Complain about a product or service

Cheaptickets.com

Jody of everett, WA September 30, 2009

On Sept 22nd 2009 I planned a trip to Vegas for two. The trip was leaving Seattle Dec 28th coming home Dec 30th. When our itinuary was emailed to us, it had the same dates but they were for Sept. When we called to have this issue taken care of, they said that it was our fault and that we had to pay an extra 460.00 or they would refund us 40 and we would lose the rest of our money. Our trip started out costing around 510. So we paid the extra money because they said they would have their tech support research the issue and if they find that the error was theirs we would receive a refund.

So they sent us the new itinuary and to our surprise it again had the sept. dates and not Dec. We then had to make another phone call to and finally get the dates correct. We also paid 30 for transpotation in vegas to and from the airport When we called to let them know that they booked the wrong dates, we asked if we would still have transportation to and from the airport, they said that they didnt offer that. We asked why did we then pay for it, the agent didnt have an answer for that. When we made our second phone call we were told that we were refuned the 30 charge. when we received the correct itinuary the 30 fee was on it saying we paid for ground transportation. I have never had so much trouble booking a trip. I will never use cheaptickets again. I reccomend to everyone to advise family and friends to book their vacations with another company.

Imelda of Hawthorne, NJ September 24, 2009

Back in June of 2009 I received a call from Cheap trips asking me if I wanted to become a member. I was told that for joining I would receive 2 free tickets for travel to their many locations. The fee was three payments of 59.95. Originally I was told that there was no obligation and that if I wanted to cancel I could do so within 30 days of receiving my membership package and that I could maintain my complimentary tickets. When I received my package I called to cancel. I was told that I had to return my membership package with a written letter stating that I no longer wanted my membership and to please refund my money of 59.99. The letter was typed and sent on July 17, 2009, less than a month from receiving my package.

In about a week I called cheap trips back to confirm the receipt of my letter at which time they confirmed and then proceeded to tell me that my refund would take 60 days. I was furious and in shock that a refund would take so long. I said fine and waited patiently. For the time being I had forgotten about the money. On September 2 I remembered that I was supposed to get my refund but wasn't sure how far long in the process it was. So I called and I was told that I would get my refund in 10-14 business days, which would be today. I again checked my account online and saw that there was still no refund applied.

I just called a few minutes ago where I spoke to a woman who told me that for some reason the refund was not processed and that it was either a case with their system or a case with my bank. She said she would reprocess it and I would have to wait another 7 business days. I have finally had it. Three months for a refund of 59.95 is insane. I asked for a supervisor and apparently no one was available and she said she would give my name and number to a supervisor to call me back. I told her I did not want a call back and that I wanted a supervisor on the phone and she insisted that no one was available to talk with me over this matter. I told her to tell any supervisor that I was going to contact consumer affairs unless someone got on the phone with me to resolve this issue immediately. She still said no one could come on the phone.

Mark of Fairfax, VA September 18, 2009

Purchased flight to N.C and had to cancel due to my father having a triple bypass. First rep said I would receive a voucher for future use and no problem After NOT receiving a voucher, I called back and 2nd rep said they don't send vouchers and I would have to book directly with United for a future flight, BUT there would be a 150 change fee!!!!

Al of Orange Park , FL August 6, 2009

My wife and I booked a flight from Jacksonville to San Diego on Air Tran using Cheaptickets.com for July 30th, 2009, we both carefully review the submission and purchase of the ticket for July 30th since my wife had class on the 29th. To our disbelief our flight was changed to July the 29th. I figured that it was just a misunderstanding and contacted Cheaptickets.com, I waited a long time until a representative answered and basically told me that I had booked the wrong day, and there was nothing he could do, except to change our tickets and charge 580.00 a piece (1,160) plus a 75.00 charge a piece as a service fee to make the changes. The other option was to contact Air Tran, but they referred us back to Cheaptickets.com and did not offer any option without charging us almost double of what we had already paid. We want to be aware that Cheaptickets.com did change the dates in our case, in my opinion hoping that we will pay out of desperation outrageous fees to travel on the original dates. Moral of the story, if it looks to good to be real it is, "Cheaptickets" were close to be the most expensive tickets that I have ever paid for traveling East-West in the United States.

