Cheaptickets.com - on hold on the phone for an accumulated time of over 3 hours - double charged Visa check card

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on January 18, 2003:

From: Patrick Pete [Email User] RE: Cheaptickets.com - on hold on the phone for an accumulated time of over 3 hours - double charged Visa check card

I purchased tickets at Cheaptickets.com. I realized I booked at an airport I didn’t want to fly out of so I called Cheaptickets.com just to see if they could help me. If they couldn’t I was fine with it. Why did I do that? I

spent the remainder of the day dealing with their customer service and spend the majority of that time on hold.

Their customer service is absolutely terrible, in my experience. They say that they have 24/7 customer service put I believe this is false advertising because they are permanently putting you on hold (I was on hold for an accumulated time of 3-4 hours) and the message that comes on is identical to the automated message you receive when you attempt to contact them from e-mail. “Due to the popularity of their low fares they are experiencing high call volume and/or email, so you may experience a delay” is the message you will hear no matter when you call them.

I called between 9am to 4pm and got that message all day. I then called at 12 am in the morning to see if the call volume had subsided. I got the same message and was on hold for another 30 minutes with no one picking up. I wish that was my only problem but it wasn’t.

During my ordeal I was put on hold with the website support for 40 minutes once and 25-30 minutes again. When I couldn’t get any help from the website customer service I called their regular customer service and waited for another 30 minutes only to have them tell me they couldn’t do anything for me. When I asked to speak to a supervisor I was put on hold for another 20 minutes before I finally had to hang up because I was at work and had meetings to attend.

In addition to all of this they doublecharged my VISA Checkcard (This is a recurring problem, in my experience, with any company that puts a hold on your card to secure a reservation type service i.e. hotels, car rentals and airlines) even though they don’t inform you of this possibility when you attempt to purchase a ticket.

I might have let this pass, but after going through this painful experience I checked on the Web to see if this was a trend. And sure enough this was a pattern. They had done this same thing earlier and obviously hadn’t addressed it. As of the writing of this email I have still not received my confirmation email that has my flight confirmation number which is necessary for receiving my boarding pass via my e-ticket. I thought about getting a paper ticket but they charge 20 BUCKS!! for that.

I am spending this time to right this email because I have become a very patient person as I have grown, but this experience ALMOST got to me, but it didn’t. I don’t have any vindictive words or anything to say about the company except that if you say that the reason someone should purchase their tickets from you is because you are committed to a hassle-free travel planning experience then you should at least try to come close to it. I think they have done a poor job and I want to spare anyone out there from having to experience it firsthand.