Cheaptickets ticket voucher experience

[Angrose]

I just wanted to share my experience exchanging the Cheaptickets voucher at the ticket booths this past weekend. I am going to preface this by saying that just last year I used both Orbitz and Cheaptickets vouchers with absolutely no problems. So, when my mom said she wanted to save some money on tickets I suggested that she go this route using Ebates. I also went through Ebates last year when I purchased my tickets. No problems at all.

My mom had no problem with the Ebates posting properly, BUT on Saturday night when we went to the ticket booths to exchange her voucher for tickets, it all went downhill fast. We were not going into the parks until Sunday morning, but since we were there we decided to exchange the voucher that evening instead of wasting time in the morning. I am so glad we did this because it took them 45 minutes to get my mom her ticket! First, the CM at the window had never seen a voucher like this before, so had to go get her manager. The CM at my window said he had never seen one either (I was getting my AP that I bought on the DLR site, so no problems there). They said that they had to call Cheaptickets to confirm the tickets and they were having a hard time getting ahold of anyone there. At one point it looked like they had 4 different CMs getting involved. It took them so long that we were really getting worried. Apparently Cheaptickets had not transferred the ticket info to DLR. They were finally able to get it confirmed, but because it wasn't in the DLR system they had to push it through manually. In the end my mom did get her tickets and the CMs were so nice and apologetic about it, even though it wasn't their fault. The whole situation was very stressful though and it would have been even more so if we had waited to do it in the morning and had wasted 45 minutes of precious park time for this debacle!

I will NOT purchase tickets through them again. It's not worth it and I will be writing them a scathing letter to let them know they have lost a customer. They do offer great discounts on hotels though and I use the regularly for that so I'm torn! Ugh!

Also want to share that I bought my son's ticket for our June trip through Cheaptickets and tried to change the voucher at the same time as my mom's this past weekend. They could not find his ticket in the system either, but said that it's probably because the valid dates aren't until June. One CM said that once the ticket becomes valid then it will stay in their system for awhile, but she's not sure for how long. So, if anyone needs to change their dates, it looks like it may not be possible to change for an earlier date, but possibly would work if changing for a later date.

I sincerely hope this was a one-time glitch in the Cheaptickets system and no one else has the same experience. Good luck!

 

[Butterfly123]

That sounds really stressful. I'm so glad that it worked out for your mom. Sometimes going with a less reliable site just isn't worth it for the money you save. We have had really good customer service with Get Away Today, and haven't had any problems with our vouchers. Thanks for the heads up on Cheaptickets.

 

[javeyloveschelsi]

Oh no! I was really, really hoping you would have no problems. I was wanting to move our ticket use to the day before as I have no desire to deal with the crowds on May 22nd. Not sure what to do now, if they will allow us to use them a day earlier or not. Thanks for the update!

 

[AngiTN]

Curious, how long between the time of purchase and the time you went to redeem was it?

 

[AngiTN]

Oh, and please update with what response, if any, you get from Cheaptickets

 

[Angrose]

Curious, how long between the time of purchase and the time you went to redeem was it?

My mom bought her ticket on Feb 24th, tried to redeem on Mar 14th, which was one of the dates we listed for the voucher. So 2 1/2 weeks in advance. I would think that would be enough time to get the info into Disney's system. We'll see how it works in June when I try the voucher for my son's ticket, which was purchased in mid-Feb.

 

[Angrose]

Oh no! I was really, really hoping you would have no problems. I was wanting to move our ticket use to the day before as I have no desire to deal with the crowds on May 22nd. Not sure what to do now, if they will allow us to use them a day earlier or not. Thanks for the update!

Hopefully one day difference won't be such a big deal. The CMs were so nice about everything, so maybe the would let you redeem it a day early. I hope it works out for you!

 

[AngiTN]

My mom bought her ticket on Feb 24th, tried to redeem on Mar 14th, which was one of the dates we listed for the voucher. So 2 1/2 weeks in advance. I would think that would be enough time to get the info into Disney's system. We'll see how it works in June when I try the voucher for my son's ticket, which was purchased in mid-Feb.

Thanks. You would think that is plenty of time but who knows. Still very curious about what Cheaptickets has to say, if anything.

 

[Golf4food]

Have our vouchers from them for August. I was already planning on maybe exchanging them the day we arrive - Saturday - before using them on Sunday, but your story solidifies it. Hopefully it was just a timing issue.

 

[neonderlyn]

I have vouchers for them for the last week of april, i really hope we dont have the same problem.

anybody else have experience using vouchers from them?

 

[Angrose]

Thanks. You would think that is plenty of time but who knows. Still very curious about what Cheaptickets has to say, if anything.

Well, considering I can't find their mailing address or an email where I can write to them, I am not holding much hope. I think I will post on their facebook page. That always seems to get people's attention!

 

[enrai]

I bought tickets from cheaptickets via ebates last month after DL announced the price increase for my trip in July. Hopefully there will be no trouble as we're planning to go to DL as soon as we check in to our hotel. If there's any issue, I guess this thread will be resurrected at that time...

