I had to pay twice for my flights to Mexico

Question: I booked two round-trip tickets through Travelocity from Chicago to Ixtapa, Mexico, almost two years ago. It was paid in full by credit card. Up until the time of travel, the airlines changed our itinerary many times, and Travelocity asked me to call to confirm the changes, which I did on all occasions. Each time, I was assured everything was in order. I even called two days before the trip to reconfirm our flight.

We arrived at the airport to check in at Mexicana for the first leg of our flight to Mexico City. The remainder of our flight was on Aeromexico. When we checked in, the Mexicana agent told us he could see our reservations, but that we needed paper tickets.

We had to purchase two one-way tickets from Chicago to Mexico City for $948. We had no choice, since we had a connecting flight in Mexico City. All I had were electronic tickets I received from Travelocity and Aeromexico, which they would not honor.

I immediately called Travelocity after our return and followed their instructions for getting a refund. When I received no response, I started to email them. It’s been more than a year since our flights, and there’s still no resolution to this matter. I’m at a loss for what to do next. — Colleen Farmer, Crystal Lake, Ill.

Answer: Your ticket should have been completely valid. When it wasn’t, Travelocity should have rebooked you on another flight without forcing you to buy a new one-way ticket, or to pay anything extra at all.

Did you give your online travel agency a chance? Maybe not. If you had phoned Travelocity from the airport instead of paying for the ticket and then waiting for a resolution after you returned from vacation, the company might have been able to save you $948.

Come to think of it, you could have probably fixed this problem before arriving at the airport. How? By checking with Travelocity and your airline 24 hours before your departure. You called two days before your flight, but most airlines don’t allow you to check in and get a seat assignment until a day before the flight. That’s probably when you would have caught this error.

When you’re dealing with tickets on multiple carriers — also called interline tickets — the odds of something going wrong increase exponentially with each airline added to your itinerary. Being ticketed on Mexicana and Aeromexico would send up a red flag for an experienced air traveler. You need to double-check your ticket and pack light, because checked-in luggage has a funny way of getting lost on these kinds of itineraries.

Travelocity should have offered you a prompt refund on the one-way tickets you had to buy, of course. It probably was waiting for a refund from Mexicana, and then planned to pass the money along to you. Those refunds can take months — even years.

I contacted Travelocity on your behalf, and it agreed to send you a full refund. But five months later, you still didn’t have the money, so I got in touch with the online travel agency again. Your account has been credited in full.

(Photo: Tom Turner/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • Jake

    Given the sorry state of airline refunds I read about at least weekly, if I’m ever in this situation they’ll have 1 month to have the funds back to me. If not, small claims it is!

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    Ms. Farmer could have done some things like Chris mentioned in the article but it is another story about an online travel agency (i.e. Travelocity, Expedia, Hot Wire, Priceline, etc.). It seems like these online travel agencies can take your money but getting a refund is another service. I can’t recall reading an article like I went to the AA\DL\CO\UA\US website; booked a reservation directly with the airline website and arrived at the airport and was told by AA\DL\CO\UA\US that I had no reservation. I am sure that it happens but I am sure that it is resolved at the airport.

  • Chicky

    Paper tickets? PAPER tickets? For an airline operating in the US? You must be joking. I didn’t think any airline that operates in this country, regardless of where they were based, could require paper tickets anymore! Outside the US, certainly, but not in it.
    And yeah, AZ Road Warrior, I’ve never had a problem booking a flight directly through an airline’s website, and I’ve rarely, if ever, heard of this kind of thing happening when you do.
    Could the Mexicana agent not have printed out tickets from his terminal since he could see the reservations in the system?
    You know, maybe Ms. Farmer could have done more on her end to make sure the tickets were good, but when you’ve already called your booking company 10 times and called 48 hours before the flight, you’d think this little issue eventually would have popped up. Maybe she could have called Travelocity from the airport, but you know, I suspect when the Mexicana agent told her she would need paper tickets and to drop another $900, she was so flustered and upset, it didn’t even occur to her to call Travelocity. She may have just figured she was stuck for the moment and needed to get on the plane.
    Travelocity service in this situation: epic fail. Mexicana service: epic fail.
    Christopher, I know you have reiterated what people should do when something goes flooey in different columns. How about a “cheatsheet” or checklist people can print from your website of the steps to take if they run into something along these lines? We don’t always think clearly when stressed out and thinking about “How am I going to catch my flight? What’s going to happen?” and so forth. A checklist might help all of us less-than-frequent travelers remember what to do if we’re faced with such a situation.

