Question : I ve been trying to get this issue resolved with Travelocity for more than six months, with no luck. We booked our honeymoon flight to Hawaii on ATA Airlines, but 10 days before our trip we got a call saying that the airline had gone out of business.
A Travelocity representative assured us we had been rebooked on new flights and that everything was taken care of. Needless to say, on the morning of our honeymoon, we had no tickets. The airline we were supposed to have been rebooked on, Delta Air Lines, was adamant that it wasn t giving us any tickets. And a Travelocity target rental car puerto rico representative kept telling us everything target rental car puerto rico would be fine and they were working it out.
I ve tried calling Travelocity target rental car puerto rico customer service and was promised over and over that someone is looking into it, that they will call. They don t. They keep asking for more time and keep telling me my request is on urgent target rental car puerto rico status. I ve sent them more than 65 pages of documentation by mail and fax. We re out more than $4,000 for the airline tickets and an extra night s accommodations and transportation expenses. Enough is enough. Can you please target rental car puerto rico help us? Kim Ryan , Phoenixville, Pa.
Answer target rental car puerto rico : Travelocity should have issued a prompt refund for the new airline tickets you had to buy. Actually, it shouldn t have come to this at all. As your online travel agent, it should have ensured target rental car puerto rico you were rebooked on another flight just like it promised.
There s no excuse for keeping you waiting this long for your money. If I didn t know any better, I d say the requests for additional documentation were nothing more than a delay tactic meant to wear you down until you give up.
But I know better. As it turns out, Travelocity had issued paper tickets for your first flight, and when ATA went belly-up, it created a bureaucratic target rental car puerto rico nightmare for your agent. Delta wasn t offering target rental car puerto rico free flights to displaced ATA customers, but standby flights for $100 per person. If you wanted a confirmed space, target rental car puerto rico the airline allowed a modest 20 percent discount target rental car puerto rico off a new ticket.
If Travelocity offered to rebook you at no additional expense, then it was being beyond generous. It almost certainly wouldn t have access to the money it paid ATA on your behalf, since ATA was in the process of being liquidated. So Travelocity appeared to be offering you new tickets target rental car puerto rico to Hawaii. How nice.
Let me hit pause for a second. target rental car puerto rico Why did you book the most important vacation of your life through an online travel agency? This is a trip of a lifetime, and you really should target rental car puerto rico consider entrusting it to a competent target rental car puerto rico travel professional preferably, someone who specializes in honeymoons.
When you learned target rental car puerto rico of ATA s bankruptcy, you should have verified that your flights were rebooked. Yes, Travelocity offers a guarantee that everything about your booking will be right, but when thousands of passengers are displaced, it s possible that some of them will be overlooked. target rental car puerto rico I wouldn t have relied on Travelocity s word, and rather than phoning the company, I would have contacted it through its Website. A written record of your problem might have expedited your refund, if not prevented it from happening.
I contacted Travelocity on your behalf. It reviewed your case and determined that you had been incorrectly advised by its agents that your Delta flights were confirmed. Delta later notified Travelocity that it wasn t paying for the ATA flights, and would charge you and your husband for full-fare tickets. You were never notified of that change.
Without sounding like a Know it all or trying to put you out of business per say, don t the people who email in for help use common sense? I would bet half of all those who email could have simplified their problems WITHOUT ever contacting you for help to begin with. How? Use a credit card. Had this woman paid with one and been given a cold shoulder, target rental car puerto rico she could have disputed the charge later. Obviously, she had to pay twice, and MOST if not all credit cards will reverse charges for services not rendered. target rental car puerto rico Obviously, if Travelocity refused to play ball, she would then at least had another option. I WILL ALWAYS use a credit card on major purchases, ALWAYS. At least that way if the company fails when all outlets are exhausted, I have one more to try. Is it a sure fire guarantee that I will win? No, but at least I have more options than those who throw their brains out the door and pay cash / check. Who in their right mind pays the full amount for a service before it is rendered. Once someone takes your money, you are then at their mercy!!!
