P&O don’t work weekends for flight seat bookings

[pennib]

I tried to post this on the forum but it seems to have got lost. Situation is that I received an email inviting me to book our flight seats for Azura Christmas cruise. Baltic and liguarians could do it on 14th October but we are only Caribbean so had to wait until today (16th). I was pleased as I had been trying for weeks to do this. But no joy so after multiple attempts on 16th I rang our TA who rang P&O. Apparently P&O have had some trouble with the bookings on 14th but as there is no one working in their flight department over the weekend nothing can be done until Monday 18th. However our TA has managed to get 2 seats in Premium which are in our basket and which will be dealt with on 18th. Can you believe it?? An outfit like P&O who have been deluged with similar queries have no one working at weekends?? It does not give me any confidence about the cruise or the company supposedly running it which is a pity as we have been loyal P&O customers for a long time.

good luck to anyone else trying to do the same as me.

[davecttr]

Yes I can believe it. I was stranded in Singapore with a no fly letter from the ships doctor. It was a weekend and the local TA who arranged my hotel could not contact P&O about re-arranging my flights home. Eventually I had to do it myself.

 

That a organisation that is running cruises 24/7 does not have the HQ available at the weekend is incomprehensible Same with their phone lines, closed at the weekend.

[Son of Anarchy]

I've got a vague recollection that the P&O flights people never worked weekends.  Does seem bizarre when they're running a travel company!

[molecrochip]

11 hours ago, Son of Anarchy said:

I've got a vague recollection that the P&O flights people never worked weekends.  Does seem bizarre when they're running a travel company!

Not as bizarre as you expect.

 

P&O don't just log on to ba.com when they need to rebook someone's flight. They have a trade team within BA they contact. I say BA, it could be any of the airlines that they use.

 

The catch is, these teams only work Mon-Fri, so whilst P&O could be open, they can't resolve anything. Hence why the call centre will take messages for the flights team to resolve on Monday.

 

Dave - your TA should have managed your expectation better than they did. They would have known the deal but more likely acted 'surprised'.