Tuesday, May 22, 2012

The Trip that Almost Wasn’t a.k.a F-you Orbitz.com

Adventures in the airport are never good. I like to save my adventure time for when we are actually in-country. Despite the best efforts (or really I should say despite the despicable lackluster efforts) of Orbitz we still managed to make it.

Our airport misadventure began when we checked in at OKC and were told that while Orbitz made a reservation for us on the flight, they never issued a ticket. So even though we’d paid Orbitz nearly $1,000 for this flight, Delta couldn’t give us a boarding pass because on their end we hadn’t paid. To pay at the gate would be an extra $2,000 since the flight was leaving in a matter of hours.

But it’s a simple fix. Just call Orbitz, tell them about the mistake, and they can issue the ticket and it’ll all be cleared up. Only getting Orbitz to fix their colossal screw up was anything but easy. Turns out it was impossible.

John and I used both cell phones to make multiple calls to Orbitz as the clock on our boarding time ticked down. Between the two of us we talked to at least a dozen reps. Most claimed they could find our record because Orbitz had changed systems since then (I was using the confirmation number Orbitz sent me three days prior). The ones who bothered to try, found the reservation, but no one seemed to know how to issue the ticket. I’m sorry, isn’t that what you do?!

Everyone we spoke to either put us on hold for 20 plus minutes, transferred us back to the department we originally called, or simply hung up on us. Yep, hung up! Question too hard? Oopsie, we must have been “disconnected.” Four times.

Then at literally the last minute, Mother Nature, flight delays and a miracle worker at the Delta counter saved us. The flight we booked was delayed by storms and would miss the connection. Somehow being forced to rebook opened the itinerary and Delta was able to put us on another flight at no charge. So instead of paying $2,000 to savage our trip, we got off with paying a $25 cab ride from La Guardia to JFK where we originally were supposed to land.

Then as if Delta hadn’t done enough already, our flight attendant gave us free wine because our flight was delayed. So, now I double plus mega heart Delta forever. I took down the miracle worker’s name so I can call Delta when we get home and tell them how awesome she was. I also plan to contact the Better Business Bureau and have a little chat about Orbitz.

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