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The Web site ruined my trip!

April 28, 2007

The Internet was supposed to be a solution to all of our travel problems. It promised to deliver lower prices, eliminate the middle man and put travelers in control.

Yeah, tell that to the thousands (and probably hundreds of thousands) whose trips were ruined by a Web site.

Let’s start with a statement of fact. Some travel Web sites have a long way to go before they are as effective as a real travel agent. Survey after survey, including the latest study by the Customer Respect Group, shows that users are generally dissatisfied with their online experiences.

(That’s not to say travel sites are totally useless. There are some things, in fact, that they excel at. Selling certain airline tickets, distressed inventory, offering travelers information … they do that pretty well, I think.)

But talk with travelers and they’ll tell you about the time a Web site ruined their vacation.

Mary Dillon booked a hotel on the Web only to find that the online agency botched her reservation, giving her the wrong kind of room — one that was too small for her group. Since the hotel was completely full, she had no choice but to accept it. (The online agency admitted the mistake, but was powerless to fix it.)

“There were no roll-away beds and so I had to sleep on the floor,” she remembers.

But there was a happy ending. Her online agency reimbursed her for the room.

At least they had her reservation for her. Reader Jon Patrice bought a room online and received a confirmation number. “Yet when I arrived at the hotel, they would not honor the reservation,” said Patrice. “I was told that the number was no good. I had to find another room elsewhere.”

Hotel sites aren’t the only ones that ruin trips. So do airline sites, according to reader Robb Gordon.

“I go through gyrations to find the right flights, and finally lock them in,” he says. “Something causes the reservation to hiccup, and I am back to the booking page, with my flights supposedly still highlighted. I book and complete, and after clicking the ‘pay’ button, for some reason the departing flight has reset from, say, May 8 to May 1 — and I missed the date change.”

By the time he discovers the error, he’s stuck with an almost-useless ticket. Gordon says it’s happened to him several times.

What’s the solution?

Well, the important thing to remember is that although travel Web sites are less than perfect, so is the Internet, and often, so is the computer you’re using.

Bottom line: when you book online, you’re taking chances that you wouldn’t be taking offline.

A powerful argument for using an agent? In some cases, yes.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

4 comments

  • Sonia Vining

    I won a “VIP” trip for 2 to Las Vegas to see Blue Man Group at the Venetian, courtesy of Blue Man Group and XM Radio. The organization handling the winners, Great!, out of Atlanta, were very good to work with. However, I fell through the cracks because my prize was from XM, and not the local cable stations, as in other cities. The cable stations were responsible for booking the air travel, and my air travel ended up being arranged by I’m not sure who. It most likely was a travel agent used by Blue Man Productions in NY, but she passed herself off as being from BMG. Since I happen to know a lot of folks in the Blue Man organization, I pressed her on the matter and she finally admitted that she wasn’t actually a BMG employee. Not that it matters, but…

    Anyway. She made the travel arrangements through Orbitz. Ugh. To save about $80 a ticket, she routed me and my guest (who bailed on me at the eleventh hour, but that’s another story) on Northwest to O’Hare, then Ted to Las Vegas. Return trip was Ted to O’Hare, then Ted to Detroit. (And again, I say ugh…Ted/United flies out of the very dingy, cramped old Smith terminal, not the gorgeous Northwest World Gateway midfield terminal.) A relatively simple 4.5 hour non-stop turned into – if all went well – a 10 hour trek through three of the busiest airports in the country.

    Guess what! I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that not all went well.

    First off, I went to the Orbitz site Thursday night before I was to depart on Friday. Despite looking everywhere I could think of, including clicking all the links in my e-mailed itinerary, I couldn’t find a way to check in at the Orbitz site. I’m hardly an Internet travel novice, so this really ticked me off. I did an end run and put the confirmation code into Northwest’s online check in, and voila, my outbound flights appeared on Northwest’s site. I noticed that unsurprisingly I couldn’t check in for the Ted flight from O’Hare, so I went to the United site. I completely missed the tiny words “flyted.com” at the top right of the screen, and couldn’t get the United site to pull up my reservations. Frustrated, I crossed my fingers and hoped that a 2.5 hour layover would be enough to get from one terminal to another at O’Hare and check in at a kiosk.

