My friends John and Sue Smith are judging a sheep herding competition in Brazil, and asked me to come along to translate. We have saved vacation & money for 2 years for this trip. I saw CheapTickets.com recommended in a travel book and a morning TV show and thought I could save money booking our tickets online.
The Smiths don't have a computer, so gave me their card number and asked me to make the reservations on 8/4/06. I very carefully selected the flight and filled in all info, including passenger names. Our itinerary was to fly to Sao Paulo on American, then switch to TAM to go to Porto Alegre. We would then spend a month driving overland back to Sao Paulo. So I planned for us to simply discard the "Porto Alegre-Sao Paulo" portion of the return ticket and begin our return trip at Sao Paulo airport.
When I booked the flight, CheapTickets added a bunch of service charges, bringing the total cost of the three tickets to about $3780. This was at the same time that (as I found out later) I could have bought the tickets directly from American for $3750.
However, the price on my confirmation e-mail said the card had been charged $4147. I immediately called their customer service line to complain but was put on hold for 30 minutes without speaking to anybody.
During my lunch break, I called the "Smiths, " where I was informed that the husband's name on his passport was not officially "John Smith, " but "Rupert John Smith."
I called customer service again as soon as I got home from work, both to get the overage refunded and to change the name slightly on "John's" ticket. To make a long story short (er), I spent 2.5 more HOURS on hold with their Philippine call center, including an hour wait when I asked to speak to a manager.
They told me that:
1) They would refund the tickets for $60/ticket. However, they would not debit the remainder back to the "Smith's" credit card for up to 60 days—too late to buy tickets elsewhere. I was given just a few minutes to decide yes or no and was not able to call the Smith's to ask what to do.
2) CheapTickets also informed me we couldn't board the return plane in Sao Paulo, even though that is the beginning of the American Airlines portion of the return trip. If we didn't board in Porto Alegre, the customer service rep informed us that our entire return trip would be cancelled.
3) Finally, they said that "John Smith's" name could not be changed on the ticket at any price, and that he would definitely not be allowed to board with the passport Rupert John Smith. The ONLY recourse was to buy an entirely new ticket.
The Smith's and I spent the next three days on the phone and at the bank, filling out fraud reports over the disputed amount, trying to get the credit card to deny payment, etc. We were denied at every turn. "John Smith" then spent another few hours on the phone to the Philippines. At this point, he was informed:
1) John would have to buy an entirely new ticket for $1428 in the name "Rupert John Smith."
2) The $60/ticket cancellation no longer applied. NOW, we could either pay a $500 fee on top of the initial $4147 in order to change the two correct names return tickets to leave from Sao Paulo or pay $500 to exchange these two tickets to fly another trip prior to Aug. 2007.
6) But CheapTickets could not under any circumstances issue new tickets for Brazil with the proper itinerarythey only book flights to and from the same city in both directions. So we would have to go to American directly and buy these for an additional $3750.
Since I made the mistake of buying these tickets through CheapTickets.com, I will have to refund the entire $4147 that we paid to CheapTickets to the Smiths out of pocket—NONE of these three tickets is now usable, even though we don't travel until November! Needless to say, I will not be able to go along on the trip, as it will take about a year to pay off this amount as it is, never mind spending an additional $1250 on a new ticket for myself.
The Smiths now have to ask their Brazilian hosts to forward them the money for their own $1250 tickets on American Airlines, as I've now caused their credit card to max out for unusable tickets.
The lessons: AVOID CHEAPTICKETS.com at all costs!!! I wish I had known about this site to check them out in advance. The Better Business Bureau has also given them an unsatisfactory rating.
Sharon
Columbia, Missouri
U.S.A.
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