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Reasons to Use a Travel Professional #20

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A bankrupt airline ruined my honeymoon

Question: I’ve been trying to get this issue resolved with Travelocity for more than six months, with no luck. We booked our honeymoon flight to Hawaii on ATA Airlines, but 10 days before our trip we got a call saying that the airline had gone out of business.

A Travelocity representative assured us we had been rebooked on new flights and that everything was taken care of.

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Nothing was worked out. We had to buy another set of tickets to keep our trip.

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We’re out more than $4,000 for the airline tickets and an extra night’s accommodations and transportation expenses.

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Answer: Travelocity should have issued a prompt refund for the new airline tickets you had to buy. Actually, it shouldn’t have come to this at all. As your online travel agent, it should have ensured you were rebooked on another flight — just like it promised.

There’s no excuse for keeping you waiting this long for your money. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the requests for additional documentation were nothing more than a delay tactic meant to wear you down until you give up.

But I know better. As it turns out, Travelocity had issued paper tickets for your first flight, and when ATA went belly-up, it created a bureaucratic nightmare

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Why did you book the most important vacation of your life through an online travel agency? This is a trip of a lifetime, and you really should consider entrusting it to a competent travel professional — preferably, someone who specializes in honeymoons.

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Editor Note: If an Ontario Registered agent had booked this honeymoon, the bankruptcy of the airline would have been covered by TICO. Travelonly would have covered the situation and then recovered the extra costs from TICO. With Travelonly you are communicating with professionals who car and a family run nationwide consortium that cares passionately about travel and it’s customers.

Read Christopher Elliott’s full Reply here

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August 27th, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Category: Airlines, Security, Why Use A Travel Agent

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