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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) gimpyprophet | |
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Ok, here's the real deal with what caused me to have an utter disgust for Orbitz. I'm flying down to southern California this weekend and needed a plane ticket. I had to buy it Friday since it was short notice so I hop on orbitz and all the other sites to try to find a decently priced ticket. I found something expensive for me, but wasn't too too bad. I couldn't buy it though right away because I had to wait for conformation from the guy's house we're staying at and he didn't get back to me until later. I go to buy the tickets and their system is down (for maintenance, blah). So I wait until it's back up and then find out that my ticket is $100 more, literally five or six hours after I last checked. I cringe but buy the ticket anyway as there's no way I'm missing this trip. I also buy a ticket for John who will pay me later. I figure I'm all good to go since every other time I've ever ordered tickets online (including from them) I just get an e-ticket and check in at the counter. I get a call from my mom yesterday and find out there are two packages at my house for me. I definitely didn't order anything, so I can't figure out what the hell they are. She opens them up and finds two sets of physical tickets. Now, I'm not really pissed at this point because I'm sure there's some way to rectify this situation. I'll call orbitz and say they screwed up, we'll have a laugh and they'll fix it so that both John and I can get on our respective flights which are no where near California. I call them, but that's not the case. I talk to this girl who has what seems like ten other girls giggling in the background. She tells me that there's nothing she can do since it's a physical ticket and that it was sent to my billing address for security purposes. Now, let's talk about this, shall we? If I were to show up to an airport with my ticket, I'd have to show ID that corresponds with the name on the ticket, right? That alone takes care of their retarded "security purposes" right there. As for not being able to change it to an e-ticket, let's think of this again, shall we? What happens if I got it changed to an e-ticket and showed up for the same flight with two different people trying to occupy the same seat? Obviously, with a ticket that has the SAME NAME ON IT, they're going to figure out that something is fishy. Not to even mention that this second person would have to go through security faking to be me the whole time. So I call Alaska Airlines (one of the carriers I'm going to be flying with). The lady on the phone was kind and tells me that my ticket was actually purchased by American West and not Alaska even though I'm flying on an Alaskan flight. I don't understand how the fuck that works or why they do it like that, but whatever. I can deal. So I call American West and ask if I can just show up while explaining how orbitz fucked up. The lady on the other line was awesome, and was the least bad part about this whole affair. She asks me why they didn't just give me an e-ticket and I reply with something like "they're probably morons". She asks her supervisor if there's anything she can do and is just generally helpful even though she can't do anything for me in the end. When I tell her I have to go yell at orbitz now, she jokingly tells me that it doesn't seem like I'm capable of yelling at people. So now what do I do? I look at my receipt that I got in the e-mail sent to me and it says that it's sending me a physical ticket (which I sure as fuck didn't notice when I bought the things, TWICE) and that they're charging me a $26 service fee. Uh, ok. So I go look online on orbitz's website and find out that that $26 fee per ticket is for sending the physical ticket to me. At this point I'm livid. I'm about ready to rip someone's head off. Not only did they fuck up and send me physical tickets, but they charged me $52 to do it! I call my step-dad and mom back after talking to all these people and ask them if they'd be so kind to overnight us the tickets since I can't seem to do anything about it other than filing a lost ticket claim which costs me $100 per ticket ($200 total) and then buying a WHOLE NEW TICKET. Fuck that, I'll pay for the $45 overnight shipping to both TN and WA. So now, I'm out around $100, I have physical tickets (which I don't like), and I have to worry about them getting here and to TN on time before we both leave. I have to call orbitz and ask for at least a fucking refund on the $100. I can't believe they're so dumb as to not notice that they were sending tickets to California when the flights were leaving from two states no where near to California. What would have happened if my billing address was somewhere where my parents weren't able to pick up the tickets and find out about this shithole of a debacle? Nothing. Both John and I would be fucked and I'd be out a shit-ton of money. I'm going to call orbitz either today or tomorrow and seriously yell at them. I'm not happy and will never use them again, but I at least want to hear some sucking up and try to get some money out of them. I want a free ticket or flight or SOMETHING to counter this fuck up in their department. Edit: I called and they were completely unapologetic. They didn't offer me anything at all and in fact said it was my fault and their computers were doing the right thing by sending the tickets to my billing address. It's funny to me that this post is now the top hit to "I hate Orbitz", but god they deserve it. Such a terrible company with terrible service (especially indicated by all the comments here). Current Mood:  pissed off
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: June 30th, 2006 12:12 pm (UTC) |
| (Link) |
insight
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After a bad night at work, and googling I hate Orbitz...I came across your post here. I just wanted to let you know that this sort of thing happens pretty regularly there. I can give you a little insight into what happened though... Some airlines (such as America West) don't have electronic ticketing agreements with a lot of other airlines (like Alaska Airlines). When this happens, Orbitz has to issue paper tickets...they aren't allowed to issue etickets. During the booking process, (which, honestly, most people don't pay attention to) it definitely lets you know that you are about to purchase paper tickets, advises you of the shipping fees and that they are going to ship to your billing address.
