Horrendous Customer Service and Interactions w/ Lack of Understanding
Complaint
David
Country: United States
I was in charge of booking flights for my sister and me for a quality vacation to Costa Rica from Boston. I booked a round-trip ticket for me directly via Spirit Airlines. For my sister, I booked the Boston-to-Costa Rica flight via Spirit Airlines and the Costa Rica-to-Boston flight via CheapOair (because the CheapOair price was ~$10 cheaper). We were scheduled to fly out of Boston at 7:45PM on April 28th and return May 5th. We were excited!
Unfortunately, the 2011 Tornado Super Outbreak was happening from April 25–28, 2011. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_25%E2%80%9328,_2011_tornado_outbreak). Because of the bad conditions of this tornado outbreak, our original flight was cancelled and we were unable to rebook our flight out of Boston (the earliest would be about five days after the original scheduled flight). At the gate, Spirit Airlines was understanding and issued a full refund for my round-trip ticket and my sister's flight from Boston to Costa Rica. For the ticket purchased via CheapOair, the gate attendant said she could not refund it, as it was not purchased directly through them. My phone was out of battery at that time (the airport really drained my battery that evening); but I assumed that CheapOair would give me a full refund since the airline itself gave me a full refund...
I rushed home and tried my best to reach CheapOair. I was on hold three times; each 45+ minutes long. I did not have the patience, as I was busy trying to cancel all the excursions and transportation arrangements we had booked in advance for the trip; therefore I decided to try to reach CheapOair again bright and early the next morning.
On April 29th at around 5-6AM, I got hold of a CheapOair representative. I told him I wanted to cancel my May 5th flight from Costa Rica to Boston (~six days in advance, mind you) because the airline itself, Spirit Airlines had cancelled my flight to Costa Rica from Boston and had given me a full refund. I tried to explain that it would be impossible for me to use the one-way ticket from Costa Rica to Boston, as my sister and I would not even be in the country! Unfortunately, it seemed as if the representative did not care or want to listen to what I had to say. He mentioned that the company only adhered to the refund policies of its airlines. Several times I mentioned that the airline itself had given me a full refund. It seemed hopeless; I decided to give up on CheapOair's customer service and dispute the charge via my credit card company. I opened the credit card charge dispute on May 3rd. Everything seemed to go smoothly until I received a CheapOair chargeback on August 7th. It seemed interesting how CheapOair waited so long to respond to my dispute- now so much time has lapsed since this incident!
From what I can tell, my incident met the refund requirements stated on CheapOair’s website; so I should have received a full refund.
Unfortunately, the 2011 Tornado Super Outbreak was happening from April 25–28, 2011. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_25%E2%80%9328,_2011_tornado_outbreak). Because of the bad conditions of this tornado outbreak, our original flight was cancelled and we were unable to rebook our flight out of Boston (the earliest would be about five days after the original scheduled flight). At the gate, Spirit Airlines was understanding and issued a full refund for my round-trip ticket and my sister's flight from Boston to Costa Rica. For the ticket purchased via CheapOair, the gate attendant said she could not refund it, as it was not purchased directly through them. My phone was out of battery at that time (the airport really drained my battery that evening); but I assumed that CheapOair would give me a full refund since the airline itself gave me a full refund...
I rushed home and tried my best to reach CheapOair. I was on hold three times; each 45+ minutes long. I did not have the patience, as I was busy trying to cancel all the excursions and transportation arrangements we had booked in advance for the trip; therefore I decided to try to reach CheapOair again bright and early the next morning.
On April 29th at around 5-6AM, I got hold of a CheapOair representative. I told him I wanted to cancel my May 5th flight from Costa Rica to Boston (~six days in advance, mind you) because the airline itself, Spirit Airlines had cancelled my flight to Costa Rica from Boston and had given me a full refund. I tried to explain that it would be impossible for me to use the one-way ticket from Costa Rica to Boston, as my sister and I would not even be in the country! Unfortunately, it seemed as if the representative did not care or want to listen to what I had to say. He mentioned that the company only adhered to the refund policies of its airlines. Several times I mentioned that the airline itself had given me a full refund. It seemed hopeless; I decided to give up on CheapOair's customer service and dispute the charge via my credit card company. I opened the credit card charge dispute on May 3rd. Everything seemed to go smoothly until I received a CheapOair chargeback on August 7th. It seemed interesting how CheapOair waited so long to respond to my dispute- now so much time has lapsed since this incident!
From what I can tell, my incident met the refund requirements stated on CheapOair’s website; so I should have received a full refund.
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