If you’re thinking about booking plane tickets through JustFly.com, my advice to you is don’t. At least, you might think twice about it after hearing the experience my wife and I recently had.
So we searched for airline tickets at JustFly for her and our son. After narrowing down results to the best option, we proceeded to book the tickets. On the page where we were required to enter the passenger names, it warned that any errors could mean we won’t be able to get on the flight, since the TSA requires names on tickets to appear exactly as on the passport. Naturally, we were very careful to enter my wife’s name correctly.
We reviewed all our information and everything was correct, so we proceeded to process payment. But then when we arrived at the confirmation page, JustFly was showing my wife’s name incorrectly. She is Taiwanese and her Chinese name includes a hyphen. Their system had stripped the hyphen and made the second syllable her middle name. This obviously concerned us since it could mean the TSA might not allow her on the plane, and we didn’t want to be out $1,500 for the cost of useless tickets. So we called JustFly’s customer support.
We spoke with “Dylan”, who confirmed that the name error caused by their system was a problem. He said it would cost us $300 to get the name corrected! I objected that it was ridiculous to charge us hundreds of dollars to correct a mistake that was caused by their system. So he said then we needed to cancel the tickets immediately, while we still could, which would cost us a $150 cancellation fee ($75 for each ticket). I said no way, that is not acceptable either, they need to waive the fee. After a lengthy argument on the phone in which he tried to rationalize why it wasn’t their problem, Dylan reduced the fee to $50 ($25 for each ticket). His attitude about this was that he was doing us a favor by charging us “only” $50 for their error. After some further futile arguing, he insisted he had no capability or authority to do more than that.
I asked to speak with his supervisor, which he refused to allow me to do. After some time, he assured me that once the tickets were cancelled, we could call back to request an investigation be opened, and if it was determined that the problem was indeed caused by their system and not user error, we’d be able to get the cancellation fee refunded. Having little other choice, we proceeded with the cancellation.
After several minutes, the cancellation was appearing as processed in their system, so I called back. I went through the whole thing again with “Cynthia”. She tried to blame us for the problem by saying we could have checked with the airline first to make sure the name came through correctly, and that therefore by cancelling without doing that, it was our fault. I pointed out that the reason we cancelled was because we were told by her company’s own customer support representative that since the name was incorrect in their system, we would have to cancel the tickets.
After going around in circles with her for some time, I asked to speak with her supervisor. I then spoke with “Rich”, who likewise tried to blame us and kept going around in circles. He would argue why they couldn’t accept responsibility and I would point out the logical errors with his arguments, and he would just go back around and repeat the same things over and over again, never addressing my legitimate observations about precisely why it was their responsibility.
Shifting tactics, Rich then kept insisting that even if it was their fault, there was nothing they could do because that they have limitations with their system preventing them from refunding the cancellation fee. I told Rich that isn’t true, that if they can charge my credit card, they can also reverse the charge. He insisted he had “no authority” to do so, so I told him to let me speak with somebody who has that authority. He replied that nobody at the company has authority to issue a refund for a cancellation fee and that their system won’t allow it!
I kept asking Rich why they couldn’t do that. What was stopping them? He naturally refused to answer the question and just kept repeating the line about the “limitations” of their system. So I kept pointing out that he wasn’t answering my question, and he insisted he had. Finally, after he repeated for the umpteenth time that it wasn’t possible for them to issue the refund, I told him he was lying and that I wanted to speak with his supervisor. He said there were no supervisors higher than him. So I asked to speak with his employer, which he said I couldn’t do. He said I could speak with another supervisor, so I did that and ended up on the phone with “Carlos”.
I went through the same routine with Carlos, who likewise had an attitude like they had done us a favor by “only” charging us $50 instead of $150. He went through all the same arguments, over and over again, about why it wasn’t their responsibility. I pointed out the logical problems with his arguments over and over again, insisting he explain to me why, exactly, he couldn’t just issue the refund. He ended up citing their terms as relating to cancellation fees as justification for why they couldn’t do so. So I read back his own terms to him, the relevant portion of which states:
Please be aware that once you have made a reservation, name changes are not allowed. If you find you need to change or correct the spelling of a name after you’ve made a reservation, you will have to cancel your original reservation—if allowed—and then make a new reservation with a new flight at the then-current rate using the correct spelling of the name. This will likely incur fees and penalties. Therefore, it is imperative—and your responsibility—to verify the spelling of the names of all passengers before making your reservation.
I pointed out to him once again that we had verified the spelling of names, but that it was their system that caused the error because of its inability to handle hyphenated names. And since, by their own terms, we were not responsible for misspelling the name, we therefore cannot be held responsible for incurring the fee for the required cancellation. Since JustFly was itself responsible for the misspelling in this case, this fee logically must be waived.
