LunaBella

I do. I completely hate Skybus. Here's why:

My sister grew up in Seattle. She moved to Ohio 10 years ago and due to money constraints, has only been back to Seattle once to visit family. We miss her. So the other day I'm talking to her on the phone and she says she wants to come visit this summer. Yes! I am so excited. I tell her that I've heard there's a new airline called Skybus that flies out of Columbus, Ohio (her nearest airport) and that we should check out their flights and prices.

Since she doesn't have a computer, I log on to the Skybus website. The prices aren't anything fabulous but she and her daughter want to come right in the middle of August - high season - so we just decide to buy the tickets while she's on the phone. I am so excited! I can't wait for my nine year-old niece to finally meet my 12 year-old son! This summer is going to be fabulous.

So I purchase the tickets we want via the website (the only way you can do it with Skybus), using her credit card. Or so I think. And here's where I screw up: Somewhere in all of the excitement, I get the dates right but I transpose the departure and arrival cities. (Omigod. How did I do this? What an idiot I am! I said the itinerary out loud about five times to my sister, how did I screw this up? I have purchased airline tickets a zillion times in my life on the computer and never had a problem. But now I have a problem.) I see my error after it's too late, but no matter, the Skybus website says all over the place that they will change a ticket for $40 per segment. Okay big deal! I just made a $160 error. But it is my mistake, I own it, I get over it. I tell myself that it's worth the $160 to just see my sister and niece this summer - of course it is - and that's that. I will pay for it and not even tell my sister so she doesn't try to pay me $160 for my dumb mistake. And at this point I'm naive enough to even ask Skybus if they will make the change for free, you know, to keep me on as a customer etc etc. Boy was I in for it.

Alright then, have I mentioned that the Skybus website says all over it that you can change your reservations? Because this is important. In fact, here's their actual wording from one place on the site: "A Few Things To Keep In Mind About Changing Your Reservation. There is a change fee of US $40 per passenger, per flight segment. You’ll need to pay the difference if your new fare is higher than the original fare. There are no refunds if the new fare is lower. You may not change the names of your passengers. Skybus tickets are non-transferable."

Yes okay. That seems fair. However, below is a copy of my email exchange with Skybus. It begins a few days ago and ends with my email back to them last night. (I have not received a response from them as of this morning.) Please read it and make up your own mind if you want to do business with them:


MY MESSAGE TO THEM ON SUNDAY, 5/27:

I am new to your website and when I originally typed in my departure/arrival cities I typed that they wanted to fly out of Columbus airport, to Seattle (Bellingham) on August 9 and then return from Seattle (Bellingham) on August 20, flying back to Columbus. Then I continued from there and put in their passenger information. After we went through all of that, I realized that somewhere along the line the cities got transposed, and it shows the first flight leaving Seattle instead! (Flight 271 on 8/9 and flight 270 on 8/20.) Help!

I'm not sure if it's something I did or if there's a glitch in the system, but the bottom line is we need to change their tickets asap. (I can't imagine what I did though, I'm sure I put in the cities correctly at the start, and I've used Orbitz at least 20-30 times and never had such a problem.)

Please let me know what I need to do to change this to flight 270 then on Thursday, 8/9 (Columbus to Seattle) and flight 271 on Monday, 8/20 (Seattle to Columbus). As a first-time customer, is there any way this can be done gratis? I realize I should have been more careful when undertaking the transaction, I just didn't realize that your website was a bit trickier than Orbitz.

Please contact me as soon as possible at my email address. Thank you in advance for your assistance! I am so sorry for any inconvenience and again, if you could help me out as a new customer to Skybus, it would go a long way to make me a return customer to your new company! Thank you.

Sincerely,
J

HERE IS THEIR "CUT AND PASTE" RESPONSE ON TUESDAY, 5/29 THAT TELLS ME I CAN CHANGE MY RESERVATION AS I REQUESTED, JUST FOLLOW THEIR EASY INSTRUCTIONS:

Thank you for contacting Skybus.

You may change your Skybus Trip for a $40 change fee per passenger, per flight segment – plus any fare difference if the new fare is higher (there is no refund if the new fare is lower).

To change your Trip, click the “View/Change Reservation” tab located in the lower left portion of the Skybus Home Page, then enter the requested information and click the “go” button. You’ll see an overview of your Trip, along with options to change dates and times, add “Extras” like Priority Boarding, and request special assistance such as a wheelchair.

