AdamPanama

I rarely gripe about a carrier, but when it comes to being completely inoperative and hopless, Copa takes the cake. Their inflight, once you actually get on a plane, isn't bad. It's better than US carriers, and fairly reliable. But everything else about them, from using their website to service failure recovery is worse than abysmal. Just today I tried to buy a ticket online using miles. Everything goes smoothly, until the payment page. When I clicked to pay, the page returned a blank form, as if I'd never filled out the payment details. and the credit card company did not report any attempt to bill. But I then got an automated email from them saying that I'd used mileage, and sure enough, the account showed a deduction of 40,000 miles for a ticket that was never paid for or issued. So I tried to contact their service center, which is always extremely busy (including for Prefer members) during weekdays, but closed on Sundays. And, of course, their reservations people won't touch the matter because it is a frequent flyer mileage matter. Copa must be the only carrier I know of that throws non-working web-pages online without adequate testing when there are obvious bugs in the system. Far be it from simply putting "under construction" and referring customers to a phone number, Copa makes you go through all the motions of using the web page as if it worked, actually deducts the mileage from your account, and only after you discover that it is completely useless to continue, then you have to find the time to call during a weekday and if you're lucky you get someone with the proper training, knowledge, and authority to deal with a simple matter. Pathetic...