Is Vayama worth the risk?
 

I need to book an SFO-LHR round trip from June 2 to June 19.

Kayak has several flights listed from Vayama for < $1200. All of the actually legit companies (including the airlines) are at around ~$2500 for the same flights.

I've done some research on Vayama, and their reviews online are the worst I've ever seen for any company. Including things like multiple reports of having them charge people more than twice the advertised price without warning, which I suspect might happen in this case due to the huge price difference.

If it was only an extra hundred bucks or so, I wouldn't hesitate to skip over them and book with a real company. But $1300... dang.

What would you do?

Make sure the Vayama price includes all taxes and fees. I seem to remember them as one of the sites that has those as separate charges.

Use a credit card and make sure you get a ticket number which you verify with the airline.

ETA: you need to recheck Kayak. I'm seeing many flights for $1200 or so, even direct from the airlines.

Safe travels,

Doc

Are you sure? I'm seeing lots of results like this: http://imgur.com/sI8OXAd. (even after trying multiple VPNs and browsers to get around the notorious Kayak tracking nonsense)

Here's what I just got:

Yeah, those are all through Vayama, Webjet, etc. none of which have reviews that are favorable in the slightest. If you click on "Show Details", it should have the price on the airline for like twice the price.

Average rating for Vayama on Yelp and SiteJabber is 1*, with many posters wishing they could give zero stars.

There are some positive reviews. However, to use an example I've used before, even Charles Ponzi got some positive reviews in his time, as did Bernie Madoff. The best scams, as well as the most incompetent businesses, never screw over everyone.

OP answered his own question.

You can have all the legal protections you want, but if you don't have a valid BP, you aren't boarding the aircraft. Whether you can get your money back or recover the cost of that $5K walk-up ticket you had to buy sometime a year from now, is all a matter of risk tolerance.

Of course there are satisfied customers. Not everybody has a bad experience. Even some people who play Russian roulette walk away.

I've used Vayama a couple of times, without issue. Bottom line seems to be that, if there are no issues with your flight (i.e. changes, cancellations, etc.) it works pretty well, but if you get into a situation where Vayama has to do anything other that just issue the original ticket, it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

it's USD$1451 on air canada (shows up on matrix ita, searchable/bookable on air canada, premium economy N)

go for air canada itself? (transits through canada though, obviously)

(some reason the premium economy is cheaper than basic/flex economy.... gogogo book!
not all legs are on premium economy)

What are the odds you will need to change or cancel this reservation?

If you are confident that the odds are near zero, go ahead and book. Vayama is a legitimate agency, not a scam. They just have extremely poor service.

If there is any likelihood that you will want to modify the booking, then don't take the risk.

If that's not a big issue for you, I'm getting 1108$ from Oakland to London Gatwick with Norwegian (on the Dreamliner 787). You can book that flight directly on the airline's website or through Priceline.

Vayama is fine for point to point with no changes. If you need to change or refund the flight you are toast.

Taxes and fees can be a lot for LHR.

I wouldn't be so sure. We can all agree that Orbitz is a bit more trustworthy than Vayama. Nonetheless, Orbitz told me a couple weeks before my trip that my return flight got cancelled. I checked the airline's website and the flight's still on! They simply wiped out my booking on that flight for no reason and they're just making all sorts of ridiculous excuses. No flight changes/cancellations, whatsoever! Orbitz just simply cancelled my place.

What I want to know is, what made Kayak get in bed with these clowns Vayama?

Don't book on third-party websites unless there are truly extraordinary savings and you are willing to take real risks.

When things go fine, they are fine. When you need service is in IRROPS and that's when these places fall down and point the finger.

They aren't scammers, it's just lousy CS. That lousy CS can be a real mess when you are overseas when things go wrong.