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Airfare.com - Wholesale Travel Center Charged extra for paper airline ticket, issued e-ticket and would not refund the money charged for paper ticket Bethesda Maryland
My wife bought airline tickets through Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center. The web site gave her a quote and stated she had to pay $20.00 extra to have paper tickets sent via FedEx. We did not want to pay extra for paper tickets but the site did not offer the option for an e-ticket. After waiting over a week for the tickets she called Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center, she was told the tickets were issued as electronic tickets. When she inquired about getting a refund for the paper ticket she was told they would not refund the money because they were charged more than the $20.00 by the airlines for the e-ticket.
I called Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center back and at first was hung up on by a customer service agent. When I called back I spoke to Tom Ext. #313 who told me I had to email customer service with my complaint. I asked Tom why do I have to email costumer service when I am speaking to customer service? He said he did not know, that's just how it's done. I told Tom I would not email customer service just so I can get the run around I wanted to get it resolved now. Tom said he would transfer me to accounting because he could not do anything. Tom put me on hold for 5 minutes. When someone finally picked up the line I asked if this was accounting. The person on the other end said his name was Andy Ext.#214 and he was a supervisor with customer service.
I explained the situation to Andy who told me he knows all about my case. Andy then proceeded to explain to me what happened after we purchased our ticket and received our receipt and confirmation from Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center which stated we were being charged "$20.00 to have tickets sent to you via FedEx". Andy spent a great deal of time explaining to me how air travel works and what happens at the gate and with security and rambled on about things I have a great deal of personal knowledge of because I have traveled a lot in the past. Andy told me the paper ticket charge was for our infant because he did not have a seat and would be traveling in our lap. Andy told me things have changed recently and airport security now requires all parties traveling together with the same itinerary must have the same type of ticket and the airlines charged him more than $20.00 to issue a e-ticket for the infant.
After Andy explained in length about his problems with the airlines I asked Andy a question. Did this change just happen or has it been going on for a while now. Andy told me this change happened a while ago but the systems are not updated yet.
Then it was my turn. I explained that we have a receipt and confirmation. This is a contract between two parties and the contract explains what responsibilities each party has agreed to. We pay for a service they provide the service. In the receipt it clearly states what the $20.00 fee is being charged for. Since they are not providing that service we want our money refunded for that service. I told Andy although I feel bad for him about his problems with the airlines, he has known about these changes and it was not a surprise to him. If we had been informed in the beginning about the exact and real charges Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center would be charging us we could have made the choice of what ticket agency to go with and been happy to pay any charges we were informed of up front. As it is his dispute with the airlines is his problem, my problem is I am being charged for a service I am not receiving and want the money refunded. Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center can update their website to reflect the changes and inform the costumer. Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center decided they would rather mislead the costumer.
I explained to Andy at Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center what happens after we pay for our tickets and enter into a contract with them is just part of doing business and what he has to pay is the cost of doing business especially if he knew in advance this would occur. I told Andy I just refunded customer money for a product she was not happy with, even though I did not manufacture the product and have nothing to do with the performance of the product. I paid $58.00 for the product and after I refunded her the money I lost $44.00, that's part and cost of doing business and keeping a good name in the community.
I think Andy understood where I was coming from but at the end of the conversation he told me "we are not going to refund the money"!
I am sure this company is doing this to other customers and refusing to issue a refund for services they agreed to provide but do not provide.
The $20.00 is not going to break us but companies can not do business this way. If you know about something that will affect how you do business with a customer than you have the obligation to inform the customer UP FRONT and follow through with your promise to deliver a service.
Airfare.com AKA Wholesale Travel Center State of Maryland ID # ADR99
Brian
Evanston, Illinois
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Special Operations Team
Bethesda,Maryland,
United States of America
Company Response
#2UPDATE Employee
Fri, July 30, 2010
Since 1979, Airfare.com parent company has been dedicated to accommodating travelers with top value airfare made possible by discounted airline consolidation. In 1995, we became the first airline discounter to go online. Over this period of time, airfare.com has continually strived to provide world-class customer service and affordable airfare prices. We handle hundreds of thousands reservations a year and have dealt with millions of different transactions since our company has been in business. We are a fully bonded travel company, a verified merchant of authorize.net, an ARC appointed member of ASTA, a member of IATAN, Visa Verified, a member of Master Card Secure Code, Diners Club International, Discover Card Financial Services, American Express, and all bookings are Secured by GeoTrust Secure Socket Layer.
It is Airfare.coms belief that providing world-class customer service is a top priority. We are committed to answering all questions and handling all issues. All of our agents are thoroughly trained to handle all of our travelers needs. In the interest of providing effective and timely service to our travelers, airfare.com does utilize off-shore call center services to supplement our U.S. team. Airfare.com takes customer feedback very seriously and has enacted a major overhaul of the customer service department beginning in July, 2010. Airfare.com is committed to our practice of providing out clients with world class customer service
Airfare.com is a fully bonded travel company that follows all rules/restrictions placed upon us. Our company culture also insists upon exceeding customer expectations by looking for every avenue to assist our customers. If you have any comments, questions and/or concerns please feel free to contact our Special Operations team at feedback@airfare.com. This team is specially dedicated to working diligently to resolve every customer concern.