tldr: Malaysia Airlines screwed our ticket - they added our infant to my wife's ticket including bassinet but did not issue him a ticket. We were not allowed to board and call centre refused to reschedule us without a 5 day investigation. We have now had to pay $5000 for tickets on Singapore Airlines and fly 10 days later. Who can we go to redress this? Any inputs will be appreciated.
Sorry about the wall of text to follow. I am very frustrated and can't make sense of what just happened.
So, we booked my wife on a flight meant to depart on 14th Jan. At the time, my infant's passport hadn't arrived and seats were getting booked out. We called MAS and they asked us to book my wife in and call back to add the baby to the ticket. So we did - booked the ticket for my wife and then when the baby had a passport called back to add my infant and book a bassinet. Apparently, the call centre dude booked a bassinet with all of the baby's details but failed to issue a ticket number for him. We had no clue as the e- ticket had the baby's name on it. We even called back MAS twice later - once to confirm bassinet booking and then to clarify infant luggage allowances. Neither of them picked up a missing ticket. In the meanwhile, I booked myself another ticket leaving MEL with my wife and baby but returning earlier.
Fast forward to yesterday - stood in check-in queue for an hour and 45 minutes. When we got to the counter, they tell us infant has no ticket despite the e-ticket having his name. Ground staff said "nothing we can do, call the call centre to reissue the ticket and BTW, you won't be able to board the flight as we are closing the flight."
We got on call to MAS and the guy advised it will take a bit for them to investigate and he doesn't want us to keep on hold. He will call us back. Luckily we didn't hang around in the airport and decided to go home. 2 hours later - no call. When we call them again, they said this investigation takes 5 days and they can do nothing about it. Asked for a supervisor and was advised we will get a call back. Another 2 hours and no call yet. The supervisor meant to call us wasn't even on the shift apparently. We finally manage to get hold of a supervisor who says nothing can be done until investigation. The best they can do is rebook us at our cost - approx $4000 on tickets that already cost us $2500.
At this point, we decided we will pay as we had to travel for my bro-in-law's wedding but as luck would have, they couldn't get us seats on any flights within the next few days. Next steps for us are to send a detailed email to the complaints team and the supervisor tells us that the team mostly sticks to the terms & conditions of the ticket and as ours is non-refundable, nothing will come of it. All this despite the fact that the mistake was clearly at their end.
Anyway, we have no spent 5000$ to fly Singapore Airlines 10 days later and with a 23 hour transit - no other airlines with a bassinet available. We will just make it in time for the wedding and my baby will most likely not be able to go.
I am appalled by the lack of empathy from MAS and the claim that they can't resolve a problem that they caused in the first place. Their Twitter and Facebook accounts don't respond. Their customer relations email address didn't respond either.
Who can I go to redress this? Ideally, I will want them to compensate me for the original tickets plus my new travel plans.
EDIT: To lodge the complaint with MAS, I want to check and summarise the date/time I made the calls. This was through Optus landline. Does anyone know if there is a way I can get call logs from Optus going back almost 6 months or more?
Where were you flying to?