‘Am I in some kind of bureaucratic travel hell?’

Question: Last year, I booked a flight from Washington to Bozeman, Montana on US Airways, through Travelocity. About a month later, US Airways changed my flight schedule, leaving too little time for my connection in Denver.

Travelocity worked with the airline to make the change so that I could take a later flight to alleviate this problem and there was to be no charge. But when my credit card statement arrived there was an additional charge of $1,534 for this same flight.

I have contacted Travelocity numerous times through calling and e-mails and I am still being told it is US Airways holding it up. I have contacted US Airways and am getting nowhere. I have contacted my credit card company and was told that if I said I did not authorize the charge my flight would be canceled.

Am I in some sort of bureaucratic travel hell? What can I do to get this refund? — Peggy Kite, Charlottesville, Va.

Answer: You shouldn’t have been charged extra to fix your flight. Instead, Travelocity should have worked with US Airways to ensure you were taken care of.

According to US Airways’ contract of carriage — that’s the legal agreement between you and the airline — you’re entitled to a new ticket to your destination “without additional charge.” If the airline can’t get you to your destination, “US Airways may attempt to rebook the customer on the next available flight of another airline with which US Airways has an agreement allowing the acceptance of each other’s tickets,” according to the contract.

Travelocity’s “guarantee” makes similar assurances. It promises to look out for you “all trip long,” adding, “Everything about your booking will be right, or we’ll work with our partners to make it right, right away.”

It’s unclear why your credit card was charged an extra $1,534. It appears your first ticket was canceled and a second one was booked at a higher rate, without your consent. That’s highly unusual.

I would have written Travelocity immediately to alert them of the overcharge, and if I didn’t hear back, I would have gotten in touch with US Airways. By the way, I’m not sure your new tickets would have been canceled if you’d questioned your credit card charges with your bank. Formal credit card disputes take a long time to work their way through the system. You probably would have used the ticket long before US Airways had a chance to cancel it.

I suggested you contact Travelocity for help, in writing. You did, but despite appealing to the highest level at the online agency, it couldn’t make the refund go any faster.

I asked US Airways to have a look at your case. It refunded the charge for your second ticket.

  • Tom

    Travelocity made a mistake, but didn’t clean it up. US Airways stepped in and disintermediated Travelocity. The lesson is that Travelocity is great for looking up flights, but book directly with the airline so you have a direct relationship with the airline. Tracelocity is a website — they are good at Java programming. US Airways is in the transportation business.

  • Raven

    Just another reason to avoid Travelocity.

  • Mike Z

    Raven is correct. Travelocity is the company that the OP had the agreement with and they needed to act as the advocate for the OP. It should not matter how slow they got the refund from the airline, the consumer should have gotten the refund immediately.

  • http://www.singleparenttravel.net John Frenaye

    The credit card people are correct. Once the airlines are notified AND THE TICKET IS STILL VALID, they will cancel it immediately, resell the space if possible, and debit the travel agency that issued it. If the ticket is used, they will issue the credit to the customer immediately (keeping in good graces with the bank) and then debit the travel agency for the cost plus a fee.

    The requirements for travel agencies to process cards is onerous and (now the OTA’s might have a different agreement) to completely protect the agency, we need to have a “signed imprint” of the actual credit card or to have the physical card swiped, verified, processed and approved.

    That is regardless of the nature of the dispute. The client can dispute a portion of a ticket, the airlines don;t care and will come to me and ask if I complied wiht my ARC agreement and to provide a signed imprint of the card. No signed imprint, they will send a debit memo and take the money from my bank.

  • Alan

    Once again, the lesson is: never, ever book travel through a third-party site. If your trip is complex enough to require an agent, use a real one.

  • cjr

    In this case, any communication with Travelocity & the airline would have also gone to my credit card company, and vise versa. Because I certainly would have been contacting my credit card company the instant I saw an unauthorized charge.

  • Dan

    The last time I used orbitz to book airfare and had to change the ticket, I had to pay the airline’s $150 fee and another $30 to Orbitz. That’s the last time I used Orbitz, and won’t use an online travel agency unless there’s a good reason — like saving over $100. They sure didn’t do anything to deserve the $30 change fee.