 

[amyg1975]

Ugh, I hope this was just an off day. We will be using our vouchers in a just over a week. I will report back if we have issues.

 

[Cal-Pie]

Angrose- Sorry you had such a time consuming experience. I'm curious to know if YOU thought the voucher looked any different than those that you had previously purchased?

Last time I exchanged vouchers from Orbitz it took over 30 minutes, but that was because the CM was exceptionally thorough and super friendly. Even though I made it clear we were not first time visitors, he took the time to make sure we totally understood our park hopping privileges. Then he let each of my kids pick out there own ticket with their favorite character on it. He wrote each name on each ticket and had me check the spelling on each one 3 times He noticed from my drivers license that it was my birthday, gave me a birthday button and carefully printed my name on that. Then, I told him that my son would also be celebrating his birthday and he made sure he also carefully printed a button for him. After that, he decided the rest of the family needed celebration buttons, so we went through that process He made sure to wish me a happy Mother's Day, (it was the following day) and talked to each of my kids about how to treat their mother on Mother's Day. Then, he told us about all the shows and highlights in each park.

He was so kind, and really set a great tone for our visit, but I might have felt differently if I'd been in a hurry trying to exchange vouchers in the morning.

I'm sorry about your experience and I hope it was isolated, because I love the savings of Orbitz/Cheaptickets w/Ebates.

 

[Diszona]

Sorry you had such a bad experience, definitely not the best way to start a trip!

For others worried about Cheaptickets, we went to pick up out tickets last night and had no problems at all using our Cheaptickets voucher. It could be Angrose had the bad luck of combining a glitch at Cheaptickets with CMs who weren't as knowledgeable about the different types of vouchers.

 

[Angrose]

So, I just got off the phone with Cheaptickets customer service. The lady I spoke to was very nice and very apologetic about what happened. She said that thousands of reservations are sent through to Disney each day and that they have to manually open each of them and post the reservation to their system. She said that sometimes it's possible that they missed one or that they are backlogged in getting them processed. She insisted that the glitch happened on Disney's end, not theirs. Hmm. I expressed my concern that I would have the same problem when I try to redeem my voucher for my son's ticket in June. I told her that Disney was unable to pull up that voucher. She was very nice and said that she would call Disney right now to confirm that they had our reservation. She put me on hold for about 5 minutes and came back and said that it is all set, that it's definitely in their system and that I shouldn't have any problems. Again, she apologized that we had the problem with my mom's ticket.
So, now all I can assume is that she's telling the truth and that this was just an honest processing error or delay in processing on the Disney side. I am sort of wondering if it had anything to do with the fact that we bought our tickets a few days after the ticket increase, but Cheaptickets still had them at the old prices. I am also a little frustrated that I'm not able to confirm the tickets myself with Disney. I tried calling them before our trip and the CM told me that they can't do anything until they have the actual voucher and barcode in front of them. OK, but Cheaptickets was just able to confirm them over the phone? Who knows. I'm still not 100% convinced.
Like I said in my OP, I have used Cheaptickets and Orbitz before with no problems, and I'm glad that Diszona and others also are not having the same experience we had. I'll be interested to see how it goes when we're there in June!

 

[NavyDad01]

Just lurking and hate to jack this thread, but I'm taking my first trip to Disneyland and looking to purchase the tickets from aRes Travel or Orbitz. Based on what im reading am I understanding that I have to pick a specific date to go when buying tickets?

 

[elaine amj]

Sorry you had such a bad experience, definitely not the best way to start a trip!

For others worried about Cheaptickets, we went to pick up out tickets last night and had no problems at all using our Cheaptickets voucher. It could be Angrose had the bad luck of combining a glitch at Cheaptickets with CMs who weren't as knowledgeable about the different types of vouchers.

Thanks! I bought mine via Cheaptickets for July

 

[Angrose]

Just lurking and hate to jack this thread, but I'm taking my first trip to Disneyland and looking to purchase the tickets from aRes Travel or Orbitz. Based on what im reading am I understanding that I have to pick a specific date to go when buying tickets?

For Orbitz and Cheaptickets, yes, you have to put in your dates. You can put in a range of dates, so what I would do is put in a few days before your trip and a few days after so that you have some wiggle room.
I've never gone through aRes before, so I'm not sure how they work. A lot of people like way.com too, so I would look around to see who has the best prices for needs.

 

[bcwife76]

Sorry you had such a bad experience, definitely not the best way to start a trip!

For others worried about Cheaptickets, we went to pick up out tickets last night and had no problems at all using our Cheaptickets voucher. It could be Angrose had the bad luck of combining a glitch at Cheaptickets with CMs who weren't as knowledgeable about the different types of vouchers.

I'm sorry that Angrose had such a bad time of it, but what you've said has made me feel better too We bought ours via cheaptickets the day before the price increase, they are for the first week of October so that should be plenty of time to get them in the system ;-)