# Caution with Travelocity



## sailingman22 (Mar 10, 2010)

I was making reservations for elderly friends for a flight to Las Vegas. The confirmation email for the reseervations could not be opened that evening so I waited until the next morning and called United who informed me that there was a difference in the departure times and I needed to call Travleociy to make a change. I called Travelocity " support customer" in Bombay, India and was told that they would change the ticket for a change fee plus change in ticket price. The change fee amount was $486.16 when the original ticket price was $417.00. The original price was still available 17hrs later but still charge the higher fee stating that the flight I see available on line is not available when makeing a change to a reservation. My wife had to leave for work and paid the fee under protest. They offered to change the reservation back to the original flight for another $486.16.

This is a long story speaking with numerous support people in India and finally sending a email to support in the US with no response. If you choose to use any of the discount search engine companies, be aware that any changes will not be $100. That the airlines charges but may be a much higher cost. Google: Travelocity complaints

I will never purchase anything from Travelocity website again. Customer service is in the Indian language, non-existant, unethical, and rude.


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## thheath (Mar 10, 2010)

I agree about dealing with any company that out-sources it's call centers to foreign countries.

My question is what happened, did you mess up the original booking?  Normally there are multiple confirmation pages before you pull the trigger and pay for a reservation.


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## sailingman22 (Mar 10, 2010)

I was able to complete the first reservation and when I was inordering the second reservation the system locked up. I used the backspace button and then continued with the reservation. I received a confirmation email from Travelocity but could not open it for this reservation. The other confirmation email opened properly. The next day I called United and discovered the error.

I am willing to accept that I made a mistake. What I disagree with is paying $150.00 penalty to make a change to the reservation 10 hours after the original reservation was book plus pay an increase in airfare of $336.16 even though the same ticket could still be purchased from their website for $417.00. I consider this worse than theft and plan to dispute this charge with the credit card company. I will not tell our friends because they would pay the difference.

United Airlines Customer Service said that if I had booked directly with then and made the change in less than 24 hrs, they would have waived the fee. Otherwise there would have been a $100.00 charge.


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## Luanne (Mar 10, 2010)

sailingman22 said:


> United Airlines Customer Service said that if I had booked directly with then and made the change in less than 24 hrs, they would have waived the fee. Otherwise there would have been a $100.00 charge.



This is why I always book directly with whatever airline I book with.  What was the savings by booking through Travelocity rather than United?


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## PigsDad (Mar 10, 2010)

Luanne said:


> This is why I always book directly with whatever airline I book with.  What was the savings by booking through Travelocity rather than United?



I agree.  I rarely find that Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. offer lower fares just for flights vs. going directly to the airline websites.  The only place where they offer value is when booking a package of air, hotel, car, etc.

Kurt


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## Kenrabs (Mar 10, 2010)

I usually book the airline directly unless it is something that might involve multiple airlines and flights like our Hawaiian Island trip. We used Orbitz for that. I like when you book directly with the airline if they cancel the flight and you don't like the one given you can call before accepting the change to flights that work better for you. I do this with USAir all the time since I usually book 330 days out. The sites like travelocity I use mostly to see what airline has the best flight for my locations.


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 10, 2010)

PigsDad said:


> I agree.  I rarely find that Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. offer lower fares just for flights vs. going directly to the airline websites.  The only place where they offer value is when booking a package of air, hotel, car, etc.
> 
> Kurt


That's been my experience as well.  Whatever fare is offered by one travel sites has always been available at the airline web site as well.  And when the travel site adds a service charge, direct booking at the airline becomes cheaper.

And the policies on refunds and changes are much better with direct booking.


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## Luanne (Mar 10, 2010)

Kenrabs said:


> The sites like travelocity I use mostly to see what airline has the best flight for my locations.



Same here.  Then I go to the airline website to book.


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## Talent312 (Mar 10, 2010)

Kenrabs said:


> The sites like travelocity I use mostly to see what airline has the best flight for my locations.



I concur. However, a trip involving multiple airlines (as you say) or as I've  found, foreign airlines, sometimes warrant using an agency like Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity.

Once, using Expedia, I found a flight on Aegean which was code-shared with Lufthansa that had a fare significantly less expensive than I could get from either directly... exchange-rate difference?  Another time, Air One cancelled a flight from Venice to Rome, and Expedia was very helpful in rebooking us.


