COOL TIP: Considering buying travel from AirTkt? Don’t (and here’s what to do if you did).

AirTkt is an online consolidator that claims to be “trusted since 1990”.  It is affiliated with Eros Tour and Travel which appears to target senior citizens looking for cheap fares.  Based upon a complaint we received and our review of other online complaints, we strongly recommend against using AirTkt.  And, if you already did buy something and are one of the many cusotomers who have been poorly treated,  we have some recommendations for what to do.  Is AirTkt a scam?  Not exactly.  It is more likely one of the many online businesses who have lost sight of good customer service.    We’ll share what we know and let you make the decision about whether to use them.  We don’t recommend it.

The complaint we received was from a customer who had booked a ticket through AirTkt but never received a confirmation.   We called on behalf of the customer.  It took a few hours to get past the busy signal and then another 40 minutes to finally talk to a human voice.  We should add, a seemingly stressed, rude and irritable voice in what sounded like a boiler room operation.   The passenger had purchased a round-trip ticket for a United Airlines flight.   We arranged to have the ticket canceled and then found that she could purchase the same ticket directly from United for $18 less than what AirTkt had charged her.    So, in a nutshell, AirTkt wasn’t offering any good deal and was extremely unapologetic about failing to communicate with the customer about her purchase.

Then we decided to check out whether this customer was alone in having been largely abused by this consolidator.   Sure enough, the heavens opened up with all of the complaints about the business practices of this travel website.   They weren’t pretty — you can read them yourself, if you haven’t eaten any food in the last few hours:

If you don’t have the time, here’s a sampling of the experiences reported within the last year by some of the unhappy AirTkt casualties:

“Please please PLEASE don’t book a ticket with this place. I booked a ticket with my cousin at the same time and waited hours before we got an email confirmation. To my dismay, I saw that Airtkt messed up both of our addresses, seats, food requirements and credit card information. Essentially, the system thought i was my cousin and my cousin was me because we have the same last  names. If their systems are that bad, how the hell can you trust that you would get on your flight and to your destination as scheduled? Infact, after reading everyone’s review, seems like people have been screwed by this company. After asking for a refund, the guy with a heavy accent (very difficult to understand him and he was getting really pissed) refused to give my refund. I told him who is xxx (first name) xxxx (last name) and he said it was me when in reality it was my cousin (obviously didnt tell him it was my cousin). The customer service rep was convinced that it was me even though i insisted that i received an email confirmation from somebody else. This website is a joke. Their IT systems need to be updated. Their customer service folks need to all be fired and replaced. Additionally, the customer service rep was being SOOOO rude about giving me a refund even though i was well within my 24 hour refund policy. He kept asking me “why” and i kept repeating to him “i want my refund”. That literally went on for 15 mins. This whole place is a JOKE. Do yourself a favor, pay more with another airline service engine provider to save yourself a nasty migraine and high blood pressure.”

“If I could give this agency less than one star, I would. I wanted to book a ticket to a bachelorette party, but the site froze multiple times while purchasing and would not let me move forward to finalize booking. Little did I know that while clicking on the page trying to get it to move forward, the site booked multiple of the same flight on my card. Realizing that there was an abnormal glitch, I called the customer care line and asked whether the site had charged my card. Indeed, it had – twice — although I did not learn this until asking the agent to double check that all charges connected to my flight had been deleted. He said he had deleted my flight from the system but said that I would not be refunded the $12.99 travel insurance I had selected. He then informed me that I had booked two of the same flight. I insisted that I wanted both $12.99 charges deleted. He said he could only delete the flights plus one charge of $12.99. I asked if he could speak with a manager to request canceling all changers. He said no. I figured Id eat the cost of one $12.00 charge in order to be returned $500 for my flights. When I logged into my bank account the following day, I saw that the agent had only cancelled one $12.99 charge, and both flights plus another $12.99 charge was still on my card. I am now calling my credit card to cancel this expense from their end, as I trust my bank more than I trust this company. I will never, ever use this company again, and I suggest others do the same.”

“I called to receive assistance with changing a flight and after waiting on hold for an extensive period of time the represented was being short with me and very rude. The representative hung up in my face before I got a chance to express fully what I needed assistance with. When I called back several hours later to cancel my flight another representative cut me off and ignored my comment in relation to the experience I had with the previous rep. Customer service is lacking. The reps are rude and are not concerned about customer satisfaction. I will not be using this service again.”

“NOT a legit company! READ REVIEWS BEFORE ENTERING YOUR CC. Bait and switch, they get your CC, your think you reserved a flight then they send you an email saying this flight no longer exists- if you want the same flight you need to pay more. Cant get ahold of anyone via phone, chat, email. BEWARE.”

By now, you probably get the point.  The website is glitchy, their attitude is atrocious and their customer service is the pits.   If you happen to have made the mistake of booking with this online seller and want to cancel the transaction, we recommend the following.  First, send an email asking to cancel the transaction to two email addresses:

support@airtkt.com; and 
seo@airtkt.com

You may or may not receive a response.  After about 24 hours, contact your credit card issuer and ask to contest the transaction on the basis that they didn’t deliver what they’d promised.  And then use a more reputable online travel company.   Some of the ones we recommend are:

  • www.google.com/flights
  • www.kayak.com
  • www.vayama.com

You can read more about how to best use travel websites at our Tremendous Travel Tips blog.

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