Carlson Wagonlit Travel

What a joke. Trying to arrange a corporate simple multi stop trip and system is choking on it. They won’t be in business much longer if they don’t get their acts together.

Their mobile app is much better than the website so I feel my last assessment was a little harsh. Not the best but not the worst either.

I spent two days to correct the information on my tickets. I dont think they are careful or responsible for customers. I couldn’t understand why the company would use their service.

This is my first review and I am writing this review to caution companies that plan to partner with this travel company. My company also uses Carlson Wagonlit Travel for online travel booking. This is the experience I had with them:
1) I made a reservation using their online booking tool last week. The booking process was straightforward for me and I got the confirmation emails right away.
2) Out of the two confirmation email I received, one had an incorrect departure time. So I called Carlson Wagonlit for correcting this error.
3) After I was transferred to several departments, waiting on the phone every single time I was transferred to a new department and providing my details every single time, I finally got to talk to a person who was willing to help.
4) She spoke to me and told me she will get back with the resolution. It took 4 days for her to get back to me (after calling her department like 3 times) and what I hear from her is that I need to talk to the airline i.e.they can’t help me. I am not sure what kind of customer service is this when it is clear that I made a booking through their system. So they should be the one taking the responsibility of calling whoever they need to and especially when I am telling them that I have been waiting for the resolution from last one week. They still haven’t found the solution and the only way I have right now is to talk to my company about this.

Horrible customer service. Not only that, but the agents lie to save themselves. I booked a flight over the phone and was quoted $ 307 for round trip. Then I checked my bill and realized that I was charge that price by one airline, plus another $ 280 by another carrier. Apparently this flight was across 2 carriers, but I was only quoted for 1… my invoice also only showed the $ 307 charge and I never received another for the $ 280. The agent lied and said she quoted me for both airlines. I would recommend to NEVER book with these people over the phone. I wouldn’t even use their system online if it wasn’t my company’s policy.

Just altogether dreadful, high markups, no cost savings that I can ascertain, appallingly long hold times for customer service — frequently well over 20+ minutes. So if I am in mid-​reservation, their system times out due to inactivity -«we appreciate your assistance» — no they don’t — they are simply abusing our patience: P
Why do our corporate masters think this is such a cost effective service?

I’m shocked at how bad this is! I’ve been trying to set up a profile for 2 days, for a trip for work; we’re required to use CWT, and it’s just a terrible system. I’ve been all over their web site, I’ve been on the phone with them several times (can’t call them back at the number they call me from, and the number in their emails doesn’t work either!) The people I speak with are very nice, but they don’t seem able to work with their own system any more than I can. When I get their voicemail, the message says they’ll be back in the office in late October — really?
Wow, does this company know that it’s 2014?

Would be great a great site & service if this was 1994… What a clunky, outdated, slow booking service. Shame on firms using Carlson Wagonlit at the expense of their clients and employees.

Yikes! So, so bad. Undependable and a completely irresponsible travel agency. I’m baffled this organization is still in business. WTH? Their website looks great, but please don’t be misled by what «looks» like a reputable agency. Run from this business!

they are my corporate travel agent and i hate them as they hired bunch of agent that don’t know anything about traveling since they simply hope we just use their online tool to build our itinerary and price. But i often do complex multi-​cities or around the world trip so i can’t use their online tool to price my ticket.
I did my due diligence, i used staralliance or oneworld around the world tool online to build my itinerary and even got a price from them, then i will forward the itinerary to CWT to do the pricing. guess what the agent cannot price it, they have to forward to their international rate desk, and per request for quote i have to pay a fee! This is ridiculous, how can we make a decision on which route to go if we dont get different quote for comparison and i need to pay for each quote and wait 24hours for a quote?
the agent will never advise any best routing, or connection and for goodness sake they don’t even know the fare rules.
Their price is not competitive and they charge for service fee for anything and everything even when they are of no help!

I need to cancel a trip and their system won’t let me do it online. So, now i’m on hold (for 18 minutes and counting with no signs of a human). When (if) i do finally get a hold of someone they will charge for the luxury of staying on hold so i can talk to someone to cancel my trip (that I would have done on line but i can’t).
Definitely 1 star — for customer service and for nickle and diming

I dont why our company uses such an irresponsible site for our travels. Im on a plane, sometimes four a week. It takes more time to book so ething with them, then on your own. Most recently, i booked a trip over a month ago. Something told me the evening prior to the trip to just check and confirm my departure time the next morning… Well, to my surprise, Carlson deleted my ticketed and never had the decency to inform me about this! It simply said «cant retrieve, action required». You’d think and email would be appreciated… Nope. I HATE THEM!

Customer service is terrible and they’re charging me airline change fees for their employees’ mistakes.
I had to book business travel to two different cities in a row, including some connections, and so I called to book all the flights on the phone. The agent made a mistake in booking one of the flights (she booked it in the reverse direction — clearly an error, since she knew my next departure city). When I called to correct this error, I was told that I had to cover the $ 150 change fee that the airline charged (and Carlson didn’t waive their $ 48.90 transaction fee for that flight either, despite the poor service! And they charged a $ 48.90 fee for each flight, so the total fees were $ 296.70, most of which I have to pay personally, for a terrible job and to cover their errors.)
I’ve spent more time on the phone with agents than should be necessary to try and fix this — it’s taken several weeks and still isn’t fixed.
My company switched to Carlson from another provider because Carlson is slightly cheaper. Clearly, this is a case of penny-​wise-​and-​pound-​foolish. You get what you pay for.
I’d give this service no stars, if that were a Unilocal option.

I had e-​mailed one of Carlson’s travel agencies in Canada with a request for assistance with planning a trip there. I never received any kind of reply from them, so I e-​mailed Carlson’s corporate office with a complaint. I did receive an automated acknowledgment that my e-​mail was received and that I would be responded to. Well, that was five days ago and I have not heard back. So not only was I ignored by the travel agency, I was ignored by the corporate headquarters.
It amazes me that a service-​based company just ignores customers-​I have no idea how they stay in business.
I’ve used Carlson before, but I never will again. They obviously could not care less about customers.

Corporate Travel Planning
I have the need to use this group somewhat on a regular basis due to the nature of my job. We have an corporate agreement with these people and use their website exclusively to book any travel and travel related business.
The portal is fairly easy to use in terms of picking a flight and booking, but compared to the more commercial portals such as Priceline or Orbitz, it is a bit on the clunky side. Once you learn the vagaries of the site, it can be a quick and easy matter of booking your travel. This clunkiness seems limited to the air side only — the rest of the site works smoothly and efficiently and allows you to do a lot of hotel comparing while in the portal.
Essentially, you start out with filling in your preferences as to whatever agreed upon hotel /​air and car chains you have memberships in and the rest is preloaded on the corporate end as to type of car and hotel room you can use as well as other travel restrictions, such as not flying first class and the like. Can you book a convertible car and fly first class? Yes, it will allow you to do that but at the same time, it will shoot a message to the travel admin at your company so you had better have a good reason as to why you did that.
Overall, you can get the job done with a minimum of fuss and if you get yourself into a tizzy, you can always call them and they are happy to help. The only downside is that there is no ability to book a limo from the website– that has to be called in manually. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not, but it is an extra step.
Prices are not as good as what you can find on the commercial portals– I was playing around and found the prices, particularly for hotels, can be anywhere from $ 30 to $ 60 higher on the corporate site as opposed to the
or other similar sites. This is not always the case so you really have to do some playing around at times to get the best deal you can.
Worth looking at particularly if you are in charge of your corporate travel dollars or are just trying to get a handle on who is booking what and where.