On Monday, I bought two tickets for C & I to go see
the Hunger Gamezzz movie on Saturday.
On Tuesday, I checked my calendar for Saturday.
Typical.
You can probably see where this is going.
In all my excitement over the movie coming out this
weekend, I committed a fatal error in entertainment – failure to check for previously
scheduled events. And what did I do? Purchased movie tickets for smack-dab in
the middle of when C & I are supposed to be out to dinner celebrating a
good friend’s birthday. OOPS.
Bah. Therefore, my mission yesterday was to figure out if
I could correct this error. While I figured this would not be easy, I didn’t
think it would be very hard… I can't possibly be the first person who's ever done this, right? Plenty of people buy movie tickets for times when they can't attend movies, right? RIGHT? Yeah well. Live & learn!
I purchased the tickets from
Fandango, so I went to their
website for assistance. After searching all over the site, I finally found the
link for contacting the company. Went there, and found a list of FAQs. Found
the one regarding “refunds/exchanges.” Learned that Fandango can’t refund or
exchange because all the tickets are related to the actual theater you
purchased them for, but if you call their customer service line, they’ll help
you figure out how to do whatever you need to in order to remedy the situation.
OK… good. Called the customer service line. Went through the automated options,
the second of which is “if you are calling regarding a refund or exchange for
tickets you’ve purchased, please press ‘2’.” Pressed. And then I was launched
straight into hold music. Very, very bad hold music. Where I stayed for
18
minutes before a recording finally came on and said, “All representatives are
busy; please hold and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.”
Seriously?! 18 minutes in is when you feel it’s necessary to share that with
me? Shockingly, I’d already figured that out… and was starting to ponder
exactly how many calls Fandango gets. Or perhaps, how many people are sitting
there answering calls. And then I started picturing one little old woman with
27 phones surrounding her, ringing off the hook. Because I’m pretty sure that
was the only possible scenario for why I could have been on hold for 18 minutes
already.
**disclaimer - I was doing work with my phone on speaker, listening to the hold music. I swear I did not just sit at my desk for that long twiddling my thumbs. I can multitask!
Unfortunately, I had to disconnect that call as I had some
work to do away from my desk. Sigh. 18 minutes down the drain. That’s
fine, I thought, I’ll call back later this afternoon. Surely, I’ll have better
luck…
HA. Followed the same procedures a few hours later, and
sat on hold for 27 minutes before I finally hung that call up. That’s a total
of almost 60 minutes on hold! Are you joking?! Fandango, fail.
While I was on hold the second time, I started
researching my options. Eventually, I found a posting that said that
essentially, Fandango was going to be useless, and that any calls for refunds
or exchanges should be directed straight to the theater the tickets were
purchased for. OK… I can do that. I found the phone number of my theater
(which is a
Regal, in case you’re wondering), and, at the 27 minute mark, hung
up on Fandango again.
I was nervous for the next call – I was pretty sure this
was going to be even more complicated. I foresaw an angry theater worker
judging me for buying movie tickets to a movie I couldn’t attend, and arguing
with me because the tickets were purchased from a third party. EEK. I dialed
the number… and the phone rang once before Dan answered. Nice, sweet Dan, who only
let me get halfway through explaining my issue before telling me it was
absolutely no problem to exchange; all I had to do was bring my tickets to the
theater when I actually want to see the movie, and they could do the exchange
on the spot. He also informed me that while it’s going to be busy, they’re
showing the Hunger Games on eight different screens, and have the movie starting
every 20 minutes all weekend, so I should be good to go any time I want to see
it. He wished me a nice day, and that was that. DONE! No problem at all!
I could not believe how helpful and nice the man at the
theater was, and how useless Fandango was. Chalk that up to a win in the
Customer Service department for Regal, and a giant failure for Fandango. I will
now be seeing the Hunger Games on Friday night, and enjoying a lovely birthday
celebration on Saturday night, and all is right with the world. Hooray!