Randy of Largo, FL August 3, 2009

purchased flight from TPA to RIC 8/7/2009 and Return 8/10/2009 and wanted to change date to 29th aug and ret 1 sept. They want to charge me 200.00 to change. If I booked through the Airlines they do not charge if within 48 hrs ir more. My children will not be home those dates due to different reasons and I want to see my grand children. This is truly highway robbery. I went to cancel flights and that would cost me about 180.00 plus dollars.

Laura of Miami Lakes , FL July 29, 2009

July 24, 2009 I visit cheaptickets.com I found a very nice price on a flight to San Francisco. After going through the booking process and entering all of my credit card information, I get an error message generated by cheaptickets stating they are unable to process this transaction and I need to call the airline directly in order to purchase a ticket on this particular flight on this particular day. I close the website and forget about it.

On July 28th, I find out that they charged my credit card anyway. When I called them to have them remove the charge, 1 hour and 45 minutes on the phone with someone who barely speaks English insists that they will not give me a refund but would offer me a credit towards future flights less the 150 change fee and 50 credit fee and some 20 fee that I still do not know what it is exactly. When I mentioned that when you add up the fees, they are more than the amount I am asking for back - they had no answer. I was outright ripped off. Cheaptickets is A FRAUD.

From what I am reading here and on other sites, I am far from the first person to fall victim to their fraud. Moreover: I CALLED EVERY NUMBER LISTED FOR A CORPORATE OFFICE IN THE UNITED STATES FOR CHEAPTICKETS AND THEY ARE ALL DISCONNECTED. EVERYONE OF THEM. If anyone knows where they are and how to contact their corporate office, I would be very interested in this information.

Steve of Burbank, CA July 22, 2009

I purchased 3 tickets to Hawaii on Cheaptickets.com. The transaction went smooth until my credit card company blocked my card. I found out that after the airlines had billed it f for three tickets at 750.00, cheaptickets tried to bill it for 2250.00. Problem was they used the wrong expiration date.. Cheaptickets customer service which appears to be out of the Philippines, had a hard time understanding my concern and kept reassuring me that the card was not billed. I was never satisfied that they understood how fraudulent it appeared and I was never allowed to speak with anyone other than the basic CS assistant of whom English appears to be still quite a challenge. I am very worried about doing business with them in the future and am considering canceling the card I used to do the transaction.

Janice of Rochester Hills, MI July 20, 2009

I purhcased two airline tickets to St. Thomas from Detroit in May for myself and my husband. A few weeks later I decided to take my daughters and bought two more tickets on Cheap Tickets, just as I had for my husband and I. Apparenty I didn't happen to notice to uncheck the radio button that said I wanted to purchase travel insurance when I bought the tickets for my daughters. Cheap Tickes has this set to default of yes. When I got my credit card statement I was stuned to see a charge of 42.18 for travel insurance through a company called American Insurance. Here we were already back from the trip and I hadn't known I had trip insurance.

I called American Insurance and they told me I would have had to cancel ten days from the date of purchase but that it had to be before the flight. They said I should have received an e-mail but I never got it. Later I did find an e-mail that I had not read but I get tons of junk e-mail. I went online and did a google search and found I wasn't the only person to have experienced this. What's bad is VISA will not reverse the charge because American Insurance sent them what they call proof that I purchased the insurance, but they don't even show anything selected for the insurance. They included a copy of a general e-mail that they would send. I am sure this is happening all the time to people. If they read the e-mail then they may be able to cancel it but if they miss it or it goes to spam then they are simply tough out of luck. The insurance company is making a killing and I'm sure Cheap Tikets gets a commission. I will never go through Cheap Tickets again. People need to be warned.

