[weatherbain]

Etihad have in recent times been deceiving people in their online bookings, but most recently with their seat selections. When making a miles redemption booking I progressed on to make a seat selection without realizing that I was actually paying for each seat selected. I went all the way to the payment page, went ahead and paid (perhaps I should have paid more attention to the final amount, but it was not clear and I was in a rush to book). Only after finishing the booking I realized I was charged $30 for one seat and $10 for the other, I have never in all my travels ever paid for selecting a seat, and these seats would have been free at check-in. Realizing I paid for seats that I did not want to pay for, I contacted Etihad by email asking for a refund of the seat payments. After several back and , forth emails, they refused to refund my money. They claim it was clear on the site that these seats were chargeable. I have a relative who also fell for this deceptive seat selection process and also paid for seats without realizing. It is bad enough that they charge for seats (given that are apparently not a budget airline, although you could argue this now), but to deceive their paying customers into paying for seats they did not want to pay for, and then refusing to refund the payment (regardless of who was at fault) is disgraceful! Further evidence of Etihad's greed and lust for money from their customers, with so many examples like this in recent years.

The icing on the cake- today I wanted to change a booking I made with miles, and the only way to make this change is to contact the call center. Previously to call Etihad, you dialed a 02 number, which was a local number that was charged at a local rate. However, in line with their money hungry ways, they have now changed their call center number to a 600 number which is charged at a premium per minute rate. So, not just can we not make changes online in some cases, we are also forced to call their call center and pay premium rates for making the call. Absolutely disgraceful from an airline that deserves all the bad reviews it is getting. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

[A320FAN]

As far as the Etihad call center, that is up to them how they wish to proceed. 2 Low cost carriers in the United States discontinued their toll free 1800 numbers, and now you have to dial 1 the area code and the number as a regular toll call.

as far as seating goes: https://www.etihad.com/en-us/optional-service-fees/

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