On May 27, I booked a flight from LAX to Rio de Janeiro via the internet. The best price seemed to be on www.travelocity.com. On their site I found a round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (GIG) for $960.20. It showed about 25 flights from all the different available airlines, and the round-trip price for each one. The very first flight was the cheapest, and they progressively got more expensive as you went down the page. As for the rest of the information for this particular flight, it had the: Total travel time: 18 hrs 40 min - 2 Stops. Stop in Santiago, Chile. Change Planes in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Under the heading of Airline were: LAN Airlines Flight 603, and under that: Varig Airlines, Flight 8617. The Travelocity website showed the total Round-Trip ticket price, including taxes & fees as the heading for all the prices. The flight I just described as the least expensive was $960.20 per person (in bold print). I clicked on the (SELECT) button and paid $960.20 for the ticket by MasterCard.
When I called Travelocity to confirm that I got the reservation, because I didn't see an email, they told me that there was no baggage/ticket agreement between the two airlines, and they had to issue me two tickets. That the reason for the two tickets was that I would have to recheck my luggage in Buenos Aires. The travelocity agent was Indian, and had a very strong accent, so I could not understand all of what he was saying, but he talked about a $347 price. I knew that wasn't right, so I asked again, and the agent said, "Your total is going to be $960.20". Come to find out - the second airline, Varig Airlines, was charging their own price, $347. The total I ended up paying was $1308 plus the travelocity fee of $32.45 for a grand total of $1340.47. For this price, I could have probably flown nonstop. This total price was not made known to me on the website or in their email confirmation. There was no price on the invoice they sent. Not until I saw it on the delivered tickets, for which my MasterCard had already been charged. I complained to Travelocity's Consumer Relations without any success, because they said they told me over the phone. Well, if they did, I never heard it. Nevertheless, how can they add to the price they quote on their website as the total round-trip price, including fees and taxes?
On their website, Travelocity's Guarantee Promise states: "Your total price for any transaction, including all amounts payable to us, will always be displayed to you prior to purchase"."And it doesn't stop there, because we at Travelocity are fundamentally value seekers. We know that great trip value is the sum of a quality experience and a low price. That's why we offer a low price guarantee. Human error happens; nobody's perfect - but in those rare cases that we make a mistake you can count on us to take responsibility for it." Well, they haven't taken responsibility for any of this!!!
Another problem I had on my trip, was paying double for fees. On the website it says taxes and fees are included. But I was charged a fee of $20 in the Buenos Aires airport going to Rio, then, in the Rio airport (until my friend pointed out to them that I had already paid it and to check my flight information), but they told me to pay or I couldn't get on the plane, so I paid it, and again on my return trip through the Buenos Aires airport for a total of $60 more. So much for saving money on the least expensive flight!!!
Obviously their guarantee means nothing! Even if they'd had no guarantee, this was wrong, wrong, wrong!
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