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The part I really dislike about China is the rampant scamming and cheating. You effectively can’t return products to most retailers for a reason.
Here is China’s biggest OTA, Ctrip, with agents running miles scams, as reported by Shanghai Daily. One poor guy was denied boarding on a Tokyo-Beijing flight because the miles came from someone’s mileage account when he thought he booked a cash ticket from ctrip. He called Ctrip, was rebooked and denied boarding again and detained for the exact same reason!
CHINA’S largest online provider of travel services, Ctrip.com, is embroiled in a row over flight tickets after it issued a ticket to a Chinese passenger that was illegally exchanged for airlines’ mileages.
The passenger, Fu Jingnan, was not issued a boarding pass by the airlines at Tokyo airport, leaving him in a limbo.
…
He contacted Ctrip.com, which put him in touch with the agent who sold him the ticket. The Ctrip-approved agent got him a new ticket on another Japanese carrier, but as luck would have it, he was denied a boarding pass again — for the very same reason.
“I felt humiliated after being investigated for three hours at the Japanese airport and nearly detained,” Fu said. “I want Ctrip to apologize and has the negative records removed by the airport and airlines.”
Fu said Ctrip sold him a ticket that was actually exchanged with the membership mileages of a Japanese traveler he did not know.
The article implies it was ticketed by an affiliated agent rather than Ctrip itself, and then looks at another similar incident.
Ctrip isn’t alone: Qunar, akin to Kayak, lost relationships with 9 Chinese airlines over customer complaints about its practices:
“Passengers complained that Qunar.com arbitrarily raises the prices of air tickets, alters the terms and conditions of ticket use, adds fees for ticket changes and refunds but fails to notify them about flight changes,” Air China, the nation’s flagship carrier, said in a statement.
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[…] China’s biggest online travel booking site, has had problems with agents not issuing tickets, and instead using brokered miles to redeem for fli…. One passenger was denied boarding when the airline figured it out, so Ctrip rebooked them. Using […]
@Mike thank you for speaking for all 3 billion non-Chinese Asians.
Yes, agreed. As an asian i totally agree that china is a corrupt and cheating country. They only care about themselves and money. They would sell their own famiy members for money. Thats why other asian countries hates the chinese. Rude, knaving bastards.
Pretty far-fetched conclusion from an OTA scam to a generally cheating country. Kind of funny though the agent would just try stealing another bunch of miles to cover the previous theft.
@Howie – you are right, the conclusion was not from this article, I did not provide the context of that point from my 8 years living and doing business in China, and ongoing business and trips. Examples in this hobby are Air China/*A reservation hacks, IHG hacks, forged train tickets, compliance departments stay very busy in all aspects of life and commerce down to everyday things like handymen secretly swapping out quality parts for poor when paying a repair call. It is a constant concern of everyday life in China.