Rakesh of Novi, MI July 18, 2009

I booked my tickets with Cheap tickets to fly to Bangalore India from Detroit. They booked the tickets and charged me about 3750. This happened during the day around 11am.

Then I was happy planning the trip and in the evening I got an email saying that my tickets were canceled and credit card was not charged. I was furious as the prices had gone up but I kept my cool and asked Cheap Tickets to reinstate my tickets or give a flight from Detroit to Bangalore on the days I had booked.

They kept me online for 3hrs in 2 different calls and said their manager will have to call me... The manager called after a day and did not resolve the issue instead lied to me on my face. They instead charged me for canceling the tickets can you believe that??? NEVER BUY FROM CHEAP TICKETS

Marilyne of Mequon, WI July 8, 2009

I need your assistance in obtaining a refund. On Saturday 06/13/09 at 9:00 AM CST , I was attempting to book a flight from Chicago to Paris through Cheaptickets at a time when your website would not work. After placing the dates and credit card information, the website would hang and would not provide a confirmation number. I attempted twice to place the order.

I did it a first time and waited that the website would switch to the following page providing the confirmation number and then charging my credit card. As it would not move, I got out of the website and did it a second time. Again the website would hang. This time I waited longer, maybe 15 minutes and nothing happened. So I decided all together not to go through the Cheaptickets website. I placed then the order through Air Canada that provided rapidly a confirmation number and charged my credit card.

In the meantime, we got a call from our credit card indicating that there were .multiple charges on the card. Of course I became very concerned as I realized that Cheaptickets was charging my card without any confirmation or approval. I searched for an 800 customer service number on the Cheaptickets website and there was none that was available.

So I sent a chat notice and spoke with Misty between 10:00 - 11:00 AM . Misty stated that there was nothing to be concerned about as the charges were only pending and it was only a routine check before confirming any booking. Since we did not get any confirmation, the pending charges would fall off their own. I did not get concerned then, since in my understanding of things and not getting any confirmation, I would not be charged.

A few days later, on 06/19/09, I went to check my emails. To my surprise, I saw there were a couple of emails from Cheaptickets dating from 06/13/09 (same time website was not working) indicating that they had booked the same flight twice and charged my card twice. Then on 06/15/09 , I get an email stating that if f I did not get back to them by the next day of purchase with is 06/14/09 to cancel the pruchases, the charges would remain. In the email, they had provided an 800 number.

On 06/19/09 , I called the 800 number and talked with Supervisor Hailey. I explained the situation to the Supervisor about the technical difficulties I had encountered with the website. The supervisor called Air Canada who agreed to refund the first booking completely (including the cancellation fee) and the second booking minus the cancellation fee: 684.00.The supervisor stated that she would escalate the issue and would open a technical investigation to verify the workings of the website on Saturday 06/13/09 and depending on the results of the investigation, they would see if they would refund me the cancellation fee.

On 06/30/09 I received e-mail. I thought the response was outrageous. First, website did not ask me to confirm if the info I was entering was correct. Second, the website did not ask me if it was ok to charge my credit card. It went ahead without my approval. Third, website did not prompt me to check my email. There was no warning or notification from the website. Therefore, I was not required to go right away to check my emails. The error made is that system was way too quick to charge my credit card without my approval.

When I realized on Saturday morning that my credit card was being charged multiple times, I looked in website for an 800 number and could not find anything. I was trying to get in contact with staff rather rapidly. The only recourse that I had was the chat system that I used promptly. Sending me a prompt email about charging me and stating that the charge would remain if I did not call within 24 hour when the website was not working and when I did not agree to any purchase is, in no way, grounds to charge me.

Cheaptickets should have called me on Saturday morning like the credit card company did to explain the seriousness of the duplicate charges and asking me if I agreed with it. They did not. They chose instead a passive means like emailing. Not everyone remains at a computer. Again, I let it go because of the conversation I had through the chat with the Cheaptickets agent.

I only want the cancellation fee of 684.00 back on my credit card. That's all as I did not err and used the website correctly and called customer service right when I thought something was wrong. They told me not to worry.

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