A Scoot customer who booked a flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Singapore was shocked to find out that a name change on his ticket cost a lot more than he was quoted.
30-year-old Mr Chua told MS News he requested a name change on his ticket with Scoot.
He agreed to it after a customer service agent apparently quoted him 6,390 Vietnamese dong (VND), which converts roughly to S$0.38.
However, he realised later that a name change actually costs over 6,3900,000 VND (~S$383).
After disputing the charge with another customer service agent, he ended up refusing to pay the exorbitant fee. In the end, the ticket went unused.
A Scoot spokesperson told MS News that the airline eventually made a full refund for his flights.
Mr Chua said he made the ticket booking on the Scoot website on 20 June. The flight was due to take off on Monday (26 June).
Due to unforeseen circumstances, someone in his party could not make the trip, Mr Chua explained.
As he booked a one-time flexible ticket, he wanted to check if he could change the name on the ticket, so he contacted a customer service agent on Scoot on 25 June.
During the conversation, the customer service agent appeared to tell him that it would cost “6,396.212 VND” to change the passenger.
Image courtesy of Mr Chua
After confirming that the cost was S$0.38, he proceeded to ask for the name change.
“It was such a steal, so why not go ahead,” Mr Chua thought then.
To his shock, when he checked the final price of his booking, the price for the name change was S$390, not S$0.38.
This was in addition to the S$341 he paid for the ticket, making the total cost S$731.
Mr Chua approached the virtual customer service again to confirm, but the second agent’s responses were unsatisfactory to him.
He was told, “The price varies from time to time,” according to the agent.
But when Mr Chua said that he was quoted a different amount by another agent, the response given was:
Sorry for the confusion, the convert of the 6,396,212 VND is 383.77 SGD, not 0.38 SGD.
Mr Chua pointed out that the amount to change the name on the ticket cost even more than the flight itself.
“Who in their right mind will agree to this?” Mr Chua said. He also noted that he’d only agreed to the name change when he was quoted S$0.38.
Feeling the price was “ridiculous”, he decided not to pay the amount.
In the end, the ticket was not used, since the name change was unsuccessful and without paying the amount for the name change, he could not change the ticket’s date either.
On Tuesday (4 July) a Scoot spokesperson told MS News it has reached out to Mr Chua to offer a full refund for his flights.
Mr Chua also confirmed with MS News that Scoot had reached out to him.
“We sincerely apologise for the customer’s experience with us,” it said.
“Due to an error by our customer service agent, he was initially wrongly quoted for the fee required to change his name on his flight ticket prior to departure.”
Scoot understood that after the actual fee was more than what was quoted, Mr Chua decided not to proceed with the flight.
Due to the inconvenience caused, Scoot has offered a full refund.
“We will continue to review and strengthen our processes to improve customer experience,” Scoot added.
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Featured image adapted from Wikimedia Commons.
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