Cogito ergo scribo

I really gotta rant about this...

Seriously, there is still a loooooooooong way to go for the customer service in Malaysia.

After experiencing an unpleasant customer service with Public Bank, i just had another with a big Malaysian corporation again today - Malaysia Airlines.

First of all, i signed up for the MAS airmiles called Enrich. I have no idea why MAS did not join in any of the airlines alliance such as the Star Alliance; instead, they isolate themselves and customers must sign up with their airmiles. I guess they figured that this is the way to force the customers to always take their flights to earn airmiles. If that is so, then it is actually a thinking without foresight.

Singapore Airlines is a member of Star Alliance, and i have many points accumulated under SIA. In my previous business trips to USA, when i was booking for my flights, i specifically told the travel agent to book me under the airlines that are also members of Star Alliance so that i can earn the points. You see, it is not possible for any airlines to cover ALL the routes in the world, especially for those domestic or non-popular destinations. Furthermore, there are also times when the flight is full or the flight time does not suit the travellers, and then the travellers will look for other airlines for the flight. In such cases, travellers such as myself would choose the airlines that can accumulate points under the same loyalty programme rather than splitting up the airmiles. In a way, this is another way to get more customers too. Yet, our dear MAS choose to be so alone out there.

Ok, so this is the way it is, i signed up for Enrich so that i don't waste the airmiles for this flight to USA. But then, i could not log on to the membership site. There was a function that says "forget your password" on the site and i clicked on it to have my password reset and sent to my email. I did that like at least more than 5 times already but i've not received any emails at all. I think that function isn't working at all, and now i can't log in to my membership site unless i called them up to complain about it.

Lastly is on the online check-in facility. Alright, it's not that i wanna keep comparing Singapore with Malaysia, but i just couldn't help it because i am so used to the good services provided by SG companies.

The online check-in facility on SIA website allows passengers to change seats even after we have checked in. We can also cancel the check-in and re-do it again. The user interface is friendly and smooth.

Yet, our lousy MAS online check-in facility does not allow checked in customer to change the seats or cancel the check-in. Basically, once you have already checked in, the only thing you are still allowed to amend is the Enrich membership number.

Yesterday i did the online check-in on MAS website. After i filled in all the necessary particulars (i gotta do that everytime i check-in online because i could not log on to my membership page) and click "Next", i was hit with an error about unable to proceed with the checking in on my ticket. I then try it again from the start, but was eventually brought to the page where it showed that i've already checked in with seats already assigned! The worst part is that the "change seat" button was disabled and i could not make any changes to it.

So, basically i did not get to choose my seats, did not get to even see where the seat is, and couldn't make changes to it either. I have wanted to choose either the first row or an aisle seat so that there may be a way for me to elevate my foot during the long-haul flight, but now i'm stuck.

I then called up the customer service at MAS just now and told them about my situation and requested them to change the seat for me. After much time spent, the guy told me that there are no more available seats and asked me to try again when i'm at tha airport. Oooookkkaaay, what's the odd that any seats will still be available tomorrow morning right before the flight?

Furthermore, i asked him where my allocated seat is located. He told me that it is right in the middle of the middle cluster (the 5 seats cluster). That is gonna be really bad. I think my foot is gonna swell up like an elephant leg after close to 20 hours of flying time. I could of course try asking someone to switch seat for me, but seriously who would want to change from a front or aisle seat to a narrow middle seat for such long hours flight?

Anyway, my comment for my experience with MAS online service - it SUCKS! It is not customer oriented or user friendly. They should seriously take reference from SIA and improve on it. But then, Malaysian government or GLC always have this unrealistic bloated ego about themselves that they think they are the greatest and most wonderful of all. So i seriously won't put much hope in it.

Oh well, i'll just have to tell myself that this is a cheap ticket and hence comes the price. I'll just have to bear with it, and i've been trained over these few years to withstand agonies.

So yeah, this is NOT gonna break me.

Labels: malaysia, rant