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Write for Us Orbitz Complaints Continued... (Page 2)
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I booked a room at Charleston, SC downtown Days Inn for Monday, April 27, 2015. When the confirmation email came back to me, it read May 27, 2015. In fact, I will be out of the country on May 27, 2015. I immediately called Orbit and spoke with a gentleman named Calvin, telling my problem. He had me wait while he said he would speak to the Days Inn manager in Charleston, SC. When he returned to the line he told me to call the manager and speak with him directly. Over the course of four days I have tried to speak with the manager and was told "he is in meetings all day", he's not here today", or "provide your number and I will have him call you". I have yet to speak with the manager. I have since received an email saying my Visa has been charged for the room. It would appear I am caught between Orbit and the Days Inn manager, neither of who are able and/or willing to correct the booking error and credit my Visa account. i many friends who have similar experiences with Orbit. I should have listened. However, I will not be burned twice by either Orbit or Days Inn. My booking number is PBORB 118-479-8744.
I purchased a flight and hotel with orbitz from Bismarck, ND to Sioux City, IA for a meeting on March 29. My departure flight was on March 28 from Bismarck, ND. The flight was delayed and when I finally got to Minneapolis, MN, the connecting flight to ORD had already left. All other flights to ORD then on to Sioux City, IA were all booked and I would have missed the connecting flight in ORD to SUX anyway, from what Delta had told me. I was told I wouldn’t get to SUX until the following day (late afternoon). Well, I needed to get to SUX by the AM of March, 29, which is why I bought the ticket from orbitz. I was sent back to Bismarck and was told that orbitz had cancelled my hotel and credited our card. To get my money back on the flight has been a nightmare. This was not my fault, it was the airlines. I do not have control over the weather but I did purchase a service from your company and you have failed to fullfill your end of the business transaction. Instead of remedying the situation, your company have chosen to keep my money and give me 75 dollars. I feel swindled. I do not think a company of this stature can ethically operate in this manner and do business in the manner that you have treated me. I am left without a recourse and am a victim of your corrupt business practices. Sir, you have taken my money and refused to compensate me. In my book, this company is a theif.
My American Express account shows a charge of $115.68 on 12 April 2013. The charge is to a firm located at 500 West Madison Street, Chicago, Il. The charge states it is for “Internet Travel”. Reference number is 320130720275142171 then 192689422.
I was not in Chicago at that time and have no Idea what this charge is for. I would apreciate it if you could check this out for me. I have used Orbitz for travel in the past with excellent results.
Intitial booking made through Orbitz in 3/14/2011 for passage from Pittsburgh to Hyderabad, India round trip departing 8/7/11, returning 8/26/11. Flight plan: Pittsburgh to Toronto (Air Canada), Toronto to Frankfurt (Lufthansa), Frankfurt to Hyderabad (Lufthansa). 8/7/2011 @12:31, text message from Orbitz. AC 8041 dept PIT 3:30p on-time. We arrive at PIT airport check in at 2:00 PM. Attempt check in via kiosk. Unsure if bags checked through to HYD. Agents (of note, no Air Canada agents, United agents covering for Air Canada express) unhelpful. Reattempt check in at ~2:20. Told it is too late to check in as AC8041 now changed to 2:55 PM, and we are not in the 1 hour window.
Orbitz contacted at 2:30 PM approximately. Initially agent does not believe flight change. Tries to talk to airport agents on my phone. Agent refuses. First offers to refund money. I say this is unacceptable. Says he will try to get us on alternate flight. Does not call back. Try again after 1 hour. Another agent, gets me to supervisor. Repeat story again. Agent is polite. Says they will try to rebook. Does not call back. Try again after 1 hour. Supervisor “Ronaldo”. Repeat story again. Agent is polite. Says he might be able to rebook on Lufthansa, but I will be liable for change of schedule fee. I say this is unacceptable. Calls back with some options. Says he will try to contact Lufthansa. Does not call back.