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 10, 2010)

Talent312 said:


> I concur. However, a trip involving multiple airlines (as you say) or as I've  found, foreign airlines, sometimes warrant using an agency like Expedia, Orbitz or Travelocity.
> 
> Once, using Expedia, I found a fare on Aegean flight which was code-shared with Lufthansa that was significantly less expensive than I could get from either directly... exchange-rate difference, perhaps.  Another time, Air One cancelled a flight from Venice to Rome, and Expedia was very helpful in rebooking us.


What I think sometimes happens on a code-share arrangement is that the airline operating the route will assign a certain number of tickets in different fare buckets to the code-share partner.  The operating airline might subsequently sell out of tickets in the lower fare buckets, while the code share airline still has some of its inventory.

When that happens, the cheaper fare might show up on the codeshare operators site.

And sites such as Orbitz and Travelocity are good resources to identify those pricing anomalies.


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## geekette (Mar 11, 2010)

PigsDad said:


> I agree.  I rarely find that Travelocity, Orbitz, etc. offer lower fares just for flights vs. going directly to the airline websites.  The only place where they offer value is when booking a package of air, hotel, car, etc.
> 
> Kurt



yep.  I look at consolidators to find best pricing, then book direct with airline.

Sorry for your expensive troubles.


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## Laurie (Mar 12, 2010)

*new better experience at Orbitz*

Orbitz is now offering a 24-hour cancellation w/no fees (maybe only certain flights, no idea), so I did just that this past week, after we changed our minds about which departing flight to book. 

You can't change with no fee, only cancel - so I had to double-book the second one and then I cancelled the first. We'll see how quickly the refund comes (and whether it's in full, as claimed - these were $$ transAtlantic flights and I'll notice a delay!).

In the past I could always find same fares direct from airlines, so always used the same process as many of you, looking up that way and then going direct when possible - but this time, Orbitz was quite a bit cheaper - and on more than 1 airline where all segments were one airline - Delta and Continental specifically.

I have to say - I also liked the Orbitz website - how quickly I could change parameters on a multi-city flight and get instant results. Much better than Travelocity at least, which is the consolidator I've used in the past, when I didn't go direct.

Also I got phone assistance really quickly from Orbitz 2x now, and this wasn't a call center in India.

The only thing I didn't like was that my seat selections wouldn't stick with my Orbitz res, and I tried both online and by phone. Then I tried direct w/the airline online, and so far they are sticking on the airline's website - they don't show up on Orbitz' site tho - I don't know what that's about. But if I have customer service issues, hopefully I can still go direct w/airline.

By the way, all segments of this trip are on one US airline, Continental.

Edited to add: I only even tried Orbitz website for info-gathering this time, because the Travelocity website kept locking up. And I know from past experience that Travelocity website locks up frequently, times out frequently, and tells you that the fare has gone up  frequently. Maybe they have the same programmers as RCI.


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## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 12, 2010)

Laurie said:


> In the past I could always find same fares direct from airlines, so always used the same process as many of you, looking up that way and then going direct when possible - but this time, Orbitz was quite a bit cheaper - and on more than 1 airline where all segments were one airline - Delta and Continental specifically.
> 
> I have to say - I also liked the Orbitz website - how quickly I could change parameters on a multi-city flight and get instant results. Much better than Travelocity at least, which is the consolidator I've used in the past, when I didn't go direct.



Until Kayak appeared, I always used Orbitz as you describe.  Now I do the first fare search with Kayak. When Kayak serves up Orbitz or cheaptickets as the site with lowest fare I still check with the airline and almost always find that the airline is offering that same fare.

With Kayak I like the ability to select different, but I really like being able to filter the results so that I can restrict times of day of flights, set price bands, etc. 

++++++

There was only one time when Orbitz offered me a routing that an airline didn't.  I was flying from Raleigh to Seattle. It happened that American Airlines was offering a super-cheap fare from LAG to SEA. Orbitz offered me an itinerary that routed me through LAG, but it had a 3-hour layover at LAG.

American's web site didn't offer that option; they were routing me through DFW.  But over the phone with American I was able to book the LAG itinerary with the pricing shown by Orbitz.

Then, in the end, I arrived late at Raleigh and missed the flight to LAG, and with fee AA rebooked me on the DFW routing.


