Extremely disappointing customer support
Extremely disappointing customer support when dealing with an urgent flight issue. I had a simple name correction request for an Etihad ticket — my first name and surname were reversed. Trip.com submitted the request to the airline, but it remained pending for a very long time. During the process, I was repeatedly told that the issue would be resolved within a few hours. I was given several different estimates, including that I would receive an update within one hour after the request was supposedly expedited. None of these time estimates were met. In total, the request remained unresolved for around a day and a half, with essentially no progress, while my flight was getting closer and closer. Eventually, with only a few hours left before my flight, I contacted Etihad directly. They understood the issue and corrected the name in about five minutes. The biggest problem was not the complexity of the correction, but the extremely slow and ineffective handling of an urgent issue by Trip.com. What was especially frustrating was repeatedly being told that the issue would be resolved “within a few hours”, only to find the request still in exactly the same state many hours later. I spent a significant amount of time worrying about whether I would be able to board my flight, while the airline itself resolved the issue almost immediately. Based on this experience, I would strongly recommend contacting the airline directly if you have an urgent booking issue rather than relying solely on Trip.com’s support process.