More on FlySAA and SAA

Just when I thought it couldn't get worse, South African Airways and/or FlySAA (they seem indivisible when considering service) led me there.

Their IVR ("interactive" voice response) system basically only gives options for the utter minimum of options, without a "Let me speak to a human, damnit" option. I managed to get a human, who then forwarded me to another IVR system, which, unsurprisingly, never had the options I wanted either.

What's worse, the option that did sound like the closest to what I wanted looped me back to the original IVR system I was on. I got a different human, who instead of diverting me to an IVR system, had me on hold for over 15 minutes, before declaring that I was, indeed, correct that they messed me around. And with that confirmed, I was somehow supposed to be happy. I decided, on the off-chance, to push for someone to phone me to discuss the problem, since I had been on the phone for 40 minutes at this stage.

Egads, someone actually phoned. And guess what, I was indeed correct that their service sucks. And that "it's these things that will improve our service in the future". That's the entirety of the message I got. Asking for them to correct their billing mistake, it was suggested I get my bank to do it, as the consultant said it would take SAA at least two weeks to fix it. Poor service seems to run through their entire company.

The terrible thing is that the only reason I flew with them is that they were advertising a flight at a time that was convenient for the work I had to do. But I ended up leaving even later than the alternatives, who would have been cheaper and had better service.

Somehow, the fact they lied into getting me to fly with them, at R500 or so more than the others, wasting three hours (at least) of my time at airports, with times that were way less convenient for me than the other airlines, charging my flight on the wrong account, and their poor service costing me 40 minutes on my phone account, and another 25 minutes of my time, requires only an acknowledgement that something should be done to improve their service. So be it - game on.