Travelocity vs. American Airlines

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Ok, so I wake up at 1:00 a.m. 3 days before we were supposed to drive down to N.O. because I had a couple of glasses of wine at dinner, and when I drink wine sometimes I can't sleep well.

I figured I would be productive and ended up looking at our Itinerary that the Travelocity guy had set up for us. I was suspicious the whole time he was helping me change the tickets from Bolivia to Argentina. He kept telling me to calm down any time I asked him a question, and when I double checked things with him, he acted like I was psycho . Now mind you I may be psycho, but I really don't like it when people treat me like I am one.

It turns out he had us flying into La Guardia, N.Y. and flying out of John F. Kennedy, N.Y. Now I have never flown through New York, especially NOT when going to South Americal. I thought to myself maybe La Guardia and John F. Kennedy are two names for the same airport, or maybe they are right next to each other, but since I wasn't sleepy I decided to give American Airlines a call about it and find out.

Debra answered the phone at American Airlines. I have never met her, but she really saved my butt.

It turns out that the two airports are an hour apart, and we would have to get our luggage from one airport, then find a shuttle ($50-$60 each) and get to the other airport. Wow, that would be a great start to our Vacation.

Anyways, Debra fixed it so we are going through Miami, and we are getting a refund.

From now on I might check with Travelocity , but if I can actually arrange for it with a particular Air line then that is what I am going to do.

The Travelocity people:

• Do not speak english well
  
• They are not familiar with each airlines computer systems to get the best deals
  
• They did not catch the fact that La Guardia and John F. Kennedy are an hour apart!
  

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Photos

Goodbye Travelocity
Travelocity almost screwed up my vacation. Thank-god for Debra at American Airlines!

Comments

[Craig Henderson]

Travelocity Did Screw Up My Vacation
I had an even worse experience with Travelocity than Glenn did. The probem was similar: Travelocity has problems setting up connecting flights that actually work. Because I trusted Travelocity, I was left stranded at the airport without any alternatives provided by Travelocity. I booked a flight to Honolulu through Travelocity. Travelocity set it up to go in two flights. Sacramento to Los Angeles and then Los Angeles to Honolulu. My itinerary showed a half hour of time between flights. When we got to the airport at approximately 5 in the morning, United Airlines told us we could not board because there was insufficient time between flights. The United clerks said that Travelocity makes this error frequently. The Travelocity phone operators were not helpful. After 3 phone calls with 20 minutes of waiting time, a manager said he would refund our money and then told me to find my own flight to Hawaii. The flight I booked cost a total of $800 more than the flight purchased through Travelocity. Had we been informed of the problem in advance, we could have found alternatives. At the airport, with a hotel stay booked, facing cancellation charges from the hotel, we were stranded by Travelocity. At this point, we do not have the refund from Travelocity yet, so we are out a total of almost $2900, for a simple flight to Honolulu. I cannot recommend Travelocity. It makes more sense to go directly through the airlines, if saving money is the goal. I've come to the same conclusion: Never use Travelocity because it ultimately could cost you a lot of money. Unlike Glenn, I trusted that Travelocity was a competent service. Ultimately, I lost out in ways that someone as persistent and suspicious as Glen never would.

[Pete]

Travelocity Problems
My recent trip with Travelocity cost more than expected too. It's not a huge deal, but we bought a ticket from Boston to Sacramento, changing planes (and airports) in Washington. The trip from DCA (National) to IAD (Dulles) is $40 each on the shuttle. In addition, it requires going to baggage claim, getting the bags, then checking in at the other airport...and they charge baggage fees again! Bottom line is that the ticket won't get you from point A to point B. We called customer service, but they said we were on our own. I can't recommend Travelocity unless you're savvy enough to anticipate these potiential costs and still save money (hidden costs made the trip for two $120 more than advertised).