I am writing in regards to a trip we made from Miami to Quito leaving September 21 and returning October 11th. The tickets were purchased on April 21..
Later we decided that it would be nice to stay in San Jose a few days, so we called TACA and they said no problem we could do that change either in Miami, San Jose or in Quito when we got there. My wife talked with Lionel Lopez. We would only have to pay for the change ($US 50.00 to 100.00). Later she made two other calls and was told the same thing every time. She talked to Luis and Jim.
So, we went ahead and made the reservations for Costa Rica and rented a car and hotels.
When we were leaving for Quito, we could not do the change in Miami or San Jose due to time limitations.in Miami we did not have time and in San Jose the attendants were very busy at that point. Also, we were traveling with my 78year old legally blind aunt.
Finally in Quito we called about it and they said we should go to the main office to do the change. We went to the office and were completely surprised at the agent's reply. We were supposed to pay an extra $US 400.00 each for the change! This was completely different than what we had been told so many times! We asked to talk to the manager Carolyn Bueno who told us the same thing. Finally after a long time she agreed to research the calls and let us know by next day.
Next day she left a message by the end of the day saying nothing had changed. This was Friday night. Monday we went there and she told us she could do nothing and she said I should buy new one-way tickets from Quito to Miami via San Jose. We paid an extra $430.50 each. So we had paid a total of US$ 824.65 each for a round trip Miami - Quito with a stop in San Jose. At this point we could not have canceled our reservations in Costa Rica since they have a strict no refund policy.
The only thing she did was give us a first class ticket for all the trouble we had gone through. This was not really communicated to the airport apparently because when we got there, they did not honor it and we had to fight to get it! Again when leaving San Jose they did not honor it but we did not feel like going through the same ordeal again.
We noticed this is a widespread problem with your company. The information given by one person could be completely different from the next. As illustrated in the example above with the first class ticket. This happened in several instances as in the case with my aunt who traveled with us. This is another chapter and would bring it up if necessary.
This made our whole trip very upsetting, even though the service was very good and it was not their fault, but to us it was a very bad experience altogether.
I would like to request a refund of the US$861 (less the amount that we had already been told about US$200.00 for the change).in the meantime I am placing a dispute on these charges with my credit card.
Hoping to hear from you soon
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