Try again after 1 hour. Supervisor “Christian”. Repeat story again. Agent is polite. I am open to any flight to HYD. Says he will look into it. Calls back at about 6:00 PM, says might be able to get us on a 7:03 PM Flight PIT->IAD->FRA->HYD. Does not call back. Try again at 7:00 PM. Supervisor “Mandy”. Agent very polite. Repeat story again. Am again open to any flight to HYD. Calls back with updates. Bottom line, however, unable to get in touch with Lufthansa. I ask to speak to next level supervisor. Tries, but unable to get hold of anyone. Advises me to try again 8/8/11 AM. I express my concern that I will have to start from scratch again, and that this is unacceptable. She expresses regrets, but cannot help.
Leave airport about 7 hours after arriving, along with 2 small children. Contact Lufthansa myself. They have documentation of contacts between Orbitz and Lufthansa. Inform me that Lufthansa informed Orbitz in May of change of flight time for AC8041. Unable to rebook, since booking made through Orbitz. 8/8/2011: 9:00 AM. After 3 tries, get through to supervisor “Daphne”. After being on hold for 1 hour 15 minutes, situation still unresolved, with no time frame for resolution. Try again at 1:00 PM. Supervisor Libby. Polite. Says will rebook from Dulles->Frankfurt->Hyderabad on 8/9/2011. She says I will not be liable for the fare difference/charges. States that she will call me back by 5:00 PM central time (6:00 PM here).
“Libby” calls back, saying that 2:00 PM was too late, and that the flight change was a “minor” time change, and therefore there is nothing she can do. Libby’s supervisor “Eve” ID# 64587, calls me back at about 8:00 PM that a) Orbitz is not responsible, as it is a “minor” time change, b) they will not rebook without me paying the rebooking fee, and c) there will be no refund. It is now 29 hours after my initial contact with Orbitz.
Issues:
1. I would have liked to get my family and myself to Hyderabad. A refund is the next most acceptable thing. To say that we can rebook at our own expense (at this moment $1700 per person) is not acceptable. Overall, I feel that we have been defrauded.
2. We did everything correctly, including checking in on time based on information provided by Orbitz. The Air Canada website recommends 90 minutes before flight time for US to Canada flights, and mandates 60 minutes. We were well within this when we first tried to check in.
3. We should not be liable for any extra costs incurred as a result of Orbitz’s failure to communicate correct flight times to us, including sending us a misleading text message.
5. In fact, there should be suitable compensation for this sorry affair, in addition to rebooking us.
6. We are longstanding customers. Between me and my wife (separate account email: ramanikreiss@pol.net), we have used Orbitz for travel abroad for the past several years, with at least 2 international flights per year booked through Orbitz.
As you can see, this has been a frustrating situation. As of now, I am $5,500 poorer, no flight, no chance for my children to see their grandparents this year, and little in the way of redressal other than going to the courts.
The price has dropped on my upcoming flight to Athens, Greece. I was hopeful that the ‘Price Assurance’ guarantee would kick in post flight, as stated, if someone booked that (exact same) non stop flight on Orbitz.com. After contacting customer service … I understand that the ‘hotel + flight’ package is exempted from any Price Assurance Guarantee. I wish they had made that at visible as the flashing the ‘Price Assurance Guarantee’ logo on the screen while I was waiting to finalize the package deal! Had I known that guarantee did not apply to ‘hotel + flight’, I would not have bundled them.
I gave the ‘hotel + flight’ deal a try … I guess this is a lesson learned the hard way. Had I done my internet homework and purchased the component pieces separately, (as I have done in the past), I could have done much better than going through Orbitz.com saving a minimum of $250 x 4 tickets !! Even the hotel was better priced on a rival site. I let the ‘Price Assurance guarantee’ lull me into a false confidence … which, in spite of multiple windows showcasing the ‘Price Assurance’ on the site, never applied to me anyway.
I will NOT make that mistake again!
January 2011. Orbitz stranded my young female passenger Whitney (traveling alone) multiple times for a total of 10 days on a simple three week trip from Ft Lauderdale to Maui. 18 hours on the phone to Orbitz including more than 25 separate calls and two 3-6 hour marathon calls. Over $8000 in excess expenses on a $1000 flight and in the end I had to purchase new/duplicate tickets TWICE. Clear errors by Orbitz, documented in writing, but Orbitz supervisors were willing to spend HOURS talking on the phone to avoid taking ANY responsibility.