I have heard too many negative stories (most of them on this Website) about Travelocity and Orbitz to ever entrust my plans to them. And I am glad that Chris has placed some responsibility on the customer. Travelocity did screw up, but always remember you get what you pay for. If you want to save money, fine who doesn t? but booking target rental car puerto rico through an online third party does carry risks. And if Travelocity told this customer target rental car puerto rico that her tickets were booked, why didn t she ensure that she had tickets in hand (either electronic or paper) before her trip? Frankly, showing up at the airport on the morning of your honeymoon without tickets is just boneheaded. If Travelocity s word isn t worth anything and it obviously isn t why are we continuing to give them our money? If people stopped using them maybe they d get their act together.
Bob, it s not Travelocity s fault that ATA went bankrupt. A third-party agent of a travel supplier can never be at fault when something like this occurs, whether an online agency or a professional travel consultant like myself. Where Travelocity went wrong is telling the client, Kim, that her airfare to Hawaii had been re-booked and that everything was taken care of. From that, other issues arose and contributed to the situation target rental car puerto rico at large.
Had myself or many of my colleagues booked this bride s honeymoon flights, it was our responsibility to ensure her flights were protected on another carrier in some fashion and that s exactly what happened industry-wide. Travel consultants and travel agents (yes, there s a difference!) spent many, many hours re-booking clients flights to Hawaii in the wake of the ATA bankruptcy same with Aloha Airlines, which happened around the same time, if I recall right. It was a crazy and chaotic time, and it sounds like the Travelocity agent said whatever Kim wanted to hear to get her off the line and out of their hair.
I m glad she was able to get restitution. Chris is right, though booking special event travel like a honeymoon without the aid of a professional travel consultant isn t a good idea. It s a special target rental car puerto rico time in life, and obviously you d want nothing to go wrong, or as little to go wrong as possible. That s the value of a professional consultant.
Hello from Travelocity. There s no doubt we could have handled this better, but we are glad that we were able to resolve it. When ATA and Aloha went bankrupt in April 2008 it set in motion many similar cases like the one described above. In many of those instances we were able to head problems off to the delight of a bunch of worried customers. Of course, Chris doesn t hear from those people, but, believe it or not, we do appreciate the nature of his work overly dramatic headlines notwithstanding because it gives us a chance to review problems and, ultimately, target rental car puerto rico get better.
Regina, as a faithful reader of Chris s blog, I understand your opinion, but I will politely disagree with you: our word does mean something. In fact, you have my word that if you d like a promo code for use on a future hotel stay or vacation package booked through us, drop me a line. Cheers.
Travel consultants and travel target rental car puerto rico agents (yes, there's a difference!) spent many, many hours re-booking clients' target rental car puerto rico flights to Hawaii in the wake of the ATA bankruptcy – same with Aloha Airlines, which happened around the same time, if I recall right.
True story: one of my ex-fellow target rental car puerto rico travel agents got a customer whose Aloha Airlines flights were cancelled because of their bankruptcy. One of our feasible options that time was to rebook them into ATA Airlines.
The agent rebooked the customer into ATA at no cost to both of us, the customer greatly thanked that agent, and he was highly praised among his peers. A few days later, that agent got rather distraught when he was told that ATA Airlines went bankrupt too.
Very few, if any, travel agents/agencies are willing to shoulder the costs of rebooking their customers flights on another airline whenever this exact scenario happens. No doubt some people believe the travel agent or so should ve, while obviously the travel agent disagrees and can only do so much while keeping costs to the barest minimum.
As a professional meeting event planner, I tend to book my own (personal, not business) trips direct with the airlines. I did book our honeymoon cruise through Cruise.com, but paid with a credit card and followed up well in advance target rental car puerto rico of the departure target rental car puerto rico date with both Cruise.com and the operator to ensure that my reservation was correct and fully paid for as promised by Cruise.com. I just think that so many people are booking through online agencies and then putting 100% of their trust in those agencies without target rental car puerto rico following up. I don t care what Travelocity or Orbitz or anyone else says follow up directly with the airline, hotel etc and then go back via email (so that there is a record) to the online agent if everything isn t 100% perfect. What s that old saying about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure why can t travelers remember that?
What exactly would a competent travel professional have done for these people. You mentioned in your previous posting about apple vacations that a brick and morter travel target rental car puerto rico agent has no responsiblity when the third party it booked through goes belly up. What is different in this situation? Seems to me that these honeymooners would have still been stuck having to purchase new airline tickets weather they purchased through travelocity or a brick and morter plac
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