RF_X-pcln
West Jefferson,#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Wed, October 20, 2010
Jeff was right about everything he posted!
Front line agents (tier 1) and "travel services" agents (tier 2) are not allowed to give out their last names. "Executive services" agents (tier 3) are the only agents allowed to provide their last names to customers.
In order for a customer to submit an offer or "bid" they have to enter all of their information. (passenger names, departure and destinations, and travel dates) The customer is then shown a contract page with the terms and conditions of the purchase, and he/she would have to enter their initials, along with credit card info, phone number, email address, etc. The final step is the "BUY MY TICKETS NOW" button at the bottom of the page. (you wouldn't believe how often customers say they NEVER clicked on that button)
Once a bid is submitted a unique request number is created, regardless of the bid outcome. Most of the time, if a bid is rejected, a counter offer would be sent to the customer. Some counter offers would ask the customer if they would be willing to leave from or arrive at a different nearby airport, or travel on a different date, but most counter offers would ask the customer to agree to a price that an airline partner would accept. The counter offer page is a new contract page as well, but since the customer already entered their credit card info on the previous contract page, all they would need to do to accept the counter offer is enter their initials again and press the "BUY MY TICKETS NOW" button again.
Unfortunately, many customers dont seem to take the time to read the page. They seem to simply scroll to the bottom of the page, enter their initials, and click the "BUY MY TICKETS NOW" button again without ever checking what they are agreeing to.
When they call Priceline to say they didn't agree to that purchase the first thing the agent does is look for the contract to see if it was initialed. In the case of a counter offer, the agent (who sees these things every day, all day long) would immediately notice that it was a counter offer that had been initialed by the customer, indicating they agreed to the new terms. An agent can do a search, by email address, phone number, or a name, to see a list of every bid that the customer has submitted, whether the bid was "accepted" or not. The agent can (and frequently does) email a copy of the contract, that the customer initialed, so that the customer can read the contract that they agreed to. An "executive services" agent is REQUIRED to email a copy of the initialed contract to the customer in cases like this one. Alisha would have had the contract sent to her at least 3 times.
Compaining to Priceline that you shouldn't be held to the counter offer, because you didn't read it, is like telling a cop you shouldn't get a speeding ticket, because you didn't look at the speed limit signs along the side of the road.
Jeff
Pittsburgh,#3UPDATE Employee
Sun, September 03, 2006
I do not have the details of your case but this sounds like you named your price and a counteroffer was presented to you which was accepted in error. That is obviously just me assuming though. As for a computer glitch during your reservation and a computer glitch at a call center, I can take a strong stance and say that is not likely. Priceline.com servers have nothing to do with the customer service call center equipment... totally different equipment... totally different data centers. Harold was simply following company policy by not giving out his last name. Agents that are not part of the executive services department are not permitted to give their last name, and i'm sure he provided you with an agent ID that would link to him directly if needed within the company. You have been from front line customer care, to research/escalations (travel services), to executive services, to the BBB. There must be more to the story, because if it was truly our fault, someone would have helped you.