I know this because I walk through this booking process everyday. Now, you don't HAVE to purchase them...once you realize they are paper tickets, you can certainly go back and choose a different combination of airlines. So Orbitz, for once, didn't actually fuck up. America West and Alaska Airlines don't have an eticket agreement, and there's nothing Orbitz can do about it.
I'm not scolding you, but I thought you might want a behind the scenes explanation. I'm sorry that giggling little girl was too stupid to explain that. You'll probably reach someone like that about half the time you call customer service.
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: February 11th, 2008 10:31 pm (UTC) |
| (Link) |
Damn Orbitz
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I hate them too. That company is horrible. Earlier today, I made a hotel reservation for the end of this month. So I picked Red Roof Inn. I don't have but around $150.00 in my bank account as of now, since I get paid in a few days so I made sure to read every page carefully so I would be sure not be charged for the reservation right now. I have made reservations in the past without it being charged to my card until the day of my stay. I finally come across a page that states "Your card will not be charged for this amount by Orbitz. Hotel fees are paid upon check in or check out..." so I think, "okay, i won't be charged right now." WRONG! I go through the whole process of entering my information and on my confirmation page, the screen shows that I booked the Super 8 Motel. So I'm like what? So I check my bank account online, and my account was charged right away. I find that my bank account is overdrawn by $15.00. So I call Orbitz and thankfully, I get to a representative right away. I could barely understand her, though, because of her accent (which happens alot in these companies - don't get me wrong, I'm not racist, but I feel we should be able to talk to someone we can understand more clearly). I tell her about my situation and she says she will not charge me the $25.00 cancellation fee, but that I'll have to wait 3 days to receive my refund. Now, how the hell am I supposed to pay for anything (gas, food, etc.) til' then? I'm pissed. I have absolutely no money right now and no money to buy my husband anything for Valentine's Day. What a day. I have a headache from hell.
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: June 5th, 2007 01:15 am (UTC) |
| (Link) |
My Orbitz experience - Letter to orbitz
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I’m writing to inform you of my extreme dissatisfaction with Orbitz in regards to my trip identified above. I found your customer service to be poor and often dishonest. Your lack of information and thoroughness not only ruined my family vacation, but ended up costing me almost $300 extra for the trip for an unplanned stay in NYC.
I booked this trip in October, 2006. For some reason, Orbitz insisted on issuing paper tickets on Alitali stock.
Apparently, within a few weeks of the original booking, Alitalia changed the JFK-FCO and reduced the connection time by 1 hour, resulting in a 20 minute transfer time.
On May 17, I called Orbitz customer service to inquire about changing my return flight. The Customer Service Agent I spoke to never mentioned an issue with the outbound leg of my flight, simply telling me I needed to call Alitalia for any changes within 14 days. I decided not to change my return, so did not call Alitali.
I have an email dated May 23, 2007 from orbitz reminding me of my trip, still showing an Alitalia 610 departing at 10:10 pm. On the day of travel, I checked the Orbitz website, it also showed the Alitalia flight departing at 10:10 pm.
When I arrived at RDU for checkin, I was told I was traveling on an invalid intinerary, American Airlines could not check baggage, and I had only a 20 minute connection at JFK. Since we were traveling on paper tickets, the gate agent in Raleigh could do nothing.
I called Orbitz customer service. The agent told me initially that he had no record of Alitalia changing the flight time and would call them. After I was on hold for 20 minutes, he came back and said yes, he had notification and had notified me via email in November. I admit that I received several emails from Orbitz, but none said “Your itinerary is in jeopardy, call us urgently!”
Then the customer service agent said all he could offer me was a full refund of the ticket. When I asked for that he denied having offered it and said it could not be done. At this point, he began telling me it was all my fault, that I should have verified my flights 48-72 hours prior to departure.
As mentioned above, I checked both the email from Orbitz and the Orbitz web page, both showed no change from the original itinerary. I then took my wife’s cell phone and called the voice response system at Orbitz, selecting the option to verify my flights. The IVR system confirmed a 10:10 departure on the day of departure.
When I explain this to the agent, he accused me of misleading him, and stated that you could not count on orbitz systems for verifying flights, you have to call the airlines. When I questioned the vaidity of any data from orbitz, he stated that all data was accurate, except when it’s not. By this time, I had been on the phone for over 1 ½ hours and my flight to JFK was boarding. I had asked to speak to a supervisor but was told one was not available.
