yyll

I checked my credit card statement today and it looks like MH secretly removed the transaction or something...the payment stayed as "pending" for three days and now has completely disappeared. I did file a DoT complaint and perhaps MH did it in response to the complaint to get off the hook. In the whole course I never received any communications from MH and was unable to get a live person from cheaptickets. Bad experience.

yyll

It's not true that everyone knew this was a mistake. I first found this fare on itamatrix and genuinely thought this was some kind of promotion by MH to introduce a new route. I scrambled to book it because I thought it would be gone soon due to popular demand, not pricing error. In fact pricing error never crossed my mind because this wasn't even that great of a deal to begin with (probably just $200 less than regular fare on other airlines with one stop). I don't think the way I'm treated by MH is fair at all.

PbodyPhoto

This fare is hardly an obvious pricing error. I have seen other airlines price this (or very similar West Coast to Asia) routes at around $650 before and those are full mileage earning fares. A $550 fare that doesn't credit 100% to most programs is hardly a majorly obvious pricing error.

antonius66

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 4.4.2; SM-G900V Build/KOT49H) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/35.0.1916.141 Mobile Safari/537.36)

Anyone who thinks 532-562 west coast to hkg is a clear mistake price needs to put down the bottle. This is a 0-50% mileage earning fare that is, as stated, about 100-200 less than other normal "good fares". I paid 590 last time i went to hkg. This is HARDLY a mistake and arguing it was "clear" is ludicrous. No one owes mh or cheap tickets or anyone to be "let off the hook" when you offer, sell, charge and issue confirmations and ticket numbers and then try and cancel a week later.

puisun88

This was the DOT response I received this morning:

"Dear Mr. Lee

Thank you for your correspondence regarding the reservation you made with Cheaptickets for travel on Malaysia Airlines.

We are investigating the circumstances you described. If you have evidence that your credit card was charged, please send us this information as soon as possible. Please note that an itinerary or "confirmation for reservation" is not evidence that your credit card was charged.

We will forward your complaint to the airline and will ask the company to respond directly to you. If you need to contact our analyst assigned to your case, you may leave a telephone message on our Aviation Consumer line at 202-366-2220 or respond back to this email. Please include your name and case number (see above). We will make every effort to reply to your message within one business day.

We have entered your complaint in our computerized industry monitoring system, and it will be counted among the number of complaints filed against this airline in our monthly Air Travel Consumer Report. This report allows consumers and air travel companies to compare the complaint records of individual airlines and tour operators. The data in this report also serve as a basis for rulemaking, legislation and research. Consumer information for air travelers, including the Air Travel Consumer Report and our pamphlet Fly-Rights, a Consumer's Guide to Air Travel, can be found on our website, www.dot.gov/airconsumer. Thank you for taking the time to contact us"

puisun88

This was a follow up email from Cheaptickets after I refused their offer of a plain refund.

"Dear Mr. Lee,

We tried calling you at the number provided in your account however; you were not available at the time of our call. Please provide us your most accessible phone number and the best time for us to reach you, so we can assist you further on your concern.

We have contacted the airlines however the only option they are offering is only refund. They will not provide any other flights with different carrier nor will provide any other reacommodations. Please call us back so we may process the refund anytime.

In case you have contacted us again and were able to speak with a supervisor, please disregard this email.

Thank you for booking with CheapTickets.

Sincerely,
Jenny"

TerryK

I highly doubt MH, or any third party, has ability to remove transaction from your bank. It is simply not possible. Looks to me that a charge was authorized but never posted. i.e. MH stopped ticketing process before it was completed and no ticket was ever issued. Do you have an eticket number (232xxx) from MH?

portishead

So are people with confirmed cheaptix itineraries and posted CC charges just waiting to see what happens? (Is cheaptix contacting people based on upcoming travel dates?)

Sounds like if one calls cheaptix, they will try to cancel and refund. And that some level of escalation is necessary to get the ticket properly set up with CX?

I'm trying to set up other parts of the trip, as well as get things squared away w/work, so I'd like to wrap this up.