We hope this information has been helpful, and look forward to serving you in the future.

Savvy
Skybus

HERE IS MY FRANTIC 5/29 RESPONSE TO THEIR MESSAGE, AFTER I TRY TO FOLLOW THEIR INSTRUCTIONS AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE THE CHANGES I NEED TO MAKE:

Okay, so I tried to do exactly as the instructions say below AND IT DOES NOT GIVE ME THE OPTION OF CHANGING MY DEPARTURE OR ARRIVAL CITY! It just says I can change the date they are flying out of Seattle. They want to fly out of Columbus, to Seattle on August 9 and then out of Seattle, back to Columbus on August 20. Please help me asap. So far dealing with your company is turning into a nightmare, I need the assistance of a human. Thanks, please contact me asap as I'm desperate to get this fixed before the dates we need sell out.

HERE'S THEIR 5/29 RESPONSE:

We apologize for the inconvenience. However, Skybus does not allow the change of departure or destination cities. Only flight dates may be changed. If you would like to make a new booking please visit www.skybus.com. Thank you for choosing Skybus.

HERE'S MY 6/1 RESPONSE:

I apologize for the inconvenience. However, nowhere on your website does it say that Skybus does not allow the change of departure or destination cities. What it does say, in fact, is that "reservations with Skybus fares may be changed or cancelled prior to departure at www.skybus.com for a $40 fee per person, per flight segment, plus any applicable differences in fare." Since this statement makes no specific exclusions about the cities in question, it is inherently implying that such changes can be made and it obviously leads the consumer to believe that "RESERVATIONS MAY BE CHANGED" for $40 fee per person, per flight segment, plus any applicable differences in fare.

Was I someway in error for believing what was posted by your company on your company's website? (I have printed every single page and know for a fact that there is no reference to any rule that says "Skybus does not allow the change of departure or destination cities," as you noted below). Please honor what you are advertising and let me know how I go about changing my reservation as promised on your website. I will do what I need to do in order to make this happen, and I trust that in the interest of being a reputable, upstanding company, Skybus will also.

Please respond asap and let me know how to go about changing these tickets within the guidelines you outlined on your website, and without the hidden rules you are so underhandedly trying to impose upon me now.

Thank you.

AND THEIR 6/2 RESPONSE:

We apologize that things are not stated more clearly on our website, but it is impossible to acknowledge everything a passenger can and cannot do with Skybus. Skybus is not trying to hide anything. Our policy is that tickets are non-refundable, which essentially means no changes can be made, meaning no exchanges, no returns. It is technically a courtesy to allow passengers to change a flight date with a fee. We apologize for the inconvenience, but departure cities cannot be changed.

...AND MY RESPONSE LAST NIGHT:

Your reply makes no sense whatsoever.

First of all, it is absolutely not impossible to "acknowledge everything a passenger can and cannot do with Skybus," your company has been purposely negligent in that regard and you should be ashamed of yourself for having anything to do with them. Life is too short to treat people this way, even for a paycheck. Honestly. It is simple to provide a list of what can and cannot be done by the customer, and by the company. To state what you did on the website and not honor it is poor form, totally lacking in ethics and bad juju. I wouldn't want to be the person relaying your message, that's for sure.

Secondly, the policy of Skybus, for all intents by its website and its advertising, is that CHANGES CAN BE MADE, for $40. I am done stating back to you what your website stated to me in the first place. Again, the company should be ashamed of its negligence you should be ashamed to be associated with such a company. I KNOW THAT THE TICKETS ARE NON-REFUNDABLE. I did not ask for a refund. I simply asked for help with changing my ticket, which you said I could do for $40 per ticket, per segment. NO EXCLUSIONS beyond that. I am simply asking you to do what you said you would do. For you to imply that it would be "a courtesy" for you to provide the service you promised, the people you work for have a totally unbelievably screwed up idea of what customer service is. Again, glad it's you, not me.

Lastly, unless your company rectifies this immediately, tomorrow I plan to contact The Seattle Times, Conde Nast Traveller, The Better Business Bureau, and every single web travel group that I belong to, the list of which is too extensive to mention here. And that will be the start. I have never done such a thing, but then again, never have I had such a poor experience dealing with a company in my life. Skybus cannot possibly hope to stay in business with such poor customer service, even in this day and age.

