I know airlines and whatnot are busy, but oh my God.
I was to fly to California on the 19th; obviously that is a high risk move now. So I figured I’d ask to change it - I don’t want a refund, I just figure I’ll kick it out a few months.
They have no way to do this online. The hyperlink to change a reservation is - I am not making this up - just a link to their book-a-flight website and the instruction “when you find a different flight, call us.”
They have pretty clearly given up on answering the phone. If you can even get on hold, apparently you’re kept on hold for eight hours, then disconnected.
They DO have lots of operators available to sell you entirely new flights. I tried that option. Very low hold times there, but those folks claim to be unable to change a flight.
No, in case you wondered; I cannot change it through the airline. They insist I do so with Travelocity.
I have a flight in April which I am still hoping to be able to take. But I made the reservation with the airline directly. It seems to me (based on some experience, if not scientific research) that you can use the travel sites to research prices and schedules, and that you can then make your reservation directly with the airline and get the same price if you act immediately.
I’ve been getting texts from Expedia who I used for hotels on this trip, and they have been pro-active as well as acknowledging that their phone lines are overwhelmed, offering other methods of changing reservations. So not all travel sites are the same.
Yeah, I used Expedia for my flights to/from Peru last fall. A couple days prior to our departure, one of our travel companions on the same itinerary called to say she got an alert from the airline advising that the runway in SFO was still being repaired and to expect delays, and offered to move the departure to a different airport, no fee. Since we were connecting in LAX to Peru, we worried about making the connection. However, we never got the alert. Why? Because the other person booked the flights directly with the airline, not us saps who booked thru Expedia. Calling them was futile, as the OP described, they “could not” change anything, but they could sell us another flight! Called the airline and they said we were SOL since Expedia held the reservation. We were forced to just go with it, and all worked out in the end (we made our connection), but I doubt I will use anything other than the airline to book a flight again.
But a whole lot of them are owned by the same company (Expedia). Which means if you use another service out of spite there’s a decent chance you actually still using Expedia.:smack:
Priceline is separate. But man, have their prices been sucking lately.
Just as a point of information… My sister called her travel agent last week to cancel a cruise they had booked for September or October. The agent said ‘my world is crumbling’. I imagine it is true for everything travel related right now. It is going to be a cluster fuck for a good while.
This is exactly what I’ve been doing for the last few years. I use the aggregator sites to find the best prices and flights, and then go straight to the airline website. The flights have, in my experience, always been available at exactly the same prices as the aggregator sites, with the added advantage that you can contact the airline if you have problems.
Sorry for your problems, RickJay. Hope it works out.
Yep, we were up at 1:30 am yesterday trying to rebook a flight directly with United so we could clear Customs at IAH (where no European flights were arriving) rather than at O’Hare (which was a giant clusterfuck). We finally managed via United’s app, but nobody ever answered the phone - we were on hold for well over an our. The app kept crashing and logging me out, and when it did work at all, was agonizingly slow. I was close to just jumping in a taxi and going to the airport in person.
That I don’t know. The trip had been booked before the whole covid-19 thing blew up. I think that if prices have not dropped it is because of an unrealistic hope that things are going to get back to normal very soon.
It does seem that reality is setting in for airlines as they resort to their old business model of asking the government to bail them out.
They’re working on it for you (highlighted). I also like the last paragraph about suggesting one should book options with cancel/change flexibility; don’t those usually cost more? :dubious:
I had a trip to San Diego booked for the end of the month. I had booked one flight with Aeroplan points, one with CIBC Aventura Rewards points, and the hotel with BMO Rewards points.
The Aeroplan flight was cancelled on their web site with a few clicks. $0 cancellation fee, the points were back in my account in 60 seconds.
CIBC Rewards can’t be cancelled online, they are not answering phones at all, but they have a special email address setup. I emailed them and received a canned response, hopefully they will get it sorted out in time.
BMO Rewards is answering, but lots of busy signals first. After getting through, pressing numbers, entering my card number, and waiting again I receive a message about a technical error. Emailing gets an auto response followed by an email 3 days later basically saying they are dealing with other issues first and email again after the 21st. Given that I contacted them 2 days before the cancellation deadline and we are now into credit territory rather than a refund, I’m not sure what I will end up.
All in all, I would avoid booking through a third-party when it is so much easier dealing with the airline direct. It’s not often that I give credit to how well Air Canada/Aeroplan are handling something!
Expedia has owned Travelocity for a little over five years. Don’t know if they’re treated as separate business units or just separate websites on the front end & it’s all one call center on the backend, though.
I have no issues with Travelocity. When an airline canceled my flight just a few days before the flight instead of adding it to my frequent flyer account, two of Travelocity’s customer service representatives worked long and hard to get me a flight for the same travel dates and I got a better deal than the original trip.
Same thing with hotels. I’ve also found that hotels are not at all willing to talk to you if you book through an online travel agent. They always direct you back to them if there are any issues.
Add to this the possibility of miscommunication, such as the hotel supposedly having no record of your reservation, or whether or not you have already paid. I see no reason to involve a middleman.
I work at a hotel. The reason we’re not willing to talk to you beyond telling you to contact the third-party booker is that we simply cannot do anything. We cannot cancel your booking with Expedia or whoever - it’s not that it’s against policy, or that we’re not willing to try, it’s that there is no possible way for us to do it.
And to their credit, most callers get it.
Still, it gets frustrating. You know that there’s a better way, but other people don’t know that. It like, I suppose, a touch-typist watching someone hunt-and-peck. You know the pecker is doing the best s/he can, but it really grates to watch them do it.
I learned my lesson when I got a cheap flight and hotel in London. My friends changed their plans and moved to a better hotel a ways away. I tried to change, but couldn’t, so stayed where I was… but the real pain came when I got told I didn’t get the huge breakfast buffet *that every other guest got, *because I’d booked through Priceline.
I still console myself with the pittance I paid. I mean, 800 USD for flight from Chicago and four nights near the Victoria & Albert…
