Jump to content

Warning about Choice Air & Refunds


mostly_cruisen
 Share

Recommended Posts

We booked flights to Rome with Choice Air to take a European Cruise - our direct flight was cancelled and resulted in a connecting flight with a long layover. Delta at that last moment substituted a larger plane and we had to pay to upgrade our seats and sit together. Delta refunded our change fee but issued the credit directly to Choice Air b/c they purchase tickets in bulk. Choice Air has received the credit but "is researching" and refuses to process the credit - this is ongoing for 3 months.

 

WARNING - booking with Choice Air was a terrible experience. they are unresponsive and no one can help regardless of the issue. We will never book with Choice Air - totally not worth it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We booked flights to Rome with Choice Air to take a European Cruise - our direct flight was cancelled and resulted in a connecting flight with a long layover. Delta at that last moment substituted a larger plane and we had to pay to upgrade our seats and sit together. Delta refunded our change fee but issued the credit directly to Choice Air b/c they purchase tickets in bulk. Choice Air has received the credit but "is researching" and refuses to process the credit - this is ongoing for 3 months.

 

WARNING - booking with Choice Air was a terrible experience. they are unresponsive and no one can help regardless of the issue. We will never book with Choice Air - totally not worth it.

 

Sorry for your inconvenience and challenges with CA...

 

A question I have is, did you reach out to CA when you found out the flight was cancelled? If so, what was their response or did you try to take care of the situation yourself right there and then?

 

bon voyage

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We booked flights to Rome with Choice Air to take a European Cruise - our direct flight was cancelled and resulted in a connecting flight with a long layover. Delta at that last moment substituted a larger plane and we had to pay to upgrade our seats and sit together. Delta refunded our change fee but issued the credit directly to Choice Air b/c they purchase tickets in bulk. Choice Air has received the credit but "is researching" and refuses to process the credit - this is ongoing for 3 months.

 

WARNING - booking with Choice Air was a terrible experience. they are unresponsive and no one can help regardless of the issue. We will never book with Choice Air - totally not worth it.

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

Odd that Delta would not refund the change fee back to the same credit card used to pay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We booked flights to Rome with Choice Air to take a European Cruise - our direct flight was cancelled and resulted in a connecting flight with a long layover. Delta at that last moment substituted a larger plane and we had to pay to upgrade our seats and sit together. Delta refunded our change fee but issued the credit directly to Choice Air b/c they purchase tickets in bulk. Choice Air has received the credit but "is researching" and refuses to process the credit - this is ongoing for 3 months.

 

WARNING - booking with Choice Air was a terrible experience. they are unresponsive and no one can help regardless of the issue. We will never book with Choice Air - totally not worth it.

 

I'd like a little further clarification here, if you don't mind.

If your original flight was cancelled and Delta put you on another set of flights, you should not have a change fee. Why did you have to pay to upgrade seats and sit together? Were you not already booked into Premium Economy for the nonstop (or was it truly a direct, not a nonstop - big difference) or Comfort +/PE? You should not have had to pay to get those same types of seats on the new flights. Did you bypass CA and go to Delta for this? Did you physically pay Delta something or did you pay to CA? If it was CA, good luck.

When I've had schedule changes with Delta, I have never been charged a change fee due to their changing a flight. Something fishy here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm guessing that MAYBE the OP meant that when the change was made, there were no longer 2 available seats together in their cabin class, and the only way to sit together was to upgrade to preferred seating?

 

OP: For future reference, understand that when you select seats, it is really just a seat request, not a guarantee that that's where you'll get to sit. It usually works out but not always, and in theory the same thing could have happened if you'd purchased the tickets directly from Delta. If the flight was changed, the flight was changed, and if the new flight didn't have available seats together other than in the preferred seating or premium cabin, then that wouldn't have been any different no matter how you'd bought the tickets.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Addressing but one of the various issues raised by the OP:

 

The question of "who gets the refund" pops up with some regularity on this board.

 

A poster on Quora provides a clear explanation of why Cruise Air (who is acting as your travel agent) gets any refund, not the passenger. Essentially it's "follow the money." The passenger pays the third party agent (Cruise Air), the third party agent pays the airline. Any refund flows from the airline back to the paying third party agent, and from there to the passenger - because the travel agent "owns" the reservation.

