Hey all!
I have spent the last 24 hours fighting to get my flight tickets to Orlando.
My friend and I are flying through United because she, and her husband, have 600 dollars in vouchers because of customer dissatisfaction from a flight earlier this year. The vouchers expire next February, so we wanted to use them for the flight on our Disney trip. Sounds good right??? Well I have had nothing but problems.
First off I called United to book the flights because you can't use the vouchers for online purchases. I went through everything with the girl until I had to give my address... then she realized that I was a Canadian purchasing tickets for a domestic flight. I had to be sent over to international bookings.
I go through all of the processes again through international bookings, and make a reservation. The girl was a bit confused that I was booking a domestic flight tho so I had to explain that I was Canadian but I was going to travel to the US and fly to Disney that way. We get to the voucher redemption... Can't do it over the phone... ARGH! I am advised that I either have to go to a United ticket counter (Basically travel all the way to the Toronto Airport, or hop the border and deal with a load of junk there,) OR go to a travek agent and they could process the tickets there. Either way, I'd have to have myself, my friend who's acoompanying me on the trip and her husband present with photo ID to redeem the vouchers. Needless to say, we chose the travel agency
So I call my friend and arrange for her and her husband to meet me at the travel agency. We get there, explain the situation to the agent and let her take over. She waits for over 20 mins to speak to a representative on the phone and asks them to queue the reservation info to her computer and she could process it.... NOPE! She can't do it.... My travel agent is thoughly confused as this has not happened before... Lucky Me! Now the only way to redeem the vouchers is to psysically mail them along with copies of photo ID to Dearborn, MI and hope to heck they process it right and send me the tickets back.
I'm told to send the information along with a pre-paid envelope for them to send the tickets back to me. I head over to Canada Post, hoping ths woukd be fairly easy.. WRONG! They can send the package via registered mail, which I wanted, but they have no way of doing a pre-paid envelope. The only thing they could offer was a regular envelope and me use some US stamps I had purchased a couple weeks ago (for Owl Mail at WWOHP.) I am not trusting my flight tickets to regular mail, thank you very much. I was told that UPS could do a registered return envelope as they are a US based company, so off to the UPS Store I go.
So I finally am able to get this information in registered envelopes with a return envelope, but it cost me an arm and a leg!!! I only had next day delivery options so to send the info down was $47.22 and then to have the return envelope it was 58.87 (there's a surcharge for it apparently.) So I walked out of the USP Store, $106.09 lighter and still with no tickets in my hand.
I made sure when I sent the info down to also send along a letter explaining the situation and my EXTREME displeasure.
Here's hoping they get things straighted out and I get my tickets soon. If I don't... I'm gonna pull a Cruella, drive like a madwoman to Dearborn, MI, and rip a strip off someone.
Sorry for the insanely long message, but I just HAD to vent!
I'll keep everyone informed
I have spent the last 24 hours fighting to get my flight tickets to Orlando.
My friend and I are flying through United because she, and her husband, have 600 dollars in vouchers because of customer dissatisfaction from a flight earlier this year. The vouchers expire next February, so we wanted to use them for the flight on our Disney trip. Sounds good right??? Well I have had nothing but problems.
First off I called United to book the flights because you can't use the vouchers for online purchases. I went through everything with the girl until I had to give my address... then she realized that I was a Canadian purchasing tickets for a domestic flight. I had to be sent over to international bookings.
I go through all of the processes again through international bookings, and make a reservation. The girl was a bit confused that I was booking a domestic flight tho so I had to explain that I was Canadian but I was going to travel to the US and fly to Disney that way. We get to the voucher redemption... Can't do it over the phone... ARGH! I am advised that I either have to go to a United ticket counter (Basically travel all the way to the Toronto Airport, or hop the border and deal with a load of junk there,) OR go to a travek agent and they could process the tickets there. Either way, I'd have to have myself, my friend who's acoompanying me on the trip and her husband present with photo ID to redeem the vouchers. Needless to say, we chose the travel agency
So I call my friend and arrange for her and her husband to meet me at the travel agency. We get there, explain the situation to the agent and let her take over. She waits for over 20 mins to speak to a representative on the phone and asks them to queue the reservation info to her computer and she could process it.... NOPE! She can't do it.... My travel agent is thoughly confused as this has not happened before... Lucky Me! Now the only way to redeem the vouchers is to psysically mail them along with copies of photo ID to Dearborn, MI and hope to heck they process it right and send me the tickets back.
I'm told to send the information along with a pre-paid envelope for them to send the tickets back to me. I head over to Canada Post, hoping ths woukd be fairly easy.. WRONG! They can send the package via registered mail, which I wanted, but they have no way of doing a pre-paid envelope. The only thing they could offer was a regular envelope and me use some US stamps I had purchased a couple weeks ago (for Owl Mail at WWOHP.) I am not trusting my flight tickets to regular mail, thank you very much. I was told that UPS could do a registered return envelope as they are a US based company, so off to the UPS Store I go.
So I finally am able to get this information in registered envelopes with a return envelope, but it cost me an arm and a leg!!! I only had next day delivery options so to send the info down was $47.22 and then to have the return envelope it was 58.87 (there's a surcharge for it apparently.) So I walked out of the USP Store, $106.09 lighter and still with no tickets in my hand.
I made sure when I sent the info down to also send along a letter explaining the situation and my EXTREME displeasure.
Here's hoping they get things straighted out and I get my tickets soon. If I don't... I'm gonna pull a Cruella, drive like a madwoman to Dearborn, MI, and rip a strip off someone.
Sorry for the insanely long message, but I just HAD to vent!
I'll keep everyone informed