singapore airlines fiasco

I booked my air travel with Singapore Airlines several months ago in Sydney:
Sydney > Singapore > Shanghai; Beijing > Singapore (transit) > Sydney

Due to changes in plans, I called up the Singapore Airlines ticketing office in Sydney to request for the following changes:

a. change the Beijing > Singapore sector to Shanghai > Singapore
b. Push back the final Singapore > Sydney sector a few days later such that it's a stopover instead of a transit

The customer service officer (CSO1) who answered my call informed that he couldn't help with my above requests and advised me to call back two days later. What followed next was the most natural and logical question from me: "Why?". Said CSO1 did not understand what prompted me to ask what I asked, so I expanded the question for his benefit:

1. "Why can't you assist me?
2. "Can you then direct me to the right person/department who can process my requests?"
3. "Why do you need me to call back two days later? - Can't you check whatever you need to check and let me know now? There is the possibility there could be no more seats left on my preferred flight a few days later."

To which CSO1 replied that this request had to be submitted to a different department for checking, in which I repeated questions 2 and 3, to which CSO1 answered no, the only way was for me to call me two days later because the request had to be sent to a different department, in which I repeated questions 2 and 3... and so on.

CSO1's tone got more and more impatient and I got more and more frustrated. Fine. I realised there really wasn't much I could do but to call back again.

Two days later, a CSO2 attended to my call. When I stated the reasons for calling, she immediately replied without hesitation that I had called the wrong office, that I would need to call the Singapore office and proceeded to provide the number before I even asked.

I was confused so I asked CSO2 why I was getting two sets of such different answers. I shared with her my concerns of not being able to secure a seat on my preferred flight and hence shouldn't have been misled by CSO1 in the first place (that was assuming CSO2's information was the correct version). She was nice enough to apologise for CSO1 but added she wasn't sure why CSO1 said what he said to me and confirmed that as long as I followed her instructions, I would get my requests processed.

Great.

CSO3 from the Singapore office took my call. Again, I stated the reasons for my call. No brownie points for guessing correctly CSO3's reply. "I'm sorry, but you have called the wrong office. Your ticket was purchased in Sydney and so you have to contact Sydney directly for any change requests."

Incredulous.

I lost it. I insisted he did whatever he could to solve my problem as I was sick of being bounced around from one dumb-ass CSO to another. CSO3 was helpful enough to offer to sort things out with his colleagues in the Sydney office and call me back.

True to his word, CSO3 called me within the next hour to advise that yes, he would be able to process my requests for me immediately but that there were extra costs involved - change fees and fare differences.

Fantastic.

Again, I followed with the next most logical question: "So how much do I need to pay?"

CSO3 could not give me an answer on the spot but promised to call me back with the information - the change fee was standard but he had to check with the relevant department on the fare difference. I waited a day. No calls from CSO3. Imagine my shock when I saw an email with my revised e-ticket in my inbox the next day. A total fee of $108 was charged to the credit card I used in the initial booking - this was fine as I did confirm with CSO3 the day before that I would be using the same card for the payment of the extra fees. But how could he have proceeded to put the transaction through without first confirming the amount with me? What if the fare difference had been $801 instead? I may jolly have decided that two extra days in Singapore are not worth the amount and stuck with the original same day transit itinerary.

Astonishing.


So, the question of the day is:

Who is the most idiotic of them CSOs all?