HELP! ticketplanet.com selling "fraudulent" Airline tickets?? plus, I need info. on wh

[pw2pp]

Hi. I have been starting to look for airfare from Detroit to Orlando for February (the busy week)- 2002.
I went to a website called "ticketplanet.com"
This website is showing Spirit Airlines flights for that week. Yet, when I called Spirit Airlines (because I wanted to see if it is cheaper to buy from Spirit directly), the gentleman who answered the phone said that there are not yet flights available for that week (nothing after January 2002). When I asked him how this website can already be selling airline tickets (with the actual flight number listed), he replied "It is beyond me how they are able to do that when we don't even have a schedule yet for February". He said we get people calling here saying that they bought tickets from different websites and they call to check on their flight reservations and we don't even have those flights in our system". Then he said something like "It sounds fraudulent to me" or something like that.
Now, I am afraid to buy tickets from any of those websites. We just went to WDW last month and I bought the tickets from Travelocity.com and I didn't have any problem, although, I bought the tickets only 2-3 mos. in advance.
Has anyone ever heard of any "fraud" with those websites? Has anyone ever used ticketplanet.com?
One more thing, should I buy the tickets in about a month or so (directly from the airlines) or should I wait, in case the airlines have specials? Remember, it is President's week that we are going. Thanks.

 

[TravelSheryl]

Whoa there. You've made a pretty strong allegation that is totally false. In fact, it's the Spirit employee I'd be more concerned about making such a statement than Ticketplanet, because he is very ill-informed (not uncommon at all with some airline employees).

Ticketplanet has done nothing fraudulent at all because they haven't sold you a ticket. Yes, their display is inaccurate, but if you plan to make such an allegation on the Internet, you would be wise to have enough information to support that allegation.

Here's the deal. Some low fare carriers fares are posted on the travel agency websites such as Ticketplanet, Expedia and Travelocity, through an indirect link. If you tried to purchase a ticket that wasn't actually available for sale, you would be told so. This happens on the travel agency websites all the time. That's why you cannot assume any fare is valid until you actually try to purchase it (and you don't have to enter a credit card to get to that point).

It's way too early to purchase your tickets for February 2002 travel from Detroit to Orlando.

A wise thing to do would be to remove the word "fraudulent" from the subject line of your post. You never know who may be reading this board and you could be rightfully accused of libel.

 

[pw2pp]

If you look at the "subject line", you would see that I put 2 ?? (question marks) in the title. I was not making any allegations. I was asking if anyone knew anything about this.
On that website, I was going through the steps to buy the tickets, if I had gone 1 step further, I would have purchased the tickets - so I don't know how you can say that if there were no such tickets, I would not be allowed to buy them. The next step would have been to give my credit card number.
I do not own this message board and I am not a member of the press, I am simply a "person" posing a question to other people on a message board.
Moderators: Please, if I have anything wrong, please delete this post. I do not want to receive any attacks from people accusing me of anything.