LunaBella

Hi all - Actually I tried what Debi suggests when I first realized the error but their website won't let you do it. (It only sees SEA as the departure city, so the date of the flight leaving SEA must be before the date of the flight leaving CMH.)

LT - No need to be sorry! Not to sound cryptic, but think this will all be worked out very soon and I'll post the result as soon as it's complete. (Don't want to get the cart in front of the horse.)

Thanks for all of the input everybody, and special thanks to those of you who have tried to help me think of solutions to my problem! I appreciate it.

DebitNM

One last thought -- did you try to change the date on flight 270 FIRST and then change the date on 271 second?

I am trying to think of something to salvage your flights and $$.

dfr4848

Just a quick footnote to all of this. Our daughter goes to college 35 mi NE of Columbus. She's home for the summer (and working!!!). Her boyfriend goes to college in Boston. She announced last night that she had found this great new airline that has $10-20 fares between Columbus and Boston (don't have to tell you which one). I told her I had been researching them for several months (which I have) and explained to her their severe restrictions etc, including your experience Luna. Might work for a college kid's budget IF they fully understand the rules, pitfalls, etc.

So Luna, thanks for sharing. Let us know what happens.

circa2

Why am I having a problem with this?

If you are not changing the two cities that you are flying into/outof...then just pay the $40 to change the dates....the flight #'s are the same....just the dates are different.

Is there any rule that says you can't reverse the dates on the departure times?

gb944

I guess that I will double check before I hit the enter key on their website.

Thanks for the tip... sorry you're having such a terrible time.

LunaBella

Thanks again to everyone for weighing in, and for all of the help and suggestions! For those of you who have been following my saga, I just wanted to report that SKYBUS REFUNDED MY MONEY. All of it. Hallelujah!

And I very well could literally have all of you to thank. I'm not sure what the real clincher was or what made them decide to give me my money back (I got a message from Skybus's VP of Finance, Barry Barnard, before the BBB contacted them, apparently) but in Mr. Barnard's message, he specifically alluded to a problem a "LunaBella" was posting about on Fodor's and how they wanted to fix my problem. (Some of you had suggested that I email the heads of the company - which I did last week - and milemarker0 was kind enough to post their email addresses, btw milemarker, thanks!) So THANK YOU EVERYBODY! I couldn't have done it without you, and I think that actually may be the truth.

So, I guess in the end, there is some measure of customer service to Skybus after all. However, I'll temper this with the fact that even during my email correspondence with Mr. Barnard I was also receiving messages like the ones below from the customer service people at Skybus, despite the fact that their website says that I can cancel my reservation:

"Thank you for your inquiry. Our tickets are non re-fundable, however you can make changes to confirmed reservation on our website. Currently we do not offer an option an option to cancel."

And this one that I now happen to like best but at the time, as you can imagine, I did not find humorous at all: "Since the tickets are non-refundable, changes cannot be made after flight date. Therefore, if you wish to change the date and not lose the value of the ticket, but you don't know the date you wish to travel, we would recommend that you move the flight far enough forward in time to the point at which you will know your new travel date, and then move it again to that travel date. Each change will incur change fees and any applicable differences in fare, so you may want to consider purchasing a new ticket
altogether once you know your new travel date (and ignore your current reservation)."

Yes, sage advice indeed. Anyway, this is the post that I really need to share with you (and I feel bad posting this under a heading of "I HATE Skybus!" because they did make it right for me - after much haggling - but right for me nonetheless). Too bad I can't amend the header at this point! However, I'm guessing this post will die down soon, there's not a lot more to add and I knew that those of you who are interested in how this turned out would look here for the answer. So here it goes:

LunaBella -

"Ken Gile forwarded to me an email to send to him regarding an unfortunate experience a “LunaBella” encountered when trying to make a reservation at Skybus. We are very sorry she encountered the problems she did and can only say her request to change city direction is a very reasonable request and we are putting in place the processes and procedures to enable a customer to do this in the future. We would be happy to refund her the tickets she purchased or change the reservation she has to the correct one if you want. Please send either the confirmation number and name and we will do which ever you would like.

Again we apologize for the bad experience."

Barry G. Barnard
VP - Finance and Treasurer
Skybus Airlines, Inc.

And they did. They refunded my money the very next day. Thank you Skybus!

xrae

Congratulations!

SharonG

Great news. I had a problem 5+ yrs ago and got no where with the company till I posted about it in Fodors. Looks like bad publicity gets attention. Have fun with your sister.

rs899

This is good news.

