this machine kills fascists (hosemedown) wrote in student_travel,
this machine kills fascists
hosemedown
student_travel

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Vayama.com warning--don't do it!

Hi everyone,

I'm assuming that most of you here book your plane tickets through online sites like Priceline, Hotwire, CheapTickets, Expedia, what have you. You should keep doing this. Here's why:

Recently I read an article in The New York Times about Vayama.com, a start-up devoted solely to international travel, their hook being that they can get you lower prices because of it.

I needed to book tickets to France and I monitored ticket prices closely for a month. When a cheaper price appeared on Vayama, I scooped it up. I mean, they were mentioned in the Times, right? I assumed I'd have no problems.

Well, booking with them has been nothing but problems--major ones, like getting charged $2288.98 and not being refunded (even though they said they would because I needed to change our tickets shortly after buying them (long story); not getting through to customer service for literally 45 minutes and then speaking with someone who was pretty hostile.

When they told me I'd be refunded and could rebook my tickets for a $50 fee (reasonable enough), my husband and I got on their site on separate computers at the exact same time to buy new tickets, because he's going to France a week earlier than me and we wanted to make sure we got the same return flight.

So what happens? I book my ticket at the advertised price. He experiences some sort of mysterious "website error" and the sale doesn't go through. Now these prices were about $300-400 cheaper than what I'd seen and we can't afford the trip anyway (his father is dying, so we have to visit him). So he goes back and chooses the same flight at the same advertised price, clicks on it, and...the price has gone up in a time span of about one minute! After we'd started the booking process.

So we ended up paying the higher price because the website experienced an error, but because of our situation, we didn't want to wait and have to buy an even more expensive ticket and we needed to get the same return flight, blah blah blah.

I don't know about you, but I've been booking tickets online for 5 years and prices have never gone up in the midst of the booking process. You choose the flight, start the process, which locks in the price.

When I finally got through to a supervisor (another 45 minute hold), she insisted that this is how all websites operate (bullshit) and that she has no control over what the airlines do and that it's very common for prices to jump while you're booking tickets because the airlines are very fickle (more bullshit).

This conversation went on for about an hour. Then I asked her to refund the extra money we were charged because it was clearly because of a website error on their part. No dice. I keep getting the same answer--this is the way airlines work; etc. She said the best she can do is waive the fee of rebooking the ticket on the phone, as opposed to using their (non-functional) website.

But the hassle goes on!

After not receiving my e-tickets within 48 hours as promised on the confirmation email they sent (and not receiving my refund, either), I called again. And I also called my credit card company to make sure I got my money back. The following week, I had to call (again) because my refund hadn't been issued. They told me it took 7-10 days. I told the guy I'd Googled them and that people had gone through the same rigamarole as me and hadn't been issued their refund for 5 months and charged exorbitant fees on top of that. I also told him I'd reported them to the BBB and my credit card company. Within the week, I got my refund (but they shorted me $20. Amex is currently investigating that for me.).

We finally got our e-tickets but I had to call them--again. I wouldn't get off the phone with customer service guy until I'd received both emails and that took longer than it should, too. He told me it was probably because of a firewall issue and I told him that made absolutely no sense. They'd had no problem immediately charging me $4000, I guess my firewall is in cahoots with them. I eventually got the emails, hung up, and then called U.S. Airways to make sure I had actual tickets. I got the e-tickets confirmation numbers then I called U.S. Airways that we actually had tickets and were in their system. I will continue to do that every month and the weeks leading up to our flight.

If you Google "vayama complaints" you will see that people who had problems had the exact same experience as me.

Suffice to say, I'm very wary about what's going to happen when it's time to check-in at the airport, but I'm going to follow-up with U.S. Airways regularly to make sure nothing fishy happens.

I'll keep you posted.

MORAL #1 OF THE STORY
Stick with the company you've always used. You may think you're paying more for tickets than what Vayama says they can get you, but the extra money is simply not worth the extra charges, suspect ticketing, and possible cancellations, not to mention sketchy connections they don't point out to you when you're buying the damn ticket. I mean, I've booked charter flights online with companies in South America, for Pete's sake, and had no problemss. Clearly Vayama doesn't have their shit together or is running some sort of scam. I'm terrified but afraid to try to cancel my tickets because I don't want to incur fees.

MORAL #2:
With every company you speak with, write down everyone's name, date and time you spoke with them, all confirmation numbers, all emails, and be proactive about everything. Don't hesitant about reporting them to the BBB, your credit company, and writing warnings like this online.
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