Originally Posted by itsme

Is there a Travelocity Sucks thread somewhere here on FT? If not, maybe this will be the start of one. "Caveat emptor" isn't strong enough where Travelocity isn't concerned, it should be B-E-W-A-R-E. Here's the experience I just had with them this past week.

Procrastinated about buying a ticket to ORD, and when finally went to buy one 7 days out, the fares on UA had jumped from $167 to $600?! Looked at Travelocity, though, and saw that I could ticket through them at $216. Hit "select," then gave them my AmEx details, and within the hour had an email confirmation from Travocity of my UA flights, that email confirmation noting, "We have charged your American Express account xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-1234 $216." Thought nothing more of the matter until late Saturday night, when I called UA to see about my seat assignment for my flight in the morning at 7:54AM. To my great surprise and alarm, UA told me that Travelocity had cancelled me out days before and I didn't have a ticket?!

I was mega-distressed that I was supposed to be leaving the house in another 8 hours or so, headed for a professional meeting, and here I was without a ticket, a number of flights sold out, and the prospect of paying 3x what I thought it was to cost me.

Called Travelocity and after 1/2 hour on the phone with "Martin" in their foreign call center (India) trying to understand him and hold for stretches at a time, I learned that Travelocity had never purchased my ticket, that they hadn't be able to do it at the price they contracted with me for, so simply canceled the "reservation" that had been made. And though they had given me my flight details, including the UA record locater, and told me my card had been charged $216, it wasn't so, or at least not exactly so. According to AmEx, Travelocity had been given a total of $216 in approvals, $7 for themselves and $199 for UA, but never went further, so never in fact charged.

It turns out that two days after I purchased online through them, Travelocity tried to contact me. Though they had my email address and had used it to confirm the booking, they sent no "correction" by email. Instead, they left a message on my cell phone directing me to call Travelocity. (Glad I didn't get that call, nor pick up the voicemail until when I did, which is after I learned of this train wreck. Had I call them, I expect I would have been simply SOL, with them insisting that they didn't have to go through with the sale as originally contracted.) Anyway, after a good deal of browbeating them with threats of what I would do if they didn't make good on our deal, they went ahead and purchased from United the original flights I was to be on. (They wanted to send me back home on US with a change of planes in LGA adding 2hours over what it was to be on UA, but I would not let them. So what if there ticketing department was telling this supervisor that that was the best they would do for me, I was not compromising with them.)

So, in the end, I got my flights for the amount I was supposed to pay, but only after >1 hour on the phone arguing it with them. And if I hadn't checked from home that night before heading to the airport in the AM, I would have been screwed royally.

This experience with Travelocity was more than enough for me. I don't know why anyone else would do business with a company like this one, when there is so little recourse when things screw up. Booking directly with UA, I have much, much more security and am able to reach real people, not the "Martin" and "Mark" who I had to beat up to get them to do the right thing. BEWARE, TRAVELOCITY SUCKS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.