After using his own terms against him, he finally relented to investigating the cause of the problem to verify our “claim”. He did so and confirmed that the problem with the name was caused by their system. So he said he would refund the fee for my wife’s ticket, but not my son’s! He described this as “fair”!
I said, no, that isn’t fair at all, since, again, the reason my son’s flight had to be cancelled was the same reason my wife’s flight had to be cancelled, which was that their system caused an error with her name. He finally gave up trying to argue with reason and issued the refund for the full $50. This, of course, proved what a liar Rich was repeatedly telling me that this was not possible.
Then Carlos said that they were issuing the refund only “as a courtesy”. I replied, “So let me get this straight. Your company accepts responsibility for problems caused by your own computer system only as a ‘courtesy‘ to your customers, not because it’s the right thing to do? Like you’re doing me a favor by not charging me to cover the costs for your error? What kind of company are you?” Oh, to be precise, he said it was a “one-time” courtesy. So I added that he doesn’t have to worry, we won’t be doing business with them again, ever.
And that pretty much wrapped up that conversation.
In the end, I got all our money back, but at a cost of several hours of lost productivity. No exaggeration, we were on the phone trying to rationalize with these unhelpful jerks for over three hours! I recognized early on in this debacle that it wasn’t worth the time due to my opportunity cost; however, there is a principle to uphold here! I wasn’t about to let them just get away with that, and that’s also why I’m writing about our atrocious experience, to warn you about this company and their horrible, horrible, horrible customer support.
After confirming that both the ticket price and cancellation fee were refunded, we ended up just going to the airline’s website and booking the same flight for a lower price. And the airline has a 24-hour free cancellation policy. So, yeah, our one mistake was thinking that we could book a cheaper flight by using JustFly. It did actually help us find the best flight for our needs, but we just used that information to book cheaper directly with the airline. So there’s your takeaway. Do not book airline tickets with JustFly! The one thing they seem highly competent at there is giving customers a hard time and ripping them off.
And I feel much better about it now that I’ve shared that experience with you so you can avoid having to go through anything like it.
The fact that he was able to 0refund you your money after telling you he could not, tells me that the miss spelling of your wifes name was intentional. I got scammed for $3,250 from Justfly after trying to ligitimately cancel in time to honor my travel insurances requirements. I must add here that the insurance was booked through them. They took my cc number for the $450 for the cancelation three days before the flight for three flights. They told me that I will get a cancelation email within 24 hours. Why not right away? They said that they are going to check to get me the $900 sales tax from the airline. Of course I was foolish to think all is dandy. Two days later a day before the flight I get an email telling me what to do with my luggage. Naturally I check my cc and it was not charged. I call just fly and “Jim” some where in India says there is no record of the previous call or cancellation!!!! I was very upset to tell the least. Here is the kicker… He gets me to “cancel” once more with the promise that they will send me a cancelation email that would be backdated to Thursday. When I give him the cc number he tells me that it is not going through and that I should use another card. I insist that that can’t be true as there is a large limit on it. Sure enough…I make a mistake again and in my desperation give them my ATM card and miraculously that goes through. His giveaway and mistake was not to ask me for the three digit code for the cc and presumably tells me that that card would not work as he saw that it is a cc not a debit. He did not fail to ask for the 3 digit code for the ATM. Sure enough no cancelation email for the flight and my Debit card was charged the $450. I called WOW air yesterday that was our departure day with the flight details and they are not allowed to tell me if my seats were canceles as I have booked through a third party. What a mess!!! They are shamelessly committing fraud in the open and no one is doing anything about it!!! I am a single mother of 2 young children that is the sole provider who got 3 reasonably prices tickets, canceled them for ligitimate reasons to then loose out big time. There is so much shame in this and I feel powerless.
Rhita_dc@yahoo.com
I purchased flights on Delta through Justfly. On one of the flights, we were reseated in economy instead of the Comfort+ for which we paid. No idea why, and this was after a 4-hour delay, so we didn’t fight it. However, I tried to get a refund for the difference in seats. This took many interactions with Delta until we got the OK. The credit card that was to get the refund was not mine, so I questioned that. Delta said my tickets were paid for through Voyages a la Carte USA, which I never heard of, and the credit card may be the way they pay the airline. Justfly said no, it was paid for through them and not through VALC. No matter who I “talked” to on Justfly, they denied a connection to VALC and said they are not responsible for refunds. I was told to go back to Delta, which had already had an abundance of contacts from me. I called the number for VALC and got a menu option for – ta-da- Justfly. That means they are an intermediary for Justfly and airlines, including Delta. You can see the list of airlines on their website. The phone number for VALC did not connect with a person, only more menus and virtual assistants. I’ve sent them three messages with no response. This is not a large amount of money, but it is now the principle of the thing. Last time I book with Justfly. Delta did what they could.