Complaint Review: Hawaiian Airlines - Honolulu Hawaii

On 12/03/2008, I booked a round trip to Hawaii from Portland OR. I did that at that time ONLY because my wife and I were offered $100 e-certificates which claimed it was good for interisland travel. So the combination of the fare and the certificate made the trip work for us. After booking the trip I was told by the web site that the certificate would appear in my account in about ten days.

On 12/15/08 I was trying to book some interisland flights and make use of the e-certificate. This is where I started becoming unhappy about Hawaiian Airlines.

There was no information available to see how to apply the e-certificate. This is rip off #1. They give a rebate but don't let you use it or make it very hard to use.

I could not find out the terms and conditions of the e-certificate was ; when I clicked on the link for "terms and conditions" for these certificates, nothing happened. The bottom line is that I received no info. I attempted this on two different computers with were different security systems so it was not a problem with just one computer.

So on 12/15/08 I called the Hawaiian Airlines customer service and they transferred me to their web site technical service (or was it their rebate scam manager? ) and I was told "after you book your trip your e-certificate will automatically apply". After more attempts to book flights and use the certificate I gave up and went to bed. Note that she did not tell me I had to book a round trip interisland trip to use the e-certificate as I later found out. As I said, the web site does not show the terms and conditions and appears to be designed to work as such.

On 12/16/08 I attempted several times to book interisland flights and use the e-certificate without having the web site work as expected . So going on what the Hawaiian Airlines customer service rep in the Philippines told me, "book it and the e-certificate will apply" I booked a trip for Jan 16th and confirmed as the certificate was to be applied later.

So I booked what I thought was a flight on JAN16th afternoon and another flight on a deferent day in the afternoon. This is where we get into scam #2. I believe that I booked the flights as required for Jan 16 2009. I believe that is what I confirmed on my screen, what was printed was the wrong info.

What printed out was a flight for the same day leaving 3 minutes after the booking time and returning that same day when I am 3500 miles away. That is scam #3. They cannot sell something in the past. I think this is credit card fraud, if not then it should be.

So after all of this hassle on your web site I believe I made a reservation for Jan 16th and saw that on my screen and confirmed it but later when I called your rep today to find out why the e-certificate was not applied I was told. that the flight was for yesterday. And they would not refund my credit card that was scam #4. Refusal to refund in a case of what was at worse an obvious mistake on my part due to what appears to be a deliberate attempt to make it difficult to use the e-certificates. All of this caused no actual loss to the company (the plane they said I booked on was already closed and on the departure runway they could not have sold the seats anyway.

Philg

Kelso, Washington

U.S.A.