Pyro717

My sister in-law received the itinerary change email from cheaptix yesterday. She called this morning and after 2.5 hours of getting transferred around they re-booked her outbound from SFO on a later CX flight and for the return, a JAL flight back with a stopover in Tokyo Haneda airport.

All along the way she was offered a refund and credit of $100 but she held out and a supervisor took care of it.

portishead

Are we entitled to be re-booked in nonstop flights on the same day as presently booked? Or are 1 stops ok?

yyll

It was authorized but I guess an invoice was never received from MH for it to be posted. That's the reason why it was in pending for several days but never posted as a completed transaction. I do have an e-ticket number which is probably generated automatically by a computer. Then someone found the mistake and manually stopped the processing. Anyway, it is no longer in my credit card's recent activity.

yyll

I also spoke to a cheaptickets supervisor today and he insisted no rebooking and just refund plus a $70 voucher. I wasted 2 hours at work trying to get through so in the end I gave up and accepted his offer. I'm kicking myself now thinking maybe I should've persisted after seeing your post...

Pyro717

I'm not sure what the regulations are, but they got her the same dates. Just half a day later in departure and a few hours longer on the return. She just called MH and they offered to put her on the 1am outbound, 1 day earlier than her original booking, but nothing they can do about the return.

I don't know what the policy was but she did get the run around for a long time. My original post was the short version. She was actually on the phone for 2 hours last night and then cheaptix operator said system crashed and she had to call back in the morning. She called in this morning and was on the phone for 2.5 hours with 5 different people until getting a supervisor that was concurrently on the phone with MH to rebook the tickets. She almost gave up but I just told her to follow what most people on the forum were saying about holding out for nothing less than flights.

JCM9608

Hi, folks.

I was only offered a refund and $100 voucher for future use (haha!) which is no consolation prize for the 7 hours on the phone I have spent with them, mostly hold time. However, the agent I was in contact with heard about my lack of luck with the other agents that I had been speaking with then worked out a deal with MH where I could fly SFO–>YVR–>NRT–>HKG. Or somewhere in Japan if not NRT. I would depart SFO on 9/3 and arrive in YVR, then depart 9/4 for NRT and arrive at 10:00PM or so in HKG. That’s 2 days of travel. Each way. 4 days. They said I could do the same routing on the way back and this would not cost me anything additional. They are basically using all of their partner airlines to make it happen. I should see if they have anything direct.

In any case, I declined. I don’t have 4 days to burn and when you have something like that, the lost luggage and delays/missed connections would not be worth it to me. I haven’t authorized the refund yet but I am looking to see about getting some travel vouchers for future use. Call me greedy, I don’t care, but $100 is not worth the nightmare this has been so far.
I have heard excuses like “fare filing issues”, “schedule changes”, “invalid routing”, “cheaptickets confirming without having confirmed with CX”. It’s

Oh, and FYI…..This is what DOT had to say about it when I explained it in more detail with a gentleman named Douglas.
———-
In the United States, airline reservations, schedules, fares, seats, and mileage programs are not regulated by the Federal government, but are controlled by the airline independently (Airline Deregulation Act of 1978). When you purchase an airline ticket from a travel agency, or directly from an airline, you are agreeing to the Airline Contract of Carriage. In the contract of carriage, “airlines” do not guarantee their schedules, or assume liability for damages. . I have provided a link to your airline contract for you convenience. I hope this information is helpful.
In your case, you are agreeing to two separate contracts, (1) Cheap Tickets Contract, and the Airline Contract of Carriage. If CheapTix issues you ETickets on Malaysia Airlines ticket stock, using a codeshare partner Cathay Pacific (Operating Carrier), you should have an airline ticket number (or you do not hold confirmed airline tickets). If you paid your money to Cheap Tickets, I would demand confirmed airline tickets, with ticket numbers, or ask for a refund.
Airline schedules, and seats are never guaranteed by “airlines” and can, and do change.
Cheap Tickets Contract of Carriage
http://www.cheaptickets.com/info/win...sAndConditions


Read more: http://www.theflightdeal.com/2014/08...#ixzz3BAeVKkFj

TerryK

As long as you have an eticket number, you are good. MH is probably late in processing credit charge and stopped it before it was posted.