  • http://waynedayton.tripod.com Wayne Dayton

    From my experience, and that of some of my friends, I would think that MX was the main culprit…both at the airport and in delaying the refund. I and my colleagues have suffered through surly personnel, overbooked flights, lack of compensation, etc., etc., and we will never fly them again. After a short delay, I, too, would have hauled them in to Small Claims Court.

  • http://www.cutcat.com Regina

    I don’t think too many people have time to call Travelocity from the airport when they need to catch a flight. There is also a possibility that she couldn’t check in and get a seat assignment the day before; I don’t know if all airlines allow this for flights outside of the States. Once again, Travelocity screws up, as it has many times…I won’t be using them, ever.

  • Abhi

    When you buy a ticket through an agent (online or otherwise), the agent is supposed to be responsible for making sure all the problems predictable and unforeseen are taken care of alike. If Travelocity knew that paper tickets are required for abovementioned airlines, they should have issued the same or have airlines issue them to their customers. I know for a fact that even the largest of the airlines would not allow the customers to check in online (even within 24 hours of the scheduled flight departure time) on international flights. If a problem arises at airport regarding such travel, among luggage check in, time required for security checking and pre-boarding cut offs, it is not easy to start making calls to customer service centers of online agents, which take a lot of time to await your turn in addition to switching and pressing numbers to finally speak with someone who can understand the situation, let alone getting it resolved. It becomes excessively critical to keep track of time before getting on international flights since such flights are scheduled only once a day or a few times a week and rescheduling may put customers on stand-by or re-routed via unexpected/non-preferred connections. The only resolution I have seen to these issues is to get to the airport over 3 hours in advance of the scheduled flights. That extra hour or two of precaution may save many hours/days/months/years of hassle in future.

  • Carver

    I’m with Arizona. I have decided to only book directly with the travel provider. I don’t see the benefit of Travelocity, Expedia, etc. I have occassionally had issues with booking directly with the travel provider, but it is usually resolved fairly easily.

  • http://acrossandabroad.com David Webb

    I love using Expedia, but for more complicated trips I tend to book through a travel agent – in person. That way I know I have someone I can depend on when things go sideways.

  • David Z

    Paper tickets? PAPER tickets? For an airline operating in the US? You must be joking. I didn’t think any airline that operates in this country, regardless of where they were based, could require paper tickets anymore!

    Believe it or not, that still happens. I forgot which airline or exact route, but I notice that occurs mainly in the Great Lakes area.

    Another instance when a travel agency issues paper tickets is when someone books a flight through their web site, but the airlines don’t have what’s called a “ticketing agreement” between 2 of them or among 3 or more in one itinerary. A travel agency can’t issue one e-ticket number if/when that happens, so they ended up creating one (or even two) just to keep the fare.

    That entails risks, of course…

  • Phoenix Justice

    @Chicky -

    As we have mentioned before, when things go wrong for you at the airport, you tend not to think of the things that can make it right again. It really doesn’t matter how savvy of a traveler you are or what method you used to purchase your tickets, you can get flustered easily and it just makes the bad situation worse.

    The travel industry, I think, actually relies on you being flustered. It allows them to secure these interest free “loans” from customers. The more hoops we have to jump through, the more frustrated we become and thus, more likely to just give up and give in.

  • Scott

    I think something regarding paper tickets is misconstrued from the article.

    No one REQUIRES paper tickets. Also, please remember that “reservations” and “tickets” are not the same thing.

    What MOST LIKELY happened is that the electronic ticket issued under the Aeromexico number did not transfer to the Mexicana reservations system. So Mexicana shows a reservation for the customer with no electronic ticket attached to it. Then, one of two likely scenarios:

    1) The ticket can be accessed independently by the ticket number — a reminder to ALWAYS carry ticket numbers with you. It is the single most important piece of information you can have. The agent may not have been savvy enough to do this on their own.

    2) The Aeromexico ticket was completely inaccessible to Mexicana. In this scenario, there is nothing that Mexicana can do directly. Either the travel agent or the owner of the ticket (in this case, Aeromexico) must be contacted to “release” the ticket to the other carrier.

  • http://www.cheapnortherncyprusflights.co.uk thomasamada

    if we go with a travel agency,we will face all these type of problems.spare some time and do ours gives the what actually it is the process .