THIEVING ORBITZ.COM

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My mother had a hip replacement, in Illinois. I live in southern

California. I bought a round-trip ticket on an American Airlines

flight, THROUGH ORBITZ.COM, from Los Angeles to St. Louis, knowing

well at the time of purchase that I might need to change the date on

which I used it.

Before buying the ticket, I carefully reviewed the Orbitz Terms and

Conditions Web page, and even went so far as to send an email to

their customer service department asking them to verify via return

email that the ticket I was purchasing could be applied as a credit

should I need to change the travel dates. I received a return email -

which I still have - verifying for me that I would, in fact, be able

to do so. So I bought the ticket.

I did not use the ticket on the original travel dates, and upon

contacting Orbitz to book a new flight and use the credit, I was told

that since I hadn't "cancelled" the ticket by calling Orbitz or the

airline, I had forfeited it entirely. The agent said it "varied from

airline to airline" as to whether they would honor credits for

tickets that had not been officially "cancelled" anywhere. The fact

that Orbitz could not change my ticket for credit was specifically

due, that first Orbitz agent said, to an American Airlines policy,

not Orbitz's.

I then called American Airlines, only to be told by the AA agent that

they would not be able to honor the ticket because it was an Orbitz

policy that prevented doing so. I called Orbitz AGAIN, explained the

situation, and the female agent (who, while polite enough, was

impossible to understand because of a heavy accent) said she would

call AA herself and intervene. She seemed particularly interested in

the name of the AA agent that had told me the Orbitz policy prevented

a reissue, and reiterated several times that if I'd had the AA

agent's name, it would have helped the situation. (Why that is an

issue, I'm still not sure, but be assured that I'll never again

forget to get that information.)

So the Orbitz agent put me on hold, came back some time later to get

from me the flight information for the new AA flights I wanted to

book, and put me on hold again. After another long wait, she came

back on and said she'd nearly had the ticket booked but the AA agent

had hung up on her, as if that was some sort of explanation - for

what, I don't know. And so I said, "Well, okay. So call AA back then.

I'll wait."

Wait I did, even longer this time, only to have her finally return

and say a NEW AA was unwilling to make the change, and did I want to

talk to directly to AA? Furious, I then asked to speak to the Orbitz

woman's supervisor and got a rude, infuriating jerk named Marcella,

who essentially blew me off. I asked him to a) show me specifically

on the Orbitz Terms and Conditions page where ANY of this business

of, depending on the airline, being required to "cancel" a flight

appeared (it did not; nothing even close); and b) to consider what it

must be like to be in my shoes and hear first, from Orbitz, that the

problem was an AA policy, then, from AA, that it was an Orbitz

policy, and THEN that the rebooking had "almost" taken place only to

be abruptly ended by someone at AA mysteriously hanging up on the

Orbitz agent trying to handle my problem. What a sorry bunch of B.S.

My complaint, specifically, is this: Why is this sort of B.S. even

legal? If, when buying a ticket on Orbitz.com, it "varies from

airline to airline" as to whether or not a credit will be issued for

an unused ticket, depending on whether either Orbitz OR the airline

has been contacted by the ticket buyer to cancel the original travel

dates, then why the hell doesn't it SAY THAT someplace obvious when

you're buying a damned ticket? In my case, I had gone to some lengths

- verifying the Orbitz Terms and Conditions, requesting an email

verification - to be certain that the ticket would be reusable

because the situation involved my mother and her post-surgery

condition. Had I known I needed to actually "cancel" the ticket, by

phone, email or any other means, I most certainly would have done so.

I was certainly prepared to pay the $100+ in charges to change the

ticket - why would I not have done whatever formal "cancellation"

notification was required?

Moreover, I had a very similar experience in 2006 - again due to my

elderly mother's health - involving Orbitz and an Alaska Airlines

ticket that I didn't use and didn't do anything to formally "cancel,"

and the credit was accepted on a rebooking by Alaska Airlines without

issue.

So. Why is this sort of ambiguity permitted? Why is Orbitz not

required by law to clearly state in easily locatable terms that the

circumstances surrounding a ticket's exchangeability vary

SIGNIFICANTLY from airline to airline? And why a gray area as to

whether or not an exchange goes forward, depending on which airline

agent or which Orbitz agent the latter's customer-service-line

lottery decides will be dealing with you?

This should be a simple matter of stating basic contract terms on the

Orbitz Web page. Among the first rude comments I heard from that

Orbitz jerk Marcella was that I should look at my bank statement and

see that Orbitz hadn't sold me the ticket - that the ticket charges

came from American Airlines, not Orbitz. Why was he so quick to want

to point THAT out? It felt to me very much like he'd heard this

complaint a million times before, and was ready to foist blame on

ANYONE but Orbitz.

This whole thing has been beyond unacceptable and I cannot believe

there aren't regulations somewhere that would prevent this sort of

robbery. I am out $401.69 and seemingly have no recourse, anywhere. I

never asked for a refund, only a rebooking in the EXACT same dollar

amount on AA, and was fully prepared to pay the usurious change fees

without question.

Is there NO way to make the damned airline ticket-buying process a

transparent, fair and legal one on Orbitz.com?