Repeatedly being bounced back and forth between US Airways and Orbitz. Flights confirmed by BOTH Orbitz and the airlines… but then turned away at the airline check-in, with US Airways repeatedly denying any responsibility “because you booked through Orbitz”. Orbitz is recently embroiled in a bitter dispute with one or more airlines and is passing the pain along to their customers. Orbitz dragged us through three weeks of travel hell on our trip to Maui. I’m a frequent traveller for business and leisure (1 million plus miles on three different airlines). My company and I routinely use Orbitz for its convenient aggregation of flights and hotels. We’ve booked more than 5000 reservations since Orbitz’ inception in 2001 and until recently had very few problems.
This was the worst travel nightmare I’ve experienced in 30 years (and I’ve had quite a few–you can’t travel as much as I do without getting used to a certain amount of frustration and snafus). And my company and friends are also reporting a rash of Orbitz problems starting in December 2010.
My post-mortem analysis? Orbitz is being seriously squeezed by the airlines in ways that are causing serious operational problems and Orbitz simply CAN’T AFFORD to take responsibility. I believe Orbitz charges a fee of only about $6 for booking flights. In the past I think most airlines treated Orbitz like a valued source of millions of dollars of bookings and if there were problems–even if Orbitz or the passenger had some complicity in the origin of the booking problem–the airlines cut Orbitz some slack and took care of Orbitz passengers. But no more.
What happens when Orbitz makes a booking error or misinforms a passenger? What if it’s a $2000 mistake and the airline won’t take a penny less to fix it? That’s more than THREE HUNDRED tickets Orbitz would need to sell just to break even if they stepped up to the plate and paid for their mistake. Now what if there’s a sudden rash of booking errors? (Which appears to be the case.) Orbitz could be bankrupted within a few months by the costs. If I’m even close to a correct guess on this travelers should AVOID BOOKING ON ORBITZ because if anything goes wrong Orbitz isn’t going to take responsibility. They can’t afford to.
If I hadn’t had an extra $8000 lying about to pay the total cost of Orbitz’ endless series of screw-ups I would have had a MAJOR problem on my hands that would have put Whitney at serious risk, alone and thousands of miles from home. Do YOU have an $8000 bankroll to pay for Orbitz mistakes on YOUR next trip? Can you afford to put your loved ones or employees at risk? Think about it. Check google news for “Orbitz dispute American Airlines”. Caveat emptor.
We booked flights through Orbitz for US Airways. Orbitz showed a seating chart, we picked seats and it said it would forward our request to US Airways. We contacted US Airways and found we had been assigned seats that were not together and were mostly middle seats. We booked the flights through Orbitz 6 weeks before the departure date which according to the Orbitz displayed seat selection was plenty of time to get our desired aisle and window seats. By Orbitz inability to give us the selected seats and its failure to tell us our seat selections were not guaranteed we wound up paying additional money for “premium” seats through US Airways so we could sit together! I won’t be using Orbitz again!
I phoned my credit card company and let them know I would be making a large purchase through Orbitz.com. We received confirmations and updates from Orbitz, and had NO WAY of knowing what they were doing until he went to check in for his flight and found that Orbitz had voided his ticket. This was done without the courtesy of a CALL, EMAIL or notification of any kind. Orbitz did not even have the good grace to apologize for what they have put us through, and have yet to give me my money back. I will NEVER deal with this company again, and I have used them many times in the past!
Orbitz not honoring price Assurance Guarantee. To qualify for Price Assurance, customer flight including origin, destination, dates, airline, flight number, booking and other restrictions must match qualifying booking. Maximum refund is $250. Orbitz places the burden of proof of these exact conditions on the Customer when we do not have access to your books to prove if any customer booked the exact booking or if Orbitz slightly changed the itinerary to avoid having to pay $151.08 per ticket, on our high-priced round-trip to Africia.
It is not just that we monitored and found that Orbitz was quoting a $302.18 lower fare on this exact itinerary but that it must be placed on the exact same date, flight, airline, etc. and that is what we consider very deceptive and unfair advertisin on Orbitz part. This is a 100% scam whose purpose is to get potential clients excited about the mere possibility of getting a partial refund at a later date. Then you make them wait for months to even get a refund.
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