Songdoc

Greetings from Kauai. I'll soon be posting all about the good stuff. But here's how I recommend that you do NOT spend your time in Kauai.

After searching extensively for the itinerary with the fewest and shortest layovers, I booked my partner a flight on Hawaiian Air through Orbitz to go from Kauai (LIH) to Nashville (BNA).
A few days ago I received an email notifying me of a change in the itinerary. They have added a FIVE HOUR layover to his schedule. It also means leaving Princeville by 4:30AM to make the flight.

I spent THREE aggravating hours on the phone with Orbitz and Hawaiian Air (four separate calls). Hawaiian Air says that since Orbitz approved the change to the itinerary—any additional changes would incur a fee—plus the new, higher price difference. Orbitz says they never “approved” the change; they were simply notified of it, and forwarded the info to me. I received sympathy, but was told that they are bound by Hawaiian Airlines’ rules.

There are no equivalent (or even close) options on Hawaiian Air. But, an almost identical itinerary to the one I booked is available at a lower price flying Alaska Air/American. I feel I deserve a full refund so I can book an itinerary equivalent to the one I reserved. After all, I didn’t request to make this change. How can they arbitrarily make such a drastic change—and then say I’m stuck with it?

The best Hawaiian Air will offer is a credit that can only be used by the person to whom the original ticket was issued—within one year. My partner will not be doing another trip to Hawaii in the next year—and HA doesn’t offer any flights originating in Nashville.

I’m simply incredulous that they can get away with this. Bear in mind that I spent extra money to get the original, preferred itinerary.

Does anyone have any suggestions? My only thought is to send letters to corporate at both Orbitz & HA. I refuse to ruin another day dealing with this on the phone. AGGHHHH!!!

suze

Well that just stinks

Do you think this is because of going thru Orbitz? Or you would have been in the same bad situation even dealing with HA directly?

tenthumbs

No suggestions, but I understand your frustration. I hope the rest of your trip was a good one!

suze

Songdoc, now ya got me nervous. Hopefully HA can manage to fly my plane (non-stop Seattle to Honolulu) in a timely manner on Saturday. I'm soooo sorry for your aggravation! What a way (NOT) to start your vacation. Sheez!!

tifa2276

Hi Songdoc - If you use twitter or facebook or some form of social media - find the pages for Hawaiian air and/or Orbitz. You can complain in a "public" forum - make sure you mention what happened and how neither orbitz or HA is doing anything to help. I found that they are much more receptive when poor feedback is posted for everyone to see. This happened to me on a flight before to Taiwan from NYC. Delta cancelled my flight 2 days before my trip. I went on twitter and found the Delta Assistance twitter feed and told them about their #epicfail. In about half an hour I was booked on a replacement flight on a partner airline without any costs whatsoever. I am not sure if this works in all cases but it's worth trying. Hope this helps!

dahdah

Wait til you see the baggage charges Hawaiin charges to platnum frequesnt fliers on their partner airlines. I am a lawyer and finally just gave up dealing with them

That said, contact the Hawaii Tourism Group at the State government level

spirobulldog

You booked thru Orbitz, so thats who you need to deal with, IMOP.

logandog

I always book directly with the airline.

POMAH

"I booked my partner a flight on Hawaiian Air"

Too often friends, boy/girlfriends, partners, homeboys, fiances etc. cancel themselves, break up, run away, and then the ticket buyer is left with the bill.

So just be careful whom you pay for.

My cousin's bride changed her mind 2 weeks before the wedding, she refused to give back the engagement ring too. Dining hall, caterers, photog were paid for.

kona514

Hi Songdoc,

I am headed to Kauai for the first time next Friday and I have always been inspired by your reports, so thank you.

I am a travel agent and deal with this issue on a regular basis. Since you purchased the ticket through Orbitz they are the ones that hold the power with your reservation.
With any airlines any type of schedule change more than 5 minutes must be reported to the traveler. For extreme schedule changes a traveler is sometimes given the option of a different flight or a refund.
I deal with Hawaiian Airlines daily and they are usually great to deal with if you book with them directly, when you book through another site ( Orbitz, Travelocity, etc) it's another story, they will "pass the buck"
I don't have a solution other than contacting Hawaiian's customer serve department and as well as Orbitz.
Unfortunately we are at the mercy of these airlines.

Songdoc

I posted a response thanking you all for your sympathy and more, but it didn't appear .

Kona -- I hope you have a fabulous time. Thanks for the nice comments about my reports. If you have any questions feel free to ask.

It's too beautiful out now for me to re-create the response. The beach is waiting! But had to share that I have just learned the power of social media. Wow!

I had also posted this on Fodor's Airline Travel Forum and received this response:

My name is Kristi, and I am part of the Orbitz Customer Relations Team. We want to learn more about your experience so that we can address the issue. Please email us at [email protected] and enter my name in the subject line, so that I can investigate further. Please include your Oribtz record locator in your correspondence.
Thank you for your patience, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

tenthumbs

Hope Kristi can help make it right, Songdoc. Enjoy the beach for those of us unfortunate enough NOT to be there!

Dukey1

You were going to post about "the good stuff".........

suze

go have some fun... RIGHT NOW! ;-)

jamie99

Good luck songdoc, hope Orbitz can help get this resolved.

I like to use Kayak to look up flights, then book direct with the airline. Kayak usually gives you this option, when you click on Select it gives you a choice normally of booking with the airline or with somewhere like cheaptickets, gives you the price for each booking agency, etc. That is what I did two months ago when booking my flight with Virgin America to Mexico.

Enjoy the beach and Kauai!

louistraveler5

Here's hoping Orbitz will fix this and also tell them they owe you three hours of paradise! That's so great you got a response through social media!

I can't wait to hear about the "good stuff"! It will get me through the next...35 days!!!!!!! I'm almost there, Songdoc! Can't wait set foot on that red dirt! Can't wait to be back at the Sealodge and on that North Shore!!!

lmhornet

Your mistake was to book through a middle man. Why in the world did you book through Orbitz rather than directly with the airline?

This is what you get when you book through middle men. I've never understood why anyone would want to chance the kind of complications that you describe. They offer no service whatever.

Songdoc

Hawaiian Air doesn't fly in or out of from BNA so there wasn't a choice but to book thru Orbitz -- as there would be multiple airlines in the itinerary. If that were not the case I would have booked through the airline. This combination of flights was not available on their website.

However, it honestly never crossed my mind that it would make any difference booking through a third-party. Live and learn.

But there is a happy ending. Orbitz got Hawaiian Air to refund my money. But this only happened after Orbitz' "social media" department contacted me after I posted this in the Airline Forum. The "regular" channels could not help. I have learned a valuable lesson!

tifa2276

Aha! I knew something like that would work! Companies hate bad feedback in public...tweets get retweeted and facebook/forum posts get a ton of views...I am glad they resolved this for you in the end.

Dayenu

Songdoc, unfortunately I read many complaints on Fodor's airline forum when flights are reserved through Orbitz.

I also read posts about "happy endings" - Orbitz reps do read the airline forum and reply with e-mail address, and most of them get resolved.