Alibaba’s Online Travel Booking Platform Fliggy Announces Solution to Automatic Refund of Universal Beijing Resort Tickets
On the evening of September 14, in response to the incident of Universal Beijing Resort’s speed pass being automatically cancelled, Fliggy, Alibaba‘s online travel booking platform, announced it will provide an additional 30% of the actual transaction amount of the product as compensation for the error. The move is in accordance with the rules of the platform.
At the same time, Universal Beijing Resort will open the remaining inventory of speed passes. If consumers still want to re-order and choose the product, they need to purchase it on the specified date in the subsequent optional dates before 23:59 on September 19, 2021. Fliggy also admitted in the announcement that, due to the limited inventory left, it may not be able to meet the demand.
Tuesday was the first day that tickets for Universal Beijing Resort officially went on sale. However, some media outlets reported that some tickets, speed passes and VIP experience tickets consumers had purchased on Fliggy were automatically refunded by the system. The incident quickly triggered a hot discussion among netizens. Some consumers said that they grabbed the speed pass on Fliggy and the payment was successful. However, they received a text message to notify that the order has been cancelled, the reason being “I don’t like it/ Do not want”.
Later, in response to the situation, Fliggy announced that, due to the continuous update of system visits and peak orders, the flagship store of Universal Beijing Resort was experiencing a delay in the real-time updating of ticket availability. Some consumers were able to the page showing that there were still tickets left, but after payment, the system recognized that there was no inventory and automatically refunded the purchase. Fliggy apologized and promised to inform consumers via their official Weibo channel about their solution for the issue by 8 p.m.
Ticket prices for Universal Beijing Resort range from 418 yuan ($65) to 748 yuan and tickets for the opening day are priced at 638 yuan. Within one minute, tickets for the resort’s Sept. 20 grand opening sold out on Ctrip. More than 10,000 tickets were booked on the platform within 3 minutes, and hotel rooms for the resort were sold out in 30 minutes.
SEE ALSO: Universal Beijing Resort Sets Official Grand Opening for September 20
According to Fliggy, within half an hour of opening, the official store of Universal Beijing Resort on the platform had sold 100, 000 tickets, while the store’s followers also grew by 150 percent over late August levels.