...AND WE'RE DONE.

This has been my experience with Skybus, and I want everybody to know what they are up for if they choose to fly on this carrier.

By the way, in case you're interested in our saga, we have already purchased normal tickets for my sister on Delta and I have learned my lesson (which, as it turns out, was more than a $160 lesson!). Let me tell you though, it sure was a relief to pick up that phone and have a nice helpful Delta PERSON on the phone to help me with the second transaction.

Anyway, the bottom line as I see it is, I made a mistake, it was my mistake and I was ready to pay to rectify it. Skybus also made a huge mistake but they obviously do not think they need to do anything to make it right. How difficult is it to actually write down on their website their rules and regulations? By having a short list of what I as the customer can and can't do, I (silly me!) assumed those were the rules. However, they apparently have a whole set of rules somewhere that I can't see that they can impose any time they like, AND THEY CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO POST THEM ON THEIR WEBSITE! IT'S TOO MUCH WORK! Absolutely unbelievable.

ick up that phone and have a nice helpful Delta PERSON on the phone to help me with the second transaction.

cmcfong

Thanks so much for posting this advisory, LunaBella. Skybus just introduced service at GSO and several people had talked about trying them out. Don't think I will be one of them.

And, don't get too excited about Delta customer service. It has a few very rough spots, too.

Have a wonderful visit with your sister. I love Bellingham!

maj

I haven't looked into Skybus yet, but know a few people who are excited about the low fares. Just watching their ads, it appears the tickets are around $16 from Columbus to SFO for instance. How much exactly were your tickets?

LunaBella

Thanks cmcfong. I know exactly what you mean about Delta! However, the fact that I was overwhelmed by Delta's customer service after that of Skybus just illustrates how freaked out I was by the whole Skybus experience. We took your money, you deserve nothing, we don't even have to post our regulations, we don't care what you think! You are lucky we're sending you a canned response of "NO."

Anyway, it's not that I haven't been treated poorly in the past by a company, just nothing even close to this. Certainly Skybus's actions in this case cannot be legal? Not sure where I'm going to take it at this point, but I am hopeful that my bad experience will help others make informed travel choices!

LunaBella

Yes that's the worst part Maj, we were lured onto the site (rightly so, I've got no gripe there) by the idea of those very low fares, which were of course long gone for August high season. We ended up paying over $200 per ticket on Skybus, which of course I don't have to tell you, I'm kicking myself over.

My sister is one of those people that will talk about taking a trip for years (she is the opposite of me, I can't stand it if I don't have one planned at all times! , and it will never come to fruition. ("We're going to come out next summer, maybe June...", then June arrives and "the trip might happen in August, then maybe next year...") So, when I had her on the line and she said "Let's do it," I didn't want to let her hang up that phone without completing the transaction, so at that point Skybus seemed as good as any.

Again, hindsight is 20/20...

Suzie

I think that the customer service and the policies are outrageous. Since they will let you change the dates could you and your son use those tickets at a later time to visit your sister and niece? Trying to think positive.

LunaBella

Thanks Suzie, but we can't change the names on the tickets, they would have to be used by my sister and her daughter. (That's one thing that IS posted on their website!)

I know, I've been trying to put a positive spin on it too, but so far I haven't come up with anything. Thanks for trying though!

LunaBella

Oh, wait! Here's a positive spin: At least their responses of "No we can't help you and we can impose any rules that we desire upon you after the fact" came back really super quick. No waiting around for the "NO!" reply, nosiree. They are there asap. No no no! No rules posted! No we don't have to post them! No we can't help you! No we don't care!

milemarker0

Try calling or emailing Floyd directly:

Primary contact

Floyd Nickerson
Vice president, people
(614) 246-8800
[email protected]

Executives (*)

Kenneth Gile
President and chief operating officer
(614) 246-8800
[email protected]

Bill Diffenderffer
Chief executive officer
(614) 246-8800
[email protected]

* Executives should only be contacted when your letter or email has not been acknowledged within six to eight weeks.

Dukey

I know you are angry...I would be too.

I wouldn't wait for weeks to contact the executives.

This is a strt-up business. If they aren't perceived as being customer-friendly and reasonable I doubt they'll go very far.

I'm sorry you don't have leverage with the local paper.