    Sometimes Orbitz can piece together cheaper trips that involve a different airline on the return, and for that I might use them. I won’t change airlines on a connection unless it’s absolutely unavoidable, but have no problem say flying UA on the outbound and US on the return. If Orbitz can save me $150 with that itinerary, I’d take it. But I won’t use them for negligible savings over the airline directly.

  • Bill

    I always appreciate it when there is an issue and various people supply valuable information.

  • DJP

    The only time I book any flights through orbits/expedia/travelocity is when I see a deal that I cant get separately through the carriers.

    For example on one weekend trip I found a cheap flight through orbitz that was flying out on onme carrier and returning on another.

    I prefer orbitz because I can input my FF # in the purchase and get FF miles from the flight.

  • Clare

    I once used a travel agent to book an international flight on AerLingus. The agent and I faxed pages back-and-forth so that I could sign the ccard authorization, etc.
    When I got my ccard statement, the amount charged by AerLingus was higher. I immediately called the ccard company and contested the charge, submitting copies of the faxes. They corrected the charge, and that was the end of it. I don’t know who screwed it up, the agent (who did seem like an airhead) or AerLingus; I only know that I agreed in writing to pay X, and that’s all I was gonna pay, and the ccard company of course agreed.

    A couple of years later, I used a different agent (of course! wasn’t going back to the airhead again!), and he billed my ccard for the correct fare for an AirFrance ticket… and next month he billed it again. Phoned the guy and he apologized, but blamed the airline, and said he’d take care of it–and didn’t. So I just contacted the ccard company, showed them that I had agreed to pay for ONE ticket and this was obviously a duplication, and they removed the second charge immediately. Again, I don’t know who messed up and don’t really care–so long as I had all the documentation, it’s the ccard co’s problem. They have a whole department-full of people authorized and trained to duke it out with the people who wrongfully charge us–that’s their job.

  • Ed

    Once again, these flight aggregators (can’t call them anything else, because they don’t seem to add any value) leaves a customer hanging…These booking sites (and some more than others) seem to do little more than take your money and then never return your call….That’s why I go to the booking sites to find the cheapest flight, then I go to the airline’s website and book it there…at least I know then that I only have one entity to deal with! Plus, I always book my airfare, and rental cars with my AMEX…They are the best customer advocate when it comes to disputes!
    If I *HAD* to use a booking site, the site owned by Cendant (Orbitz) seems to be the best…probably because they area already in the hospitality business (Cendant owns RCI and Avis plus several other major properties)

  • http://theinfamousj.livejournal.com Little J

    Anyone know which section of the Contract of Carriage covers an airline changing its flight schedule after you already have a ticket? I’m in that situation with Iceland Express and the phone people said that unless I purchased travel insurance from them (which oddly enough only covers illness, so I did not), then there was no way they were changing my ticket to a flight that had a schedule similar to the flight I THOUGHT I was getting when I booked my ticket.

    I’m up for a Round 2 with Iceland Express, but would love to have some of Contract of Carriage verbiage in my corner.

  • http://www.cockam.com ajaynejr

    Is Iceland Express a well established well used carrier or is it some rinky dink carrier that sprung up recently?

    Any decent carrier would let a passenger choose an alternate flight at no extra charge when the carrier cancelled the originally booked flight(s).

    And, regarding the subject poster, U.S. Airways also has another very recent complaint (like less than a week prior) written up by Chris where a passenger showed up at the airport to find her reservation cancelled. In that case it has not been revealed exactly who cancelled the reservation but the fact the passenger showed up to take the flight is pretty good evidence the passenger herself did not.

    One likely problem with agents like Travelocity and Orbitz is that they may have their own prepaid allotment of seats on various carriers to resell. (This is called playing the role of a consolidator) When a schedule snafu happens the agent might not have seats on the replacement flights the passenger wants or needs and the agent has to “go outside the box” and book/buy a seat just as a brick and mortar travel agent does for a walk up passenger. The agent does not like to do this because if often turns a profitable transaction into a loss.