gottaluvNW

Orbitz insists that my fully flexible / refundable ticket - if cancelled - will allow me to get the fare back but not the $1000+ of taxes on the ticket.
What kind of nonsense are they spewing out? And why?

Are they trying to keep this in their pockets?
Or am I missing another dimension of the situation in front of me?

Clearly this is nonsense...

This is a full fare Emirates business class ticket that allows for a full refund without penalties.
This was ALSO confirmed a few hours after ticketing by Orbitz.
One just tires of their stupidity - but since this has happened to me a couple of times with Orbitz already (other airlines - same situation - after pressing the agents - they finally relented and gave me the full refund...) I am wondering if this is a scam perpetuated by the OTA.

Do others have a similar experience to share?

ISTFlyer

The Expedia Group ( who owns Orbitz ) and most online travel agencies would hire the cheapest possible employees possible with very limited training ( mostly focused on sales rather than customer service ) as mostly, their audience is those who book through them as they could compare different airlines' prices or that think that they would have a huge saving bundling flight and hotel at the same time.

I doubt most of their agents even know how to interpret fare rules and know the definition of MPM, advance purchase requirements, combinability and any terms that a knowledgable ticketing agent and a FlyerTalk'er would know.

I don't think that they are trying to keep your money but I would certainly associate this situation to their staffing scheme where your case was likely escalated to someone more senior at a later stage. Those agents are also told not to take risks which could involve financial loss to the company ( as they would be billed by the airline for any financial loss/damage ), they would not press the button without being 100% sure as they could risk their jobs.

I have heard multiple cases from my friends, colleagues, community about similar stories regarding Expedia Group; some of them use them or their affiliates because their bank awards them additional mileage for booking through their travel portal and some is required to use them for corporate travel as the corporate travel platform that their employer requires to book from is managed by Expedia. Most of the time, when something more complex is required such as recalculating the fare difference after a partial flown itinerary based on historical fares or handling a change on an itinerary where a mileage upgrade has been applied, they usually receive a very poor service. Some other cases that I have heard is that they sometimes refuse to follow airlines' own schedule change policies when there is a cancellation such as moving dates to a future date or changing the routing if the ticketing airline permits it.

It's Expedia's own decision to hire cheaper outsourced employees in the Philippines, India, etc... who are told to escalate the situation to their superiors if it's something that they can't handle and there is nothing that we could do on that.

Since you mentioned that you are a repetitive customer despite multiple bad service occasions, my suggestion would be to either consider booking direct with the airline, or find a reputable travel agent that you could trust.

gottaluvNW

An update on this topic.

The first time I requested the refund - Orbitz wanted to keep aside $1000+ in taxes on the tickets and refund the balance.
Their position: taxes are non refundable per airline rules.

When I pressed and pressed - a supervisor finally relented.
His position: Orbitz will set up an airline refund of everything except about $100 - according to him this was the tax amount.
And as a one time courtesy, this $100 approx will be refunded separately by Orbitz.

I understand the previous FTer's position of badly trained and raw phone agents - but I would bet a dollar that there is something fishy as well...

Anyway, I managed to get my full refund. Future shoppers: beware...

wharvey

Curious.. what made you use a 3rd party site instead of the airline directly?

Was the cost different that great?

gottaluvNW

I used Orbitz because I knew I would likely need to cancel the tickets thanks to uncertain plans.

Had I booked via the airline site directly, I would have had to pay in the local currency and if refunded, I could be subject to the fluctuations between the local currency and the dollar (my credit card is USD denominated.)
I wished not to take a chance on this...

gottaluvNW

Update:

Yet again Orbitz insisted on a different ticket that they will hold back partial taxes on a fully refundable ticket (the fully refundable fare was verified by British Airways, BTW - I called them directly too.)
I could not be bothered to argue about a few bucks and relented.
Orbitz promptly refunded everything (original charge by BA, refund on CC also by BA) sans the $40 or so of "non refundable" taxes.

Now ready to bet a bit more than a dollar that this is Orbitz's way of clawing back cash to fund their call center operations.
Absolutely no way this is a legit hold back of taxes by the OTA.

seawolf

Some taxes are non refundable but they are rare.

SK AAR

Wow, I would certainly not book with an OTA for this (insignificant) reason. Could also have worked in your favor if USD exchange rate decreased.

You probably knew that cancelling a ticket and getting a full refund from an OTA was not going to be easy... (in reality you have made them spend time and made the reservation, payments etc for nothing when you insist on a full refund). Anyway, I suppose a lesson learned from this...