Do you think you could make a case for some sort of false or at least misleading advertising with the BBB?

Good luck.

NewbE

I feel compelled to do that thing that everyone hates, which is disagree with the OP's original premise. I am prepraed to take my lumps.

The mistake was the OP's, which s/he admits; Skybus stated a very common policy, which to my knowledge most if not all airlines have, which is that "changing" the departure AND arrival cities constitutes buying a new set of tickets; the OP persisted in emailing Skybus, but picked up the phone to call Delta. Who knows what a phone call to Skybus might have accomplished?

As for those emails, why even suggest that a "glitch" caused the mistake? It was simple user error unless the user can prove otherwise.

I'm sorry the OP is out a lot of money, but I fail to see what Skybus did that was so wrong.

arriba

I would pursue the matter through the credit card company. Let them cancel the charge until it is worked out. I made an online ticketing mistake once and Delta helped me make it right without a charge. The poster said tickets could be bought only online--are there no customer service telephone numbers to call for help?

dfr4848

There are NO phone numbers to call Skybus - for reservations, for help, for anyting. They make that point very clear on their web site. They state that phone banks are expensive, so they have no number by which they can be contacted - only email! You might be able to get through to one of the executives using the numbers listed above, but otherwise you're SOL.

That was just one of the things that did not appeal to me when I first started reading about the airline.

NewbE

OK, so you can't call them--I stand corrected.

But: what airline refunds tickets purchased "in error"?

cmcfong

I made a similar mistake booking with USAIRWAYS. I notified them immediately of my error and they allowed me to cancel my tickets and start over without penalty. Just my experience, Newbe, but I agree with OP, this is not good customer service.

rkkwan

Most airlines will let you cancel within 24 hours if it's an honest mistake. But "most airlines" also have 800 numbers and let people bring food on their planes. Skybus is not "most airlines".

I think there's little the OP can do at this point other than emailing the executives. One can dispute the charge with the credit card, but I don't think one will win on this one.

In my opinion, they are fine for their $10 fare. I mean, if the OP had bought $10 fares, all she'd lost would be $40 (for 4 flights) + taxs/fees. Not a big deal. There has to be a very good reason before I'd buy their more expensive tickets.

LunaBella

Hi NewbE! Actually, my problem with Skybus was that they DIDN'T state anywhere that changing the departure city constituted buying a new set of tickets. I thought that changing them meant changing them. If they had outlined that premise - somewhere, anywhere on their website - then okay. But they didn't. That's all I'm saying.

I'm all about playing by the rules. I don't think I deserve special treatment, and I know I made a mistake which I was more than ready to pay for. I reiterate, what I don't like is that they changed the rules midway through our transaction. Certainly that is not okay, is it?

And the other posters were right, the only reason I didn't pick up the phone with Skybus is because I couldn't. But I went into it knowing that so I don't have a problem with that.

Also, as to your question "What airline refunds tickets purchased in error?," as I said earlier, I never asked them for a refund. I simply want to change the tickets, which they definitely said I could do on their website. I don't want special service or a refund. I want to them to do exactly what they said they would do, that is all.

Anyway yes. At the time I felt like I had a good reason to buy from them but in hindsight I wouldn't even buy a $10 ticket from them. If they are this negligent

Seamus

I fall somewhere in the middle of the previous posts. I agree that it was a customer error and technically the airline cant be held responsible for that. And I don't know any airline where changing origin or destination is not considered a new itinerary, though changing dates on the original city pair is considered just a change to the original, not a new itinerary. I also agree that it sure would generate good will if they were to fix this. Given that you thought you had purchased the correct itinerary and there is the possibility (even if remote) that it was a software glitch, I'd sure press them on it.
Please do let us know how it works out in the end, whether or not they come through.

LunaBella

Again, Seamus, not trying to hold them responsible for my error. (I was prepared to pay the $40 per ticket change fee). What I AM trying to hold them responsible for is outlining their policies clearly on their website. Do you really think the following statement (their exact quote) is okay?

"We apologize that things are not stated more clearly on our website, but it is impossible to acknowledge everything a passenger can and cannot do with Skybus."

Really?

If so, then

LunaBella

Sorry...keep cutting off my last line! (Cat on the keyboard syndrome.

Anyway I was just saying I can't imagine that this what customer service has come to, it's crazy.