    Good Friday wasn’t so good; I went to the Orbitz site to print off my itinerary, only to find that my name had disappeared off the itinerary, leaving only my friend who wasn’t flying. I freaked. Other than the e-mail that I had received, I had no other proof of my inbound and outbound flights. I wasn’t sure if the e-mail would pass muster, push come to shove, if I got pulled at TSA. I called Orbitz, only to be run through the usual automated menu system hoops. I finally was connected to a real person, but her Indian accent was so thick it was difficult to understand her…and she wasn’t understanding me too well, either. I explained that my name had disappeared off the itinerary; what should I do? It took her quite some time to even pull up the record, and then confirm that I wasn’t Jennifer (my friend that wasn’t making the trip). After put ting me on hold several times for minutes at a time, she told me it would be 3 days before Orbitz could e-mail me a corrected itinerary with my name on it. I tried to make her understand that I was flying out later that day. That took several tries. Finally, after another on-hold session, she got me an itinerary through a third-party site that I had never heard of (and now I can’t remember its name). I was just grateful to have a printed itinerary in my hand with both outbound and inbound flights AND my name.

    Good Friday was very windy at O’Hare, and my flight from Detroit wasn’t allowed to even take off until an hour after its scheduled departure time. I was really starting to get nervous, since I wasn’t able to check in for the 3:38 flight. We landed at O’Hare at 2:40 CDT, and I limped as fast as I could from the far end of Terminal 2 to Terminal 1. (Did I mention that I’d injured my knee back in January when a rude traveler’s rolling bag hooked with mine, going in opposite directions, and darned near knocked me over? He didn’t even have the courtesy to stop, let alone find out if I was all right…) The first e-ticket kiosk I found was at the far end of B concourse. I swiped my credit card for ID…only to be told that it was too late to check in. It was 3:10…two minutes beyond the 30 min ute cut off. I gritted my teeth and headed for the gate. The counter agent checked me in and printed a boarding pass…for a middle seat. I’d had two aisle seats reserved and confirmed. I needed an aisle seat because of my knee; if I didn’t get up and walk once every 30 minutes, the leg would stiffen in the bent position to the point that it wouldn’t bear weight. The counter agent told me that they’d given my seat away (not to mention my friend Jennifer’s!) because “they didn’t know I was coming”. I was starting to lose my cool…I explained about the tickets being part of a prize, and that I had no way of checking in at Detroit. They offered to let me stand by for the next flight – 3 hours later – but they couldn’t promise I’d make the flight, let alone in an aisle seat. I was almost in tears. I kept the center seat and went off to leave an angry voice mail for the guy at Great!. It wasn’t his fault, but I didn’t have the “travel agent”‘s phone number. And to top it off? The Ted flight was delayed taking off by nearly 40 minutes.

    Amazingly, as I was boarding, the agent “found” an aisle seat near the front. Hmm. I wonder how that economy-plus seat became available.

    Saturday was devoted to finding an Internet café and figuring out how to check in on Ted. Only THEN did I find the link from the United site to flyted.com. But at least I was checked in, with boarding passes for both flights.

    Throw in some booking problems at the Venetian (first they expected me to pay for my room, then just the room tax – this is precisely why I always carry a printed copy of any itinerary!), an inexperienced clerk at 4:30 a.m. on Easter Sunday (oh, that’s right…the return flight left Vegas at 6:25 a.m. Sunday morning) who didn’t know how to bill a room to the Blue Man organization, and McCarran’s brand-new centralized car rental facility, open for its first weekend and completely unprepared for the masses that returned cars at 5 a.m. and needed transportation to the airport terminals, and you have my trip.

    Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The Blue Man show was as awesome as it always is, and I had a good time with my friends in the Vegas company.

    Moral of the story? Don’t enter contests that offer trips as prizes if you’re an experienced traveler. Then again, if I hadn’t been an experienced traveler, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull it off.

  • Phyllis Panos

    We don’t charge a fee (really – and many do – that online one does – they just don’t tell you that – why else would they spend $$ for online), and usually meet or beat most web sites in pricing and certainly in personal service with a real person you can contact over and over. And if something goes wrong – you have US to represent YOU. That means something to suppliers. Try calling that online FREE number in an emergency (hurricane, delays, “kinks” etc.) when others are trying to call, too. You can reach us a lot faster – and easier. I know you advocate using a Professional Travel Agency (especially one that does not charge any fee). So thanks for the info.

  • Carver Farrow

    I’m a strong believer in internet bookings with one major caveat. I have long given up on third party sites. My experience is that’s where the problems generally occur. If you book directly with the travel supplier’s branded website, you should be fine.

    The issue with third party websites is that when problems arise, everyone denies culpability and shifts the blame to the other party. The traveller can be severely screwed in such an instance.

    Conversely, by booking at the travel providers website, the issue of plausible deniability is removed from the equation, making it infinitely more difficult for the travel provider to deny you your flight, room, car, etc.

  • Sam Carlson

    A professional travel agent can save you worlds of time and hassle but finding one that does not charge a fee is insulting. I carry a 24 hour pager for my agency and jump through hoops to help clients stranded at the airport to say nothing of the research done prior to their trip. If you don’t want service go to the Internet but if you want an agency who watches your back then be prepared to pay them. Why should we work for free?

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