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Linda of Columbus OH (06/17/08)
i purchased a ticket through them and they were very unhelpful. i purchased a ticket to johannesburg but because United airlines cancelled an airline (air canada), there was a long line and delayed my check in time. When i called airfare.com, they gave me the run around. i called more than 20 times and spent the whole day on the phone.
When i asked for a sup, the put me through the IVR,t hen i called again and when i asked the gentleman his name, he put me through the automated system again. I ve had the worst experience with these people and i hope no-one buys tickets from them again.
they threatned that i'll lose my $2000. I m filing a dispute with the BBB and my bank.
Avi of Brooklyn NY (05/09/08)
They messed up my ticket, issued it to the wrong name then changed it incorrectly, and forced me to fill out and fax these ridiculous forms each time after spending hours waiting to speak to people that dont speak english!!!! The customer service is horrific!!! you can wait on the phone in a que for an hour only to be disconnected when you reach position one!!!!! I had to spend hours on the phone with them to fix their mistake and they still insisted on charging my credit card $350!!
Maggie of Rowlett TX (05/03/08)
5/2/08 i bought tickets for an up coming flight to Africa with my 2 kids under 10 yrs old early this morning,the wep site never give me an option to put child or adult,which caused me to pay full adult fee for kids under 10yrs old.Immediately,i tried contacting the agency but for hours all thru the day,a person answered but hanged up on me and than at approx 6:30 pm a rep called David and rudely let me know unfortunately in order for me to adjust the price from adult to child i would have to cancel what was issued to me and pay $100 for each ticket,than go back on the web and get issued new tickets and this time be carefull because avery mess that happens will cost me.
I was in shock and am still in shock,because despite the cost of the tickets of a total of $4293.02 it occured to me i gotten my self with the wrong company. I asked to speak to manager but David said call back on monday,dsepite they advise of 24hrs service.
cost of flight fee for kids the same as an adult.The demeaning feeling i got for being stupid of making this mistake,which they web site didn't offer,hours of time and phone cost of calling all day and waiting on hold over and over and on set headacher with physicaly tried and sick to my stomach of this matter.
Ankush of Springfield OR (04/16/08)
we bought a single ticket for $ 660.40 on 4/4/08. our checking account was charged twice on that day, the account overdrew, and we were faced with a $50 penalty from our bank for no fault of ours. next day the second charge was refunded from airfare.com. we thought it was all resolved at this point. 8 days later, on 4/11, a third charge for 660.40 now shows up on our account, and it overdraws once again, slapping on another $25 overdraw fee from our bank.
calling airfare.com is an experience of its own. everyone answers with a strange eastern europian accent, and everyone is quite rude. after talking to dozens of people after holding for hours. after faxing my bank statement a few times. we finally hear back from 'Ezy' saying she has refunded the fraudulent third charge (not a single apology so far). we wait a day, for the money to show up in our checking account, then called again, and finally had a chance to speak to Ezy, she was extremely rude, and had such a strong accent, it was very difficult to understand what she was saying. she said the money has been refunded from their end, and it will take up to a week to show up in our account!
not only were each of the agents i spoke with so far on the phone extremely rude, none of them even apologized for their mess up, one of them even tried to blame me and my bank for creating additional phony transactions!
Tia of Kawaguchi Shi Saitama-Ken OTHER (02/28/08)
Airfare.com is a really shady company. In the final stage of purchase, they told me I would have to pay an additional $30 for authorization purposes because the passenger's name does not match the name on the credit card. It said I would have to fax in authorization. I had never heard of this when purchasing a ticket online, but I was worried about losing the fare so I agreed. However, at the end of the transaction, I did not know if I had in fact purchased a ticket, or if I had only made a reservation. Very stressful. To make matters worse, I discovered that I put the wrong last name for the passenger. (Unbeknown to me, my friend whose ticket I was buying for my wedding had changed her husband's last name to her middle name after her divorce.) Immediately, I tried contacting the agency. I live in Japan and every call is very expensive, but every time I was put on hold and was treated rudely by men with thick accents who seemed to take pleasure in disconnecting me. When I did speak to someone, they acted like I was stupid for being worried that I would be charged for changing the name. He told me repeatedly that I had to first send authorization and that then, and only then, I could simply call the airline--and that they would simply change the name. Of course, when I asked to speak to a manager, I was disconnected. When I contacted the airline--both in Japan and in the U.S.--they told me it's the agency who has to change the name. If the airline changes the name, they charge $350. Airfare.com's website also says that they charge $350 for changes.
I spent hours on the phone making international phone calls. Fortunately, I never sent in authorization, and so I imagine that is what saved me from having my credit card charged. I was also finally able to cancel the reservation through the airline. The incident caused me a tremendous amount of stress and headache. I was worried sick about airfare.com still charging my credit card. As a final precaution, I reported my credit card as stolen. I am fortunate that I was able to read other people's experiences with this company. I hope other people will read my experience before sending this company any credit card information. They are really untrustworthy.
Hayley of Oakmont PA (07/31/07)
I attempted, several times, to purchase a ticket to Japan from Airfare.com. I was trying to get a flight that had a shorter layover time, but every time I selected the flight that was 18 hours it would tell me that it was sorry, but due to the fluctuations in the airline business, it could not let me have that flight. FINALLY, I resolved to purchase a flight that was 20 hours in length, and lo and behold, I was able to purchase it.
I have no idea why it would perform a search, give me certain results and then literally 2 seconds later tell me that I am unable to purchase it.
