Orbitz horror story on refund-AVOID ORBITZ.
 

Last summer my daughter and son-in-law made reservations on Orbitz on Delta to Zihuatantejo Mexico. a few months later Orbitz called and said they were book with an illegal connection time in Mexico City and they would have to go a day later or cancel the ticker for a full refund. They choose the refund and rebooked on Continental for the same day. We had already made a deposit on the house we were renting. Now Orbitz is saying no refund of their $1200 because Delta won't pay the refund. They are being offered a $300 voucher which they don't want or a flight they can take by August which can't happen because my daughter is pregnant. There is NO MAILING ADDRESS for Orbitz-all complaints are by phone and possibly e-mail. Their credit card company said they will look into this. Clearly they were given inaccurate information but Orbitz will not take responsibility, nor will Delta. They were also told several weeks ago that the refund was coming.
Does anyone know if there is a government agency that regulate Orbitz where complaints can be registered?

Department of Transportation.

Interesting line by Orbitz. Wonder if there was really an "illegal connection time" If there wasn't Delta won't refund Orbitz... Hmmm.. Do you have ANYTHING in writing? Or any detailed notes on who said what when?

When was this flight suppose to take place?

Better business bureau and your state Attorney General.

Also, copy whatever you have in writing from Orbitz and send a letter to the fraud department of your credit card.

This is what I found on BBB

500 W Madison St
Ste. 1000
Chicago, IL 60661-2559

Mr. Stephen Sedlak, Director,
Customer Relations - (312) 894-5000 or [email protected]

Thank you all. We will follow up with complaints to the agencies that you suggested. Unfortunately they have nothing in writing from Orbitz. They took the word of the person on the telephone when they rebooked.

They rebooked? Then you can send the print-outs of two itineraries with a note on the date, time, and the name of the person you spoke to!

I dealt with a VERY odd issue with Orbitz and emailed with someone - I will go back through posts and see what that email was. I will tell you as soon as I got that person involved the situation which was a nightmare was resolved.

Let me see what I can find.

Stephen Sedlak
Director, customer relations
[email protected]
(312) 416-0018

Adding - I had nothing in writing from Orbitz either - it was a nightmare of over 5,000 in lost tickets and being told that they had rebooked us to LAX to Paris - only to find out shortly before we were leaving that there were NO tickets. Nada - they did end up after the trail of emails etc of rebooking us - at a pretty penny to them I am sure.
Anyway - hope you get someplace. My situation was taken care of within hours of getting Mr. Sedlak involved.

sorry me again - I went back and re-read the thread that I shared the situation and I *did have some written documentation. I do think that helped me. It was within hours that I got the situation resolved though - it did end up costing Orbitz 7,500.00 (yup you read that right).

Why do people book airline-only tickets with these 3rd parties? What am I missing?

Brian - the reason I did it at the time was sort of interesting.

I needed a flight from Paris to J'burg and J'burg to Rome. I was told that I could not book a flight out of Paris being in the US - I do not believe that to be true at this time, but that is what I was told. I was flying on AA from LAX to Paris (via Dallas) and home on AA from Rome to LAX (via JFK).

I tried going online to book a flight from Paris to J'burg and it was not letting me have an originating flight from Paris (I am sure if I would have kept trying I could have figured it out).

Orbitz let me book the flight. So I did.

We ended up not going to South Africa due to my daughter's health and stayed in Europe.

That is why I booked the flights through them.

Another time I booked through them because it came up the cheapest and I was flying on different carriers in the US.

Brian, sometimes Orbitz gives a better price combining different airlines, so people buy the ticket not realizing how much risk is involved, or buy insurance with it.

Dayenu & MomDDTravel- Thank you both for Mr. Sedlak's name. I have passed it on to my daughter. They are both very discouraged and this give us some hope.
Brian- Price is usually the reason. My wife and I as well as my daughter originally booked on Orbitz because the price was several hundred dollars lower combining airlines. Our flights did have to be changed but that was because Delta changed their times- we were going a day before my daughter. By the way it was President's week in the Northeast, the planes were jammed and overbooked and I suspect that may have been one reason for their problem. Our return flight from Atlanta to Boston was overbooked by 27 people. We got on because other people were wiling to wait a day and get $400 in free tickets. Another interesting story is that when we asked for our boarding passes on the way home the gate attendant told us that our assigned seats had been removed from the plane because it had been reconfigured and our seats were now the galley. I checked when we got on the plane and it was true. New lesson-never pick or accept an assigned seat in the back of the plane.

Thank you Dayenu and MOMDD Travel. My daughter contacted Mr. Sedlak and got a reply today saying that her refund would be coming in a few weeks. One of Mr. Sedlak's assistants helped her and proved to Delta that Delta was at fault. Previously she had been talking to an Orbitz person who was probably in India and didn't understand the problem. So Orbitz has been redeemed- you just have to know who to talk to.

CondeNast also sometimes helps folks resolve some of their travel hassles, if you write in to their column. Glad Orbitz is finally resolving your issue. Makes me think I'll probably just book directly with the airlines if fares are similar to Orbitz, to have hopefully fewer hassles.

Glad that it appears to be resolved. I was SO happy when Mr. Sedlak was able to assist me - and am glad that it worked out for your dd as well. Let us know when the refund shows up.

An excellent example of the reason to read the Fodors bb.

Redeemed?? Sorry, but the fact that the ONLY reason you got the refund is you found someone is not "redeeming" IMHO. What is says is that overall customer service was not good.

I only use online TAs if I have no choice!