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## readyalready (Mar 13, 2010)

I always believed that you could match a search engine result on the airline's site directly until we planned a last minute Bahamas trip last Thanksgiving.  It was on United/US Air and Orbitz came up over $1500 less for the total for 5 of us.  I think there is something to the codeshare theory, and agree that you should always book direct when the cost is close.


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## moonstone (Jul 9, 2020)

We have given up using discount websites for flights as we can get very close to the same price when booking directly with the airline itself.  Also, often you cant get the  airlines loyalty points when booking though a 3rd party.  The last straw in making this decision was when DH was using some discount site (Flight Hub maybe?) to book airfare to Florida.  He found a really good deal that had a short stopover / plane change in Washington DC.  When he printed out the booking and I had a close look at it, they had us landing at one DC airport and taking off from the other with only a 45 minute layover!  We immediately (less than 5 mins after booking) called the company and were told there would be a huge change fee. We pointed out the layover times and said that would be impossible to make the connection, unless we hired a helicopter, and they shouldn't be selling a flight like that. The agent refused to budge so DH asked to speak to a supervisor. When the layover problem was pointed out the supervisor changed the flights with no fees charged and apologized for the error. We checked the website later and saw that they were no longer offering that flight route.


~Diane


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## bogey21 (Jul 9, 2020)

Back in my working days I traveled extensively.  I almost always did three things.  First, I dealt directly with the airlines.  Second, if I needed a funky connection, I bought each leg individually. And Third I never purchases a Round Trip...

George


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## davidvel (Jul 9, 2020)

I have no idea what happened here, does anyone else? 
What does "there was a difference in the departure times" mean?

What does "couldn't open email" mean?  Who pays 486 in fees to change a flight that can be bought for 417?  

How long after original purchase was change requested?(Doesn't Travelocity have to refund if cancelled in24 hours, just like airline, as this is federal law?).


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## Talent312 (Jul 9, 2020)

Moonstone, Bogey & Davidel...
You're tacking onto a thread that's been inactive for over 10 years (as I have).
Some forums will close old dead threads , but not TUG

These days, most online TA's (or airlines) have a 24 hr. cancel policy.
If nothing else, you can cancel and get a credit subject to a fee from the airline.

----------------------
I don't like seeing my own posts from 10 years ago.
More often than not, they do not serve me well.
.
.


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## dioxide45 (Jul 9, 2020)

davidvel said:


> I have no idea what happened here, does anyone else?


The thread was dug out of the past by someone, perhaps a spammer, bunch of people replied, spam post deleted. And here we are.


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## RX8 (Jul 9, 2020)

It’s always fun to see some of names posting a decade ago are still active on TUG today. 

@Talent312 might have set a TUG record as someone who posted in the same thread 10 years apart. The OP by the way hasn’t been seen for 8 years.


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## moonstone (Jul 9, 2020)

That's funny  - I never looked at the date!  Oh well, my statement still stands, we don't use 3rd party travel sites to book airfares.  And @davidvel, no those 3rd party sites do not have to honour the same 24 hrs to cancel as the airlines, as we found out when we tried to cancel or change the flight 5 minutes after booking.


~Diane


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## davidvel (Jul 9, 2020)

Talent312 said:


> Moonstone, Bogey & Davidel...
> You're tacking onto a thread that's been inactive for over 10 years (as I have).
> Some forums will close old dead threads , but not TUG
> 
> ...


Thanks for the heads up Talent312. 

I blame *bogey21 for his peer pressure sucking me in!  
Oops!*


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## sfwilshire (Jul 14, 2020)

I didn't notice the old dates until I saw Continental Airlines mentioned. Didn't take long to figure it out after that.

Sheila


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## jehb2 (Jul 29, 2020)

dioxide45 said:


> The thread was dug out of the past by someone, perhaps a spammer, bunch of people replied, spam post deleted. And here we are.



Today on abcnews.com I read that Roger Moore (007) had died. I was saddened. Then I realized the article was dated May 2017.  The article wasn’t that far down the page.  Since shelter in place I’ve noticed a lot of major news sites are posting stories 3-5 years old.

I wonder if they’re doing this because it’s hard to get news stories.  I read a story that the paparazzi were having hard times.


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## billymach4 (Jul 29, 2020)

We've come a long way baby.


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## davidvel (Jul 30, 2020)

jehb2 said:


> I read a story that the paparazzi were having hard times.


More COVID good news.


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