This may seem repetitive, somewhat redundant already, but I just want to share with you what happened to me and my husband on our last trip back in Manila via CEBU PACIFIC. This may serve as another warning to all the people planning to have them the next time they fly. We've never had such a horrible experience before.
Our flight was supposed to be at around midnight, so we were at the airport around 10PM. The queue for the boarding pass collection wasn't that long yet so we were quite confident that we'll be getting good seats. At the end of the line, we were shocked to know that both our names didn't appear on any flights that day! The person at the counter double-checked our bookings by keying the record locator found on the email confirmation sent by CEBU PACIFIC. (Yes, we received an email from them confirming this flight and I actually called them regarding this to reconfirm). To our dismay, they still didn't find any of our names on that flight! They asked us to go to another counter, supposed to be customer service, but even these people weren't able to help us (They were Singapore airport staff who do not have any connections with the airline themselves). They asked us to call cebu pacific directly to ask if they could put our names back on that flight, because they've noted that we weren't on that flight, but they were able to access two other flights we booked for august and for september (Yeah, they were so cheap we booked them for all our monthly flights for the wedding preps). We tried to call them, and my brother-in-law who was in Manila then also helped us in calling. But to no avail. I have been listening to their irritating hold music and blah-blahs for two hours without even a single customer service officer answering!!! My blood really rose! My blood pressure is always low but for sure, I was hypertensive that time. But what made our world crumble really, is when the people from the check-in counter told us upfront that even if they were able to locate our names they can't give us seats anymore. That flight was overbooked they say. And aside from us there were more than 20 other passengers who we'rent able to secure a seat! The nerve!!! They were just wasting people's time and energy booking for their so called "cheap" seats only to end up with no seats at all. Maybe when they made these promos they were thinking of the buses of old with seats in the middle for the extra passengers. Waaah!!! We were so upset that we can't go home. And to top it all we have a morning domestic flight the following day (with guess what??? cebu pacific too - sometimes being stingy really pays...:p) to legaspi which they moved by the way on an earlier timeslot, only for us to wait for two hours at the boarding gates' waiting area (which was also horrible by the way and way too crowded for a terminal) because all of their flights were delayed if not cancelled that day!!! And guess what, they also changed planes without informing the ground staff in advance. They downgraded it to a 26-row plane when the boarding passes given were until 31 rows... Can you believe this people??? grrr... But we're thankful we were able to reach legaspi in one piece anyways.
Back to our flight from Singapore to Manila. So we gave-up. No more cebu pacific flight for us and the Philippine Airlines' early flight that morning just left. The next PAL flight will be too late for our domestic flight. So we were only left with tigerairways and jetstar. Tiger's flight heading clark won't let us reach manila in time for our domestic flight too, so what's left is jetstar. The airport staff told us to just wait until the counters open at 4am so that we could purchase tickets. We bought the idea and waited at the terminal. (yeah, medyo mukha kami dung kawawa) While waiting, hubs tried to access the jetstar website online. Big thanks to Free WIFI at the airport! And thank God, we were able to get tickets for a 630 am flight. The one-way ticket we got, since it was booked the same day of the flight was 4x the price of a return ticket from cebu pacific! It was such a waste really, but what to do?? We were desperate, and the hope jetstar gave us and helped us appease, made it all worth it. By the way, that particular Cebu Pacific Flight we missed, it was double-booked. And we were charged by them TWICE in our Credit Cards! They cancelled one flight for us and told us that we will be refunded in 60 days time but my gosh it has been almost 4 mos but still no refund was given... It was like paying for FOUR seats to end-up with ZERO seats! It was really a waste!!!
On Tuesday, we will be back in Manila, and before going thru any wedding related matters/errands, we will pay the Cebu Pacific office a visit. We need an explanation for all these crappy things and if possible we will insist to have all our four other flights booked with them cancelled and refunded because we don't want to ever encounter such a crappy system called Cebu Pacific.
-donna , grrrr... still frustrated with crappy CP-
Another Cebu Pacific Rant