He told me my only option was to fly to JFK and go to the Alitalia ticket counter. When I arrived in JFK, Alitalia was closed for the night. I had no choice but to rent a hoytel room for my familyfor the night. This plus dinner at the hotel cost me $294.70. Additionally, this cost my family a day of our vacation and much frustration and heartache.
On the morning of the 26th, I again called Orbitz, hoping for some assistance. This agent again supposedly made several calls to alitali, only to again tell me that everything was my fault, alitalia was not open until later in the morning and I’d have to wait.
I then called the toll free number for Alitalia, was connected directly to an agent. As with all of the airline agents I spoke to, she was apalled that Orbitz had booked this itinerary, but promised that the airline would protect me on the flight. I still had to wait for the local ticket counter to open.
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: June 24th, 2007 12:22 am (UTC) |
| (Link) |
I hate Orbitz
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I just had the worst customer service experience in my life. I booked the Casa Sant'Andrea Hotel in Venice, Italy with Orbitz, using a coupon code. Everything went fine until I received the confirmation email, which said the hotel was in Rome! I immediately canceled the reservation online. When I went back to the site to find the correct hotel in Venice, it gave me the same hotel, and the map showed Venice, not Rome as well. Turns out the hotel I booked was in Venice, even though the confirmation email from Orbitz said "Roma". Okay, time to rebook. But I deserve my coupon back, right? I canceled because of a mistake on their site. I called their toll free number. Long story short, I was transfered 4 times, each time someone telling me something different. Back and forth between Customer Service, who was supposed to re-instate the one-time use coupon code, back to Booking who said the code wasn't valid. Yikes! To make things worst, the customer service reps where clearly out of India, so there were plenty of language problems during this fiasco.
It goes without saying I'll never book with Orbitz again. When I told a few other world travelers about my experience, they nodded as they too had terrible service with Orbitz. Unfortunately, this hotel only books through Orbitz so I had to bite the bullet and rebook. Let's hope when I get to Venice the hotel will be there and I'll have a reservation.
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| From: (Anonymous) |
Date: January 15th, 2008 04:49 pm (UTC) |
| (Link) |
HATE ORBITZ TO PIECES!
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So we are in Ft. Lauderdale Florida for a business trip. This trip was suppose to be taken originally with our RV, but that didn’t happen thanks to my carelessness. Since that, this trip has had some serious frustration, so let me clarify.
Ft. Lauderdale is actually really nice, aside from overly priced food that really isn’t that great, this area is beautiful and is clear why Florida is so popular.
The nightmare is Orbitz, and for those that don’t want to read more, just follow these instructions. DON’T USE THEM.
For the rest who are curious, the trip went fine to get here, but I had booked the hotel and car with Orbitz. I booked the airfare directly with Continental thankfully. So got the car, economy was what was requested, and according to Hertz the Toyota Prius was economy and that’s what they gave me. TOTALLY AWESOME, people should know we are big fans of green, and was happy so far.
Then we got to the hotel. So right on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale, but the room was disgusting. We are talking the classic shit hole, you could feel the mold, dust mites, and bed bugs partying at the sight of humans, it was that grungy. I was expecting cheap, but still sensible.
So I call Orbitz after 4 nights. They call the hotel and they confirm the hotel would allow us to check out and would refund the rest of the stay, so I followed Orbitz instructions and called them right before checking out on the morning after 5 nights. Hotel clerk charged me 8.88 extra for some safe in the room, which I never even saw, but then thought, maybe that’s where the mold, dust mites and bed bugs are not at. I would pay a few extra bucks to have a spot like that. But whatever, 9 bucks is nothing compared to us hacking our lungs out as soon as we get in the room.
Orbitz said we would see the refund within 7-10 days. I saw it, come Monday, which was only a couple business days. Still sounds good right, got out of there, moved into a hotel right behind it that was still about $106 a night after discounts for long stay and AAA. Owner was a real nice guy too.
The problem, the refund was for $1142.86, the whole trip total was going to be $2534.53. That means that 14 days of hotel was only $1142.86, but 5 days hotel and 21 days economy car is still $1391.67.
So I take $1142.86/14 and get $81.63 a night for hotel. Now this hotel really shouldn’t even charge that, but considering location that seemed awful cheap. So taking $81.63 x 5 to figure out out of the $1391.67 orbitz is still charging me was the 5 nights, I get $408.16. Subtract that from the $1391.67 I get a car rate of $983.50 for 20 days, though the hertz receipt says 21 days. So lets go with the 21 days, though we are talking just a couple hours beyond day 20. My economy car is $46.83. Not so Economy.
Read the complete comment at my bog, I ran out of space here...
http://jacqdesign.com/blog/?p=66
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