In this age of "point and click" and instant gratification, I have found that a well written, compelling letter frequently works when directed to those who have the power to make things right.

Speaking of which, I need to write one to the CEO of Choice hotels.

There is a thread on Flyertalk about Skybus. There is quite a bit of pessimism expressed there, but several Skybus flyers have had good flights with them.

Rick (looking forward somewhat to his cheap trip on Skybus)

LunaBella

Good luck Rick!

Also, I left out the most important "thank you," and this one is to Fodor's for providing the forum! As a more tangible expression of my gratitude though, I'm going to go buy a new Fodor's travel guide to add to my collection. The big question is though, which one should I buy!? Hmmm, maybe Czech Republic, maybe Croatia, maybe just get an updated one on Italy, decisions decisions...

rs899

LunaBella-

So, the question is after all this...are you going to rebook this flight on Skybus or at least be will ing to try them later?

Rick

circa2

Good for you LunaBella!!!

Glad you received your money.

Apparently someone in management realized you brought forth a "real" problem that needed fixing.

And also recognized the power of bad publicity.

Glad to see some business ethics.

Good job.

mm127

LunaBella,
This same thing happened to me!! I booked Columbus-->Ft. Lauderdale over Thanksgiving. My confirmation page was correct, but the email confirmation Skybus sent had the cities flip flopped! It had me leaving from Ft. Lauderdale instead of Cols and vice versa on the return. I freaked. I'm a seasoned traveler and there's no way I made this mistake.

I emailed Skybus as soon as I noticed the error (about a week later). They sent me that same form response you got. Then I wrote again and told them I didn't want to change my flight reservation--I wanted them to correct their software glitch. They then sent me a corrected itinerary that reflected what I thought I originally booked.

It made for a couple of tense days--and I still don't have complete faith that the reservations will be accepted when I arrive at the airport that day. But I don't think I have any other way of confirming the flights. I am in possession of a corrected itinerary. That should be enough, right?

But believe me, LunaBella, I feel your pain!!!

bugswife1

I did not post on this thread but read it with much sympathy, and then emailed skybus on your behalf. I am sure many others did as well. Just wanted them to know that we take this stuff very seriously.

screenwriter2006

Now LunaBella -- be careful not to take the Fodor's book on Czechoslovakia from the back of the bookshelf!

LunaBella

Wow mm127, I wonder if there is a glitch in their software! That's quite a coincidence. And although I can't ever be 100% confident that it wasn't my error (and I'll never know), as I said earlier, I reviewed the itinerary something like three times over the phone with my sister before I hit the shiny, candy-like "confirm" button to buy the tickets. And probably like you, I've done it so many times before with no problems whatsoever. Well either way, I hope your travel goes without a hitch, and that your problem is truly corrected! I've got my fingers crossed for you, because I shudder to think what kind of customer service they have (or of course do not have, which is the problem, now isn't it?) at the airport. Good luck to you, I wish you well.

bugswife - Thanks for the email! It's good to know that there are people out there willing to do such a generous thing on another's behalf (even if for the good of the whole, or maybe a little of both), and it's also great to know that it sometimes works! As I said earlier, I think this forum may very well be the reason I got my money back.

rs899 - I think you missed the part (quite understandably, this is a long thread!) where I said we already bought replacement tickets on Delta. These tickets were for my sister and her daughter and I couldn't leave them hanging during the few weeks it took to get this sorted out. Now as to whether or not I would ever fly on Skybus...hmmm...maybe with one of those $10 tickets? Still not sure though. Maybe if they paid me $10. Or maybe if the tickets were free and I had just downed a few cocktails and they promised I could have the whole row to myself, along with some free cocktails on the plane, and, oh wait, definitely if they did all that, then threw in a complimentary meatloaf plate! In that case I would be all over it...

stumpworks73

I recently flew from Burbank to Columbus on Skybus. When I checked in, I asked if the flight was on time. The gate agent responded "I don't know". Even though the inbound should have been in the air for over two hours. Sometime later a passenger arrived at the gate and said she was told they were running 45 minutes late. 30 minutes before scheduled departure, a Skybus employee anounced that the plane was about 30 minutes late, but because they could turn around quickly, departure and arrival should still be close to schedule. The inbound was actually almost an hour late. We departed one and a half hour late. At one point the pilot anounced that we were 40 minutes from Columbus, we arrived 90 minutes after that anouncement.

The plane was nice. The flight attendants were reasonable. They were sold out of about half the food as they do not cater the plane in Burbank.

Skybus is not Southwest. They aren't even close to competent.