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February 01, 2007 | Comments: (0)
Off topic: I loathe Orbitz
Stephen O'Grady wrote an infamous post about loathing United Airlines. I have had middling success with United (am up to 94k lifetime miles (64k in 2006) and am only now getting "premium economy" without begging) but generally speaking I don't hate them. I probably dislike Continental more than United at this point.
I do however hate/deplore/despise/detest Orbitz.
Orbitz customer service is arguably the worst available on the free market today...worse than Sprint, Cingular, AT&T, United and almost any entity I can think of. And yet, like a trained chimp I have continued to buy tickets from them. Contrary to popular belief I do have lots of great consumer experiences (for example T-mobile customer service has been fantastic even if the network isn't, and New Balance will let you return/exchange pretty much anything which leads to huge customer loyalty)--I guess I am just quick to the trigger on the negative experiences as I am in a services business.
I fly a fair bit...I probably could have done more but most of my trips over the last 3 months were about a week long. Since November 9 I have been on the following flights:
Continental: SF-->Newark-->London-->Paris (back to SF)
United: SF-->Newark (roundtrip)
AmericaWest: SF-->Kansas City (roundtrip)
United: SF-->Dulles-->Newark (back to SF)
Continental: SF-->Newark (roundtrip)
United: SF-->Tokyo (roundtrip)
Back to Orbitz...it's mind boggling that a company that sells +90% of its tickets online would require you to call in to make a change. And then they charge you for it---that is, if they are willing to entertain your request.
After fighting my way past the phone tree Kraken (3 minutes) I got someone on the line. My change request was pretty simple, I just wanted to change the days of the flights--and I gave the rep a range of one month to make it happen. Instead my rep offered to take my existing ticket and change it from non-stop to having connections. On the same days. Then put me on hold (4 minutes.) Then he came back and told me that there were no flights available, so I pulled up their website and gave him a list of 6 that were clearly there but he claimed he couldn't put me on them even if I paid more (4 minutes.) Then he put me on hold (2 minutes.) I then asked for a supervisor. Then he put me on hold (4 minutes.) My rep finally came back and told me "The supervisor isn't going to tell you anything different."
Amazing...maybe my reputation precedes me? I swear they know it's me and assign the slow talker with the fat-tongue to answer the phone.
Twenty-two minutes later (17 minutes on hold) I gave up without changing my flight dates and I guess I will have credit with American (my least likely candidate to fly out of SFO) and will have to repurchase. I won't pretend that I read all the fine print, but my tickets are basically in Orbitz prison with American Airlines (do I blame AA too? Not sure).
Ranting aside, and to those of us that follow a support business model--we must remember that without customers we have no business. The other thing that upsets is that Orbitz is a big Linux shop and I like to support OSS users where possible.
Posted by Dave Rosenberg on February 1, 2007 11:40 AM
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EXPEDIA is even worse. They tried to scam me (1,254.95 U$D). Click on my name to read about my case.
It seems all travels sites are doing the same.
Posted by: John at February 4, 2007 02:11 PMwell,here's one for the record books for orbitz; i purchased two tickets at 9:40 pm this evening. My screen showed that my purchase was complete. As I was getting ready to email my itinerary to my daughter, a new screen came up saying my flights were cancelled. I immediately contacted the orbitz customer service number. I spent the next 1 hour with an agent in Manilla putting me on hold every two minutes so he could call Spirit because he "had to find out why Spirit cancelled my flights". After an hour of this, I asked for the number to spirit and my reservation number with spirit. I got through to the spririt agent in about 20 minutes and told him what the orbitz agent told me. He chuckled, told me that I had an unconfirmed reservation at Spirit but that orbitz had failed to purchase the ticket. He explained that very often, orbitz will advertise a fare that they have not negotiated for with the carrier. The web customer buys the ticket on line and pays orbitz, but then orbitz fails to purchase the ticket unless and until it can negotiate the same fare with the carrier. if they can't, orbitz tells you that the carrier cancelled the flight. The Spirit agent confirmed that my flights were avaiable with available seats. I then called orbitz back at around 11:05 p.m. I demanded to speak to a supervisor in the US. I was told that Orbitz has no agents in the US and then the agent insisted that she try to help me. She also tried to tell me that she needed to call spirit to see why they cancelled the flight. I told her that this was untrue becaue the spirit agent had just verified the flight and I again demanded to speak to a supervisor. She put me on hold to go and "look for a supervisor". It is now 11:50 p.m.and I am still on hold!
Does anyone have a number of a US location for orbitz?
Posted by: shari at February 13, 2007 08:49 PMAny idea how to get past the "use a ticket with in 1 year or lose it"? My husband and I purchased 2 tickets (Am. Airlines/Expedia)which needed to be used by 5/30/07 which we were going to use this spring; however I was just informed that I can't take vacation because of some surgery my boss is going to have that will keep him away from the office for 6-8 weeks. I'm not having much luck with either Expedia or American Airlines.
Posted by: Beth Saviano at March 1, 2007 07:42 AMCheck with if the rule of your ticket states "must commence travel within 1 year from orig date of ticket issuance" or "must reissue within 1 year from orig date of ticket issuance" , if your tickets' rules says the latter, it means you can book the ticket for a much later date but you must have them exchanged or reissued within 1 year from the date of ticket issuance. - I am a travel agent.
Posted by: deusdetonto at April 30, 2007 11:25 AM
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