Does Air Deccan really sucks???

I have been repeatedly listening foul about Air Deccan, their service and refund policy. You tend to ignore the reviews/feedbacks until you yourself go through the pain. Recently I booked tickets online for my parents from Katra to Vaishnodevi and back. When they reached the venue, the flight got cancelled due to bad weather and they were told that full refund will be done within 14 days. Bad weather! Few of my relatives could not visit the temple inspite of being there due to time and health reasons. That you cant help. माता का जब तक बुलावा नही आता तब तक कोई दर्शन कैसे ले सकता है!!! खैर ...

Air Deccan staff at Katra told my parents that for online tickets, the refund will be automatically done to my credit card. When they reached back, they had the tickets with the refund stamp on it. Since I had heard a lot about Air Deccan not refunding the amount inspite of things like bad weather, I wanted to be cautious. So I called their customer care. Mind you! Air deccan call support is always flooded and you have to wait atleast 30 minutes to get your complaint addressed. So I waited. For the first time I talked, they asked me to mail the scanned copy of the tickets with the stamp to eshwar.singh@airdeccan.net . I did! And they promised that they will refund the amount in 14 days.

To be extra cautious, I again called them in 10 days to find the status. By now, it was 20 days. There is nothing written on their website www.airdeccan.net that you have to mail the scanned copy of the tickets to them. SAD. Had my parents thrown it away, what would have happened! Because the staff there didn’t tell them to mail it to them! No computerization, no synchronization between the refund section and the ticketing section.. huhhh.
Ok, so when I called them to ask the status, (again waited for around 30 minutes for my turn!), the lady told me to mail the scanned copy to refunds@airdeccan.net. Wow. She told me its compulsory to send it to this address. So another flaw. They don’t give all the addresses at one go and neither do they have their staff trained to give complete information to the customer. Again, I mailed to refunds section twice. Now, I got my case number [J ;)]

In next 4 days, I was worried, if ever I will get the money back. I again called them, this time I had my book and pen and some work with me. I knew it will take 30 minutes. It did take 25 minutes and my turn came. I explained my case to the lady. Guess what??? This time she gives me a third email id… Winnie.vas@airdeccan.net . This time I was furious and at the same time I could not help laughing. What a nice idea to not refund. Everytime a customer calls, first ask him to wait for 30 minutes and then give a new email id to mail your tickets to. (तारीख पर तारीख ... Looks like they have adopted from the Sunny Deol movie :)) I asked her to tell how many more email ids I should mail it to. I pleaded to please tell me how many more times I should call. I asked if she can give me any higher authority’s number and she gave – 080-67760123. So, this is Eshwar Singh’s / Winnie’s number. Call this number and ask the operator to connect to these people – the Air deccan refund section people. I thought, why not mail it to more people this time. Lets not depend on them to give me a fourth email id. I searched the internet to find Gopinath, Air Deccan CEO, email id and I got it – gopi@airdeccan.net and I also mailed it to feedbacks and press and media.

So when I mailed to Winnie, Eswar and refunds, I made sure that I also cc to Gopinath, Feedback and Press and Media. Now, 25 days had passed, and according to Airdeccan refund policy, it should not take 14 working days to get the refunds.
I get a reply (this time this man bothered to reply me back! Is that due to the CEO’s email id in the cc [:)]). I got a reply that they have refunded the amount this minute and gave me the reference number and all and that it will come to my account in 2-3 working days… Lets hope it comes.. I will definitely update you in 2 days J. Its celebration time for me and Air Deccan (for successfully refunding a customer’s(that too like me :)) money).!!!!!!!

जो बोले सो निहाल!!!

Are you alive?

Think again. Most of us are dead. Not in terms of breath but in terms of life. What kind of life are you living today? Every week day you get up (after watching late night TV shows) and start rushing to get to office quickly. You work in the day time from 11 am to 8 pm and sometimes even till midnight. Then you get back to home to sleep. And the routine continues. At weekends you hang out with friends, relatives, celebrate and then back to square one on Monday. These days, everything depends on the fixed number of leaves you get at work. If your parents want to spend time with you, you either have an evening call with the client or your leaves account is in negative. Your elder relatives are not keeping well. Or just that they want to spend their time with you in those last days of their life. But you don’t have the time to spare. You cant miss your office. You don’t want that cut in your salary. How selfish have we become! Our life is not just ours. And even if its ours, how are we spending it? Infront of that dead box! (Ohh no! Sorry if I have hurt you…) We are no less than that dead box today. Or are we!

Sweeet Memories

I was browsing through my college photo album where I found this photo. And a soft breeze of memories flashed through my mind. This is a 6-7 yrs old photo when I was in college and this was our friends group which we proudly called 'SPARK' :).

Sometimes we cant write everything we feel. And such feelings can just be felt by going through those moments of life. Such moments may not seem important at that instant of life. They may be just other days in life. But you realise their importance only after you get an opportunity to look back and ponder.

To some, this photo will arouse college days memories, to some, total dhamaal and to some those old nights by the sky near the lake.

To me they are just those moments of life which on remembering bring smile on my face and I go out of words to describe my college days. To me they are those moments which I yearn for more and they remind me of moments which are not there in the photo. To me, they are the moments which show how moments change lives and how lives have changed today!

Sweeett Memories.... Hmmm!

Michhami Dukkadam

Today is Kshama divas i.e. khamat khamna or michami dukkadam in jain festival. Many of you might not be knowing it :).
JAINS kaa biggest festival is "Paryushan", 8 days of fasting and limitation of food items u eat and maximum prayers etc
At the end of this , that is the 8th day is called as "Samvatsari" when most of the Jains fast, fasting means not eating anything for whole day and night too :), just on water for 30+ hrs.
And next day is called "Kshmapana Divas" i.e we say Sorry or "Kshama" , for each and each mistake we make for whole year in known or unknown way (Jaane Anjane main) ,to everyone whom we know :)

So Michami dukkadam to all!

(Photo Courtesy: Kaustubh Patwardhan)