I’ve bought a ticket to Dubai throught Emirates. Because my company paid for it, I needed an invoice to show the expense.
Useless web
The first thing I’ve tried doing is using the official website to issue an invoice.
This didn’t work. The website does not issue invoices.
Useless chat
The second thing I’ve done was use the live chat provided on the website.
I got answered by someone called “Rebecca”. They first say they “We don’t generate invoices”, later they say that is done, for “some contries”, but provides no information about it.
After much talk, she finally gives me an email I should contact to get the invoice, this email is ekportugal@emirates.com.
Useless email
This is how my conversation with email went:
- 2023/05/30 Requested an invoice to be issued.
- 2023/05/01 Got an answer saying they wouldn’t issue an invoice because they verified I was asking its emission as an individual, not a company (This is wrong as I provided a company VAT number)
- 2023/06/07 Requested the invoice to be issued again, showing them it is indeed a company VAT number.
- 2023/06/16 Over two weeks pass after my initial request. After not receiving an answer, I’ve sent another email, asking, again, for them to send the invoice as fast as possible.
- 2023/06/16 I get an email back asking for the name of the company.
- 2023/06/16 Company name provided. No answer.
- 2023/06/19 Still no answer, no invoice. Provided again with the company name and VAT number.
- 2023/06/19 Still no answer, no invoice. Provided YET again with the company name and VAT number.
(Mostly) Useless call support
The person who I’ve been emailing with has a signature with a phone number. The phone number is +351 213500500 and it says “Lisbon Town Office”.
Let’s try calling them, I thought:
- 2023/06/19: I press 5 for “Financial Department”. My call gets forwarded to some other number. It goes to voicemail, according to the voicemail message, the number I was forwarded to seems to be 215 863 218.
- 2023/06/19: I press 4 for “Commercial Department”. My call gets disconnected.
- 2023/06/20: I press 6 for “Administrative Department”. My call gets forwarded and I get the message “O número para o qual ligou não está atribuido.”, in other words “The number you called is not assigned”.
- 2023/06/20: I press 5 for “Financial Department”. A lady picks up. I explain the situation, and she says she is on vacation, and that the team is small and some of them are on vacation too. I tell her “But look, I asked for the invoice 20 days ago.”, she is understanding and tells me it will be issued by the end of the week. She also tells me that for accountability purposes, there’s an exception in the Portuguese law that states that the tickets and receipts can be used to justify exists and that that is not known even by most accountants, but that they do it, for customer experience.
Conclusion
I’ll update this as soon as I get an answer.
