Don't use gohop.ie to book your flights!
Posted by Nick Johnson
Here's the email I just sent gohop:Hello,
Recently, my fiance and I booked tickets back to our home country of New Zealand for our wedding using gohop.ie. We encountered some issues on the way there - auto check-in systems only brought up one reservation, seats had to be re-arranged, etc, but were not fully aware of the scope of the issues until our trip back to Dublin.
Our flight from Auckland, NZ to London was fully booked, and when we checked in, we discovered that our seats were not adjacent - not even in the same row, as a matter of fact. The cause of this, it turns out, is that gohop does not group code tickets purchased through your site. Your company, it appears, is somewhat infamous amongst airline checkin personnel because of this - as soon as I mentioned gohop, I got a resigned sigh and a nod of understanding.
Despite efforts well above and beyond the call of duty by airline staff - including asking other people to accept alternate seats - a process which delayed the departure of the entire plane due to us and others not having suitable seats, they were unable to find us adjacent seats. As a result, my wife and I had an extremely unpleasant first leg of our trip. Despite the second leg being just as busy, the airline somehow managed to find us seats that were adjacent, mitigating the unpleasantness somewhat.
Group coding is something that nearly every other travel agency - online and off - seems to manage just fine, and it's an essential component for anyone booking a party of more than one person. Adjacent seating on a long plane journey for a small party is hardly a big ask. I was not notified when booking tickets that this would not be the case, leading to problems at every stage of our journey. I would like to learn why you are unable to do this, and what you intend to do about this lack. At the very least you have a responsibility to make your customers aware that you don't provide something most people would regard as a basic service.
Because of your inability to group-code, my wife and I had an extremely unpleasant return from our honeymoon. At a time where most people hope for a seat upgrade, we were not even able to sit beside one another. Many other people besides ourselves were inconvenienced - airline staff had to spend significant time attempting to fix seating arrangements, and the entire plane was delayed as they attempted to reseat people. Until this problem is resolved, I intend to avoid a repeat of this experience by avoiding using your service, and suggesting everyone I know do the same.
Regards,
Nicholas Johnson
Update: I got a response 8 days later. Previous Post Next Post