I booked tickets for me and my family to fly one way from Honolulu, HI to Oakland, CA. Me, my husband, and two of my children had seats that cost $157.80 per ticket. On the website, it asks you to specify if you will have any children 2 years or less, because if so they can fly as a lap child which is usually free of charge. I have a baby less than 2 years old, so altogether we were purchasing 4 tickets, with one additional lap child which would be free. I was browsing through my bank statement when I noticed the four charges of $157.80, and an additional charge of $154.80. It looked fishy-why charge only $3 less than a ticketed seat for a baby to sit on my lap?
I called Orbitz, and spoke to Bruce. He insisted that some airlines do impose a fee for lap children, and that they were only honoring the charges which ATA (the airline we are flying on) imposes. I told him that ATA does not impose a fee for lap children, and that I knew for sure because I just purchased tickets directly through them to fly back home. Only then did he put me on hold to contact ATA. When he came back on the line, he told me the ATA representative told him there is no charge for a lap child, but there would be one for a child if they sat in a seat. I told him (again) I had requested a lap child ticket, so I would like a refund. He apologized and said it was a? System error? Which was the reason for the oddly only $3 cheaper charge. He said no problem, I just needed to fax over my billing statement with the transaction code for the extra charge. I told him I used my bank card, and there would not be a transaction code as there would be if a credit card were used. He kept insisting that I needed to fax whatever billing information I had that showed the transaction. I explained to him that the bank statement I was looking at was online, and that I could print it out and scan and email it to him, or that I could verbally provide any information he thought was pertinent on the bank statement I was viewing. He kept insisting that I fax (not email) something over to show proof of the overcharge, at which point I went off because surely they would be able to tell if I did not pay them enough, so wouldn't they be able to tell if I paid them too much? I did not have a fax machine, I told him, and I have 3 sick children at home-why did I have to drive around to find a fax machine so that I could send them proof of their mistake? I asked for a supervisor, but of course he said he would speak to the super and put me on hold. He then came back, and told me that I could fax over the billing proof whenever I could, at a more convenient date, and that a refund would be processed when they received it. OR I could call back and have a conference call with my bank and an Orbitz representative to validate the charge. I chose the second option, and of course he said he would note everything we discussed on my account so that when I called back the representative would be fully informed of my situation.
I called back with a nice customer service rep from my bank, and of course the 2nd Orbitz rep, Gelli, had no idea what I was talking about. I started to explain the extra charge for a lap child, and she immediately went into the script of some airlines imposing fees for lap children, blah, blah, blah. I asked her to read the notes, she read it and then said that although my bank rep verbally validated the charge, the note said I still needed hard proof faxed to showing they billed me five times. I was beyond irritated, but my kind bank rep offered to fax her a statement of my recent transactions, which would include the lap child charge. She gave him her fax information, said she would begin processing the refund once she received it, and then both of them hung up. I was left on a dead line wondering if this was finally the end, so here went call number 3.
Next I spoke to an Adam. I immediately asked him to pull up the notes on my account because I did not feel like explaining a third time my situation. This is what he read from Gelli:? Customer called requesting refund on ticket. Advised customer that tickets are non-refundable? I was pissed. I asked if he could read the first note from Bruce, stating that the charge was a? System error? And he said that Gelli's note was the only one he saw on the account. So of course I had to re-explain the whole being charged for a lap child thing, at which point he put me on hold to call ATA to re-confirm what I already told him. Then he says he will process the refund properly, and that I need not provide any billing proof. I asked him why the runaround, and why did the earlier reps ask me to provide billing proof, and he said? I don't know. Maybe they didn't know what they were doing. They shouldn't have asked you that anyways, I can see right here you were charged.? Thank you, I thought. He told me the charge would, at most, take a maximum of 7-14 business days to be refunded to my account. I wrote this down, and made a note of the 2 week mark so that I could follow up and make sure it did get refunded back. After we hung up, I could have kicked myself for not getting some kind of record number to refer to his promise of a refund. I called back, spoke to a Mara, and she said she did see the request for a refund and gave me a record locator number.