 

This except is from an answer to the question: "Are you better off booking flights directly through the airlines, rather than [a third party]?"

 

"The root-cause reason to book with the airline is a feature of airline reservations — somewhere between a technical and policy attribute — that a reservation has an “owner” (usually the person who created it or the last person to edit it). No one but the “owner” can edit the reservation, or transfer control to someone else, or perform certain administrative actions like cancelling a trip or issuing a refund.

You’ve seen the risks of this “ownership” model if you have ever called an airline and said “hey, my flight is delayed, can you book me on another one?” or “hey, my plans changed, I need to change this trip” and they have replied “I see you booked this through a travel agent, we don’t own this reservation and cannot edit it, please contact them”."

 

The entire response is worth a read if you want to be more educated on the pros/cons of using a travel agent such as Cruise Air.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm guessing that MAYBE the OP meant that when the change was made, there were no longer 2 available seats together in their cabin class, and the only way to sit together was to upgrade to preferred seating?

 

OP: For future reference, understand that when you select seats, it is really just a seat request, not a guarantee that that's where you'll get to sit. It usually works out but not always, and in theory the same thing could have happened if you'd purchased the tickets directly from Delta. If the flight was changed, the flight was changed, and if the new flight didn't have available seats together other than in the preferred seating or premium cabin, then that wouldn't have been any different no matter how you'd bought the tickets.

 

Absolutely correct on the seats. Just because you now "paid" to select seats together, do not think that you are guaranteed to always have seats together. You merely purchased the ability to have a seat in the preferred area - NOT two seats together.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome to Cruise Critic.

 

Odd that Delta would not refund the change fee back to the same credit card used to pay.

 

OP paid Royal Caribbean (that's what the CC charge would have been on his/her statement), which then turned around and used a different payment method to pay Delta. All refunds have to flow back through RCI. They managed to "lose" a refund of ours that got stuck in the accounting department for a couple of months.

 

OP, are you talking to Choice Air (now known as Air2Sea)? If so, I recommend contacting the post-cruise department at Royal Caribbean (or Celebrity or Azamara) and getting them involved. They seem to have a more direct line to the money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...
We booked flights to Rome with Choice Air to take a European Cruise - our direct flight was cancelled and resulted in a connecting flight with a long layover. Delta at that last moment substituted a larger plane and we had to pay to upgrade our seats and sit together. Delta refunded our change fee but issued the credit directly to Choice Air b/c they purchase tickets in bulk. Choice Air has received the credit but "is researching" and refuses to process the credit - this is ongoing for 3 months.

 

WARNING - booking with Choice Air was a terrible experience. they are unresponsive and no one can help regardless of the issue. We will never book with Choice Air - totally not worth it.

 

For the record, I am currently dealing with the same problem. I was on Delta during their whole storm flight cancellation fiasco in April. Flight got canceled. Delta refunded my ticket the day I got back, but I booked through Choice Air so money goes back to them first. It has been over 3 months of repeated calls and still no refund. Constsnt claims of " they'll look into it and call me back." They have also told me the reason is because they haven't heard back from their accounting department, but I can't contact the department myself because their is " no number" for their accounting department and they only communicate through email... It is alot of money I'm waiting on and honestly for this trouble, I'll never book with them again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have you tried filing a dispute with your credit card company?

 

No, it just frustrates me because I know for a fact the airline already refunded ChoiceAir. They're being crooks and pocketing my money. I don't expect my credit card company to refund it, I expect this Choice Air company to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, it just frustrates me because I know for a fact the airline already refunded ChoiceAir. They're being crooks and pocketing my money. I don't expect my credit card company to refund it, I expect this Choice Air company to.

Well, your credit card company will take the money from who you paid, which is Choice Air, if your dispute is successful. They don't just "give" you money back. The merchant pays it in one way or another.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
 Share

  • Forum Jump
    • Categories
      • Welcome to Cruise Critic
      • New Cruisers
      • Cruise Lines “A – O”
      • Cruise Lines “P – Z”
      • River Cruising
      • ROLL CALLS
      • Digital Photography & Cruise Technology
      • Special Interest Cruising
      • Cruise Discussion Topics
      • UK Cruising
      • Australia & New Zealand Cruisers
      • Canadian Cruisers
      • North American Homeports
      • Ports of Call
      • Cruise Conversations
×
×
  • Create New...