They were apparently having a problem with my credit card, so I called them and was told, by a very thickly accented person, to fax in a credit card authorization form. I resolved to do this, though I thought it seemed odd and also a waste of my time to do so after I was back from vacation, as bed and breakfasts don't usually have fax machines for guests to use.
A couple days later I checked my account and I had been charged twice, even though I only purchased one ticket. I responded to their e-mail with my confirmation number on it telling them about the mistake, expecting a response in the normal 1-2 business days. When I received no such reply, I attempted to call their 1-800#, which was busy. I have never, in my entire life, encountered a busy 1-800#. They have no hold system or phone tree of any sort. I called their land line and got a busy message that said all circuits are full , please call again later.
After calling 15 times, 5 to the 1-800# and 10 times to the land line, at my own expense, I finally got someone. It was impossible to understand him and he said something to the effect of the charge will go away. When asked if it didn't, he said I had to fax them yet a different form, something about a bank statement. This part made no sense to me, why would I have to give them paperwork to fix a simple oversight? It's their fault, not mine.
Erhan of San Jose CA (07/10/07)
I bought my flight ticket from airfare.com. The paper ticket that they sent me (which I booked online through airfare.com website) was to leave SFO on Jul 13 at 11:15 am and arrive to Munich on Jul 14 10:40 am. Then my flight from Munich to Istanbul would leave on the same day at 11:20 am. Airfare.com sent me my paper ticket with this itinerary. Later they changed my flight from Munich to Istanbul without telling me anything or having my consent. They changed it such that I would leave Munich at 7:20 pm. They never sent me a paper ticket with this update and I'd have never known that they made this change if I haven't checked my reservation myself. With this itinerary change, I have to wait at Munich airport for more than 8 hours and arrive at my final destination Istanbul very late. This is very inconvenient. I contacted airfare.com customer service multiple times. they continuously blamed the airlines, they kept me on hold many times and even hung up the phone on me. They promised they will fix this and help me but they never did. I even contacted the airlines (both US airways and Lufthansa) on the phone as well as at the ticket counter at the airport. But since this is a paper ticket bought through the travel agent, they could not help me but direct me to the travel agent (airfare.com).
May of Baltimore MD (06/04/07)
I bought two tickets online using airfare.com. The first one was OK and I got my ticket last week by FEDEX. The second one, however, was intended to be for my sister. When I was going through the process of purchasing it online, an error occurred with the automatic feature for credit card information and it took away all my sister's personal information including her name and the mailing address. As a result, a second ticket was issued under my name for the same travel dates, times and destinations. I called the agency right away and they first told me they will try to change the name. It was a Saturday. So, I then called them on Monday and they asked me to fax a change form to change the name. After I did that, the agent told me: We cannot change the name!! and also that the ticket is not refundable but that he will try his best to get it refunded by contacting the Airline, mainly Alitalia. So, it has been three weeks now and each time I call them, they barely give any response back about what they are doing with my issue and when I expect to hear back from them regarding at least a prospect for a refund. Now, the ticket has been cancelled and I am still unsure whether I am getting my money back or not. I contacted the better business bureau of Washington DC who also contacted the agency. The response I got from the agency was cold and rude and really nothing new. I also contacted the visa card and they were more reassuring. This my last card to play but I still think I need to pursue this further because it looks like this agency has had many complaints in the past.
The consequence is that I paid 1450 dollars for an additional airline ticke that neither me nor my sister can use, since it is under my name along with another ticket with flights departing and coming back at the same time.
James of West Hartford CT (03/13/07)
After incurring an unusually high $200 original change fee due to a date keyboard error that I discovered within 5 minutes of making my original reservations made in mid December, on Feb 4th I had a serious accident requiring extensive surgery to my leg and shoulder forcing my cancellation of our Mar 21 flight to Japan. I immediately notified Airfare.com of my situation (apparently the booked airline, United in this case, cannot issue credits for any airfare.com initiated tickets). I then provided extensive documentation requested by Airfare.com, and attempted to contact them on multiple occasions in writing.
I have received no response to my multiple requests for their promised partial (original cost less $350/ticket) credit for my cancelled tickets. Without a refund or a credit we have lost over $2000 we paid to Airfare.com for our original tickets.
Raquel of Orange CA (3/18/05):
I booked an air ticket online with Airfare.com. Reading through all the terms and conditions, it was a non-refundable but changeable ticket with a $350 change fees. I even spoke to the Reservation personnel before booking. Due to unforeseen circumstances, I had to travel later. I was denied for any change by the Ticket Dept.
I tried talking to them many times, and was repeatedly told that I can make changes as long as i) I paid the $350 change fees, ii) I make the changes before my flying date. Which, I fulfilled the requirements. Later, I spoke with the IT guy to show me the particular webpage that stated no changes can be made to my ticket, and he said there is no such rule. And he added that "They have been in business since 1979, and it is their policy to allow changes on air ticket as long as I fulfilled the requirements."
Yesterday, the same guy forwarded me the webpage that wrote "ALL TICKETS TO ASIA ARE NON-CHANGABLE." I did not see this statement at all when I placed my order. These people whom I spoke with, they clearly knew I was flying to Asia. No one mentioned about such rule. I feel my consumer rights were violated and the company had no intention to change my ticket initially. I am not only paranoid but I feel so cheated.
I have spent so much time and effort speaking with these people. On top of that, the toll free line was always busy, and I had wasted so much day-time minute waiting to speak with somebody. Once, after waiting patiently for 2 hours, my call was picked up, but someone hung up on me. That was annoying. I now have to spend at least $1000 more to get the same reservation through another agent. This kind of unethical business should be stopped and people should be told the truth. I repent having gone to this agency for my travel needs.
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