Question: We recently bought five tickets for a family vacation in Tanzania through Cheapoair.com, an online travel agency. A few months later, we found out our daughter would be starting a new job and couldn’t make the trip with us. So we phoned Cheapoair to cancel our reservation.
When we booked the tickets, a Cheapoair representative told us the tickets were nonrefundable and that if we canceled and used our credit to rebook another flight, we would have to pay a penalty. But I was never told how much the penalty would be.
Cheapoair consulted with Northwest Airlines, which agreed to a full refund of all five tickets, which had cost us $2,271 each. Cheapoair then charged us $535 per ticket in cancellation fees. I asked the agency for a breakdown, and it said the fees represented $410 to Northwest, $75 to the consolidator and $50 to Cheapoair.
A Cheapoair representative said that when you buy this type of fare and have to cancel, the penalty fees are enormous because the airlines want to recoup their lost revenue. We have accepted our responsibility in the cancellation, but think $535 per ticket is excessive. Can you help? — Marianne Ellis, Sacramento, Calif.
Answer: This could have turned out much worse. Your airline could have pocketed all of your money, and you would have been out of luck.
Cheapoair sells what are known as “consolidator” fares that are often less expensive than the tickets you buy through a traditional travel agent or by booking directly. The reason? It works through a ticket wholesaler that buys tickets in bulk at a big discount. Then it marks up the ticket prices enough to make a profit while still undercutting other published fares.
But that’s not all. Consolidator tickets typically come with more restrictions than the garden-variety nonrefundable tickets sold by airlines. While some can be canceled and re-used for a future purchase after paying a change fee, others are completely nonrefundable and non-changeable. Meaning that if you have second thoughts about your vacation, your ticket’s gone.
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t ask your online travel agent for details on the change fees — particularly if your daughter is either contemplating a new job or looking for work. If there’s even a chance you’ll have to cancel your ticket, a consolidator fare isn’t the way to go. You should have considered a ticket with more reasonable change fees (although “reasonable” is relative — Northwest charged a $150 fee for international reservations at the time you bought your tickets, which is excessive to a lot of people).
I also think the Cheapoair representative with whom you spoke should have warned you about the change fees before you bought the tickets.
This might have also been avoided by booking the tickets online, where such terms would presumably be clearly disclosed, instead of calling Cheapoair. But not necessarily. I’ve seen more than my share of confusing booking screens where important details are buried three screens under a hundred offers to rent a car or reserve a hotel room.
I wouldn’t have phoned the online agency after being asked to pay these cancellation fees. Instead, a quick e-mail to feedback@cheapoair.com may have yielded better results. Trust me on this: don’t call — e-mail.
I agree that $535 in cancellation charges is a little rich, so I contacted Cheapoair on your behalf. I heard back from Sneharthi Roy, the company’s senior vice president of operations, who verified that this was a consolidator fare and that the fees were in line with what the company charges. Still, Cheapoair asked its consolidator to waive the fees on your behalf. And it did.
You’ve received a full refund — a total of $11,355 — from Cheapoair.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
” But I was never told how much the penalty would be.”
Translation: I didn’t bother to ask how much the penalty would be, and now I want someone else to pay for my lack of basic common sense.
“I also think the Cheapoair representative with whom you spoke should have warned you about the change fees before you bought the tickets.”
The onus is on the buyer, not the seller. The representative told her there would be a fee (not might be, WOULD be), and it was at that point that Ms. Ellis should have pressed for details. She did not, and now wants to whine that “nobody told me, someone fix this for me.”
I don’t think Cheapoair should have refunded her one cent of the penalty. Granted, it may be steep, but that’s their right and if you don’t like it… take your business elsewhere.
I agree completely with RegularGuy. What ever happened to the concept of personal responsibility???
Why is the onus on the buyer? That’s a completely arbitrary determination. Why isn’t the onus on the seller, the one who set the rules, who set the change fee, and has far greater knowledge and sophistication that any buyer of the product.
Frontier Airlines charged me $20 per person to change the return date from Wed to Tues on my “fully refundable” tickets. I am awaiting an explanation from Frontier.
If someone tells you there will be fees, they should clearly state what those fees will be in writing. It should not take a call from a customer to get a verbal communication of what the fees *might* be. Considering that the airline gave a full refund, it is crazy to expect that someone pay a $400 fee per ticket to an agent.
What, they couldn’t go on the trip without their daughter? The whole thing probably would have been easier to swallow if they’d only canceled one ticket.