flex for both legs of our trip to Warsaw. This is worth more than the cost of the telephone call.

Thank you, Brussels Airlines.

Furthermore, it seems that the credit card problems of the SN website have been solved as well. Teething problems, I guess...

[speedbird1]

To be followed...

Happy end to the story. I just received an e-mail message from Brussels Airlines saying:

Monsieur,

Suite aux probèlemes que vous avez encourus lors de votre changement de réservaiton en ligne du 21 juin dernier ; nous vous offrons un surcalssement vers la cabine BFLEX ; pour vos deux vols aller et retour, ceci afin que vous puissiez découvrir notre produits BFLEX.

Nous vous souhaitons d'ores et déjà un agréable voyage vers Varsovie.

This was confirmed by a telephone call a little bit later.

In other words, we are upgraded from b.light to b.flex for both legs of our trip to Warsaw. This is worth more than the cost of the telephone call.

Thank you, Brussels Airlines.

Furthermore, it seems that the credit card problems of the SN website have been solved as well. Teething problems, I guess...

What Privilege status are you Good work!

Ems

[Homo Aeroportus]

Very good move indeed.

They goofed but at least someone there reacted in a very appropriated way.

It looks though that it is more web site related than a problem with the connection to credit card confirmation.
I just proceeded with my on-line production of the e-boarding pass. It failed to print
"We are sorry!
For technical reasons your request could not be processed.
Please try again later. "

At least the promised e-mail was sent immediately and I could print the attached pdf.

Enjoy yr trip to Warszawa !

[FlightMate]

To be followed...

Monsieur,

Suite aux probèlemes que vous avez encourus lors de votre changement de réservaiton en ligne du 21 juin dernier ; nous vous offrons un surcalssement vers la cabine BFLEX ; pour vos deux vols aller et retour, ceci afin que vous puissiez découvrir notre produits BFLEX.

Nous vous souhaitons d'ores et déjà un agréable voyage vers Varsovie.

Did you quote exactly the e-mail you received? or did you just write it down here quickly?
Because what a shame if they can't reply without 4 typo's!

[SN30952]

Seen yesterday in Ter Zake
B-flex and B-lite, a queue for the rich and one for the poor.

The assignment of staff was obvious.
It looked like the money of the 'poor' has less value...
IMHO, the number of staff should be assigned in proportion of the total revenue of each product, because from the report it looked like the B-lites were paying for the super B-flex service.

If that is the concept it won't last long....
Indeed some people have Robin Hood all wrong.

*Robin Hood of Sherwood Forest

[sn26567]

Did you quote exactly the e-mail you received? or did you just write it down here quickly?
Because what a shame if they can't reply without 4 typo's!

I did not change one comma in the e-mail I received. But the spelling is not important, the message with the good news is!

[FlightMate]

I did not change one comma in the e-mail I received. But the spelling is not important, the message with the good news is!

Indeed! I'm glad you received something from your complaint.
But they could at least pay attention before sending something to a customer... (I guess they are getting a huge load of complaints because of their website)

[sn26567]

Eventually, the two flights in b.flex were excellent.

On BRU-WAW (27 July) five rows were devoted to b.flex and had a good load factor. A nice hot meal and free drinks were served. The plane departed on time, flew mostly through nice weather and landed 15 minutes early, in a thunderstorm (congratulations to the pilot), but then we had to wait 30 minutes for a bus because the apron was covered with 10 cm of water! Baggage delivery was also delayed by the heavy rain.

On the return flight WAW-BRU (5 August), my wife and I were the sole passengers in the three rows devoted to b.flex. Again a nice hot meal and free drinks. The plane left 10 minutes early (despite the 30 minutes rotation time, congratulations to the crew) and arrived in Brussels 20 minutes before schedule.

Nice experience that made up for the early booking problems.

[eurofighter]

sn26567, it's nice to read your report. b.flex is indeed an excellent product for the short routes up to 3 hrs that Bru Airlines flies in Europe. The cabin has a calm atmosphere as usually only experienced travellers who are away for their work sit in this section of the plane.

I can recommend to Privilege members that they use their miles for upgrades into b.flex when you travel privately and have booked a b.light ticket. It's only 5.000 miles for lot's more comfort and a more pleasant travel experience.

[Ducatibiker]

It's not worth 5000 miles ! Saves the miles for a free ticket.
B.Flex is just like economy - but you have a very cheap meal, bad wine. If you expect Chamapagne, forget it. And if you are not Platinum/Gold, you will have to pay 15 euros for access to the lounge.
If the lfight is full, they will upgrade and you will have to fight for the arm rest like in economy !

There was an interesting article page 6 of L'Echo of Friday August 10. B. flex does not work and is seen by many business people as 'Europe worst business class'. I am one of them. The survey here shows that a majority of people d'ont think it is a good idea either.The conclusion of the article is that Brussels Airlines need to review URGENTLY this concept.

[OO-VEX]

There was an interesting article page 6 of L'Echo of Friday August 10. B. flex does not work and is seen by many business people as 'Europe worst business class'. I am one of them. The survey here shows that a majority of people d'ont think it is a good idea either.The conclusion of the article is that Brussels Airlines need to review URGENTLY this concept.

When visiting the Brussels Airport website, the homepage shows an ad for B.flex now. And B.flex is mentionned as Economy + and next to that logo you can read "The best Economy class in Europe". So maybe SN started already to create a new image for these flexible tickets? The perception of this B.flex ticket could be a better match by selling this as Economy + instead of Business. This makes that passengers will get what they pay for and that is Economy + and they will no longer have much higher expectations like for a real business flight. This marketing issue is only one part of the big strategy and the future will tell if there is a market for such a concept.

OO-VEX

[Ducatibiker]

Sorry, but how could they advertise they have the best economy when buying b.flex ! It is not the 15gr of hot chicken which makes the difference and a b.flex ticket is not a few euro more than a b.light ticket. It is a lot more and comparable to what you pay for business or business restricted on other airlines. Therefore it the wrong strategy - as the article in l'Echo point out. Time for a change !

[FlightMate]

Who does Brussels Airlines need to convince that b.flex is eco and not business?
Maybe some companies have a no-business ticket policy... but they won't buy a more expensive (sometimes very more expensive) eco ticket either. They will just go for the cheapest one.

In my opinion, Brussels Airlines needed to keep a separated business class with excellent service (justifying the ticket cost), just for the few who could afford such a service.

Some people were ready to buy these tickets, and were expecting an excellent service.

And if I recall correctly, SNBA had already a flexible eco ticket as well. (Y-care)