Yay, I thought? So here I am now, and it's been 3 weeks since the money should have been refunded to my account. I called back today, and tried to give them the record locator number from Mara. The rep was confused, so I just gave him my ticket purchase number (turns out the 6 digit number Mara gave me was just a portion of the ticket purchase number, and had no relevance to my refund). The rep said I was emailed on September 6th to send back the paper ticket (which was the only paper ticket I was issued, of course making it harder to receive an immediate electronic credit). I immediately checked my email account, and did not see any emails from Orbitz. Of course, the rep insisted they did send it and told me to go ahead and mail it to them so that the refunds department could go forward with the process. No way, I told him, am I going to send them that ticket just so they could tell me they never received it. Then my refund would never get processed. Weren't they technologically advanced enough, I asked him, to look up the ticket number in their system and void it electronically? No, he replied, they need the paper ticket because they have to send it back to ATA and get them to refund the money first before they could give the money back to me. Pissed again, I asked for a supervisor. I was placed on hold for 25 minutes or so, then hung up on.
I called back and spoke to Mervin, who I then asked for his operator id number from, since referring to names hadn't gotten me anywhere earlier. He repeated to me that I needed to send the paper ticket. I went off on him, being careful not to curse too much to give him grounds to disconnect the call, and demanded a supervisor. Finally, he gave up and placed me on hold 30 minutes before Jenny, the kind-voiced supervisor, came on the line with full knowledge of my? Unfortunate situation? She apologized and said that they did, indeed, value my business. She explained to me kindly that they needed the paper ticket in order to process the refund with the airline, and assured me that it would not get lost and that I could send the ticket via trackable mail so that the delivery could be traced. I asked why I had been sent a paper ticket for this particular lap-child-no-seat-$154-ticket and not for the others, and she apologized and said it must have been an error on their part. If it's their error, why should I pay to send it back to them when it's their error that's being corrected in the first place, I asked. She said,? As a good will gesture, I will issue you a $25 voucher that can be used on the Orbitz website for a product or service of your choice. I do apologize for the inconvenience you have been caused.? I was calmed by her apologetic demeanor, as this was a first time I was spoken to so nicely after speaking with 5 different customer service reps who acted like it was my fault they charged me extra for a no seat ticket.
Jenny said she would email me the voucher code. I checked my email, and what do you know, no voucher. She also called me back a few minutes after our first conversation (such great service) and told me that after receiving the paper ticket, it would take 2 to 3 billing cycles (i.E. Months) to receive my refund.
So I get to track this $154 problem until 2007.
My theory is this: Orbitz imposes a charge on lap child seats, hoping that customers won't notice since they choose? Lap child? On the drop down menu, which implies no fee as opposed to choosing the ages 2-12 which do carry a fee. When customers get to the check out page, the total shows up but no break down of the tickets is shown so that the charge for the lap child is not apparent. The lap child fee is slightly less, although high enough for Orbitz to make a sizeable profit. A paper ticket is issued for the lap child seat, although not for any of the others, even when electronic tickets are requested for all. This way, if a customer notices the charge and disputes it, they will have to go through the trouble of mailing the ticket back. Many factors can affect whether the refund actually goes through, including loss in the mail, loss in their refunds department, loss en route to the airline, etc. I wouldn't put anything past Orbitz, seeing as they made? Errors? In both charging me and sending me a paper ticket.
If anyone can tell me if Orbitz has broken any laws or done anything illegal on their part, please inform me. I've read many others' stories about Orbitz, and it seems like they get away with everything. They have some kind of disclaimer that releases them from any responsibility if they do anything wrong in? Error? This doesn't seem right, especially if they're purposely making errors in order to profit off of unknowing customers. I would not have noticed the extra charge unless I looked carefully at my bank statement. Somebody needs to put this company in check.
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