My $450 mistake

[ChiCat]

We are going to St Louis for Thanksgiving and then flying out Saturday to Orlando with my inlaws. Back in March I was on Kayak just looking at flights and checking prices between St Louis to MCO and Chicago to MCO because if Chicago was significantly cheaper we would ditch Thanksgiving and just meet them in Orlando. I found a great deal for $225 from St Louis so I booked the flights right away. A couple of weeks ago I decided to finally check that email with my confirmation of those flights and saw they were for Chicago to St Louis!!! Totally worthless to us! I called United but they told me they could issue me a travel voucher for around $100 or we could pay change flight fees and the difference to fly from St Louis to Orlando for over $650 more.

Flights for the dates we are looking at are around $350 for other airlines so no matter which way we went we were going to be out over a grand for two silly flights from St Louis to MCO and back. I guess the bright side is DH agreed to sign up for the SW card for the 50k bonus but I'm still just sick over what I did and I don't even know how I did it.

Has anyone had to recieve a travel voucher? I'm assuming they expire and it's probably not even worth my time to spend more time on the phone with United's customer service reps.

 

[Hook326]

We are going to St Louis for Thanksgiving and then flying out Saturday to Orlando with my inlaws. Back in March I was on Kayak just looking at flights and checking prices between St Louis to MCO and Chicago to MCO because if Chicago was significantly cheaper we would ditch Thanksgiving and just meet them in Orlando. I found a great deal for $225 from St Louis so I booked the flights right away. A couple of weeks ago I decided to finally check that email with my confirmation of those flights and saw they were for Chicago to St Louis!!! Totally worthless to us! I called United but they told me they could issue me a travel voucher for around $100 or we could pay change flight fees and the difference to fly from St Louis to Orlando for over $650 more.

Flights for the dates we are looking at are around $350 for other airlines so no matter which way we went we were going to be out over a grand for two silly flights from St Louis to MCO and back. I guess the bright side is DH agreed to sign up for the SW card for the 50k bonus but I'm still just sick over what I did and I don't even know how I did it.

Has anyone had to recieve a travel voucher? I'm assuming they expire and it's probably not even worth my time to spend more time on the phone with United's customer service reps.

I don't have the answer to your question, but just wanted to say that this stinks! I can't imagine how your heart must've sank when you realized what you did! Good luck figuring out your alternatives & try to just put it behind you so you can enjoy your vacation

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Well at least you caught it now and not the day before your trip

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

Well at least you caught it now and not the day before your trip. The travel vouchure will expire one year from the date you purchased the orginal ticket.

 

[swilshire]

I've done so many silly things like that through the years that I am crazy paranoid about checking all the details of every reservation. Just this week I was thrilled to get all my hotels booked for a road trip, until I realized I had two reservations for the same night and nothing for the first. When booking one way reservations to Albuquerque and back, I had one of us flying to there on both dates with no return trip. Even travel agents do it. One booked my rental car for a business trip in the city I live in instead of my destination.

I think you've already figured out the secret to avoiding this. Print everything immediately and triple check it. You could hopefully get more sympathy if you called right away to try to correct a reservation error. Some places even have 24 hours to cancel with no penalty automatically.

Sheila

 

[travelitis]

Back before the Internet, I was a TA. The way we searched for flights was different because we had to know the certain language (not Windows) of the system (I knew System One and Sabre) and all the city codes. You couldn't type Chicago to get ORD, OHare). Well, a typo could mean a wrong itinerary, and if we messed up the city pairs then the agency was forced to replace the tickets. Sometimes airlines sales reps would soften the blow or make the change as a favor, but sometimes a mistake like that was just a loss to the agency. Thus we checked, rechecked, etc, because we could lose our jobs over it. With booking travel comes the possibility to make some really expensive mistakes. I'm sorry this happened. That is a lot of vacation money gone! I know it doesn't feel like much, but they didn't have to give the travel vouchers. I hope you are able to utilize them.

 

[SandrA9810]

.

 

[quirty30]

Send Christopher Elliott an email and see if he can't get UA to give you a break. (If you don't know who he is, he's a consumer advocate specializing in the travel field.) I don't think you have anything to lose by asking - here's a link to his website: http://elliott.org/

 

[Swimalie]

Yes, the travel voucher will expire 1 year from purchase date. Sorry this happened. I am always nervous when booking because I can see me doing this as well.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Some places even have 24 hours to cancel with no penalty automatically.

Sheila

All airlines are required to allow you to cancel or change reservations within 24 hours of booking.

 

[lost*in*cyberspace]

Send Christopher Elliott an email and see if he can't get UA to give you a break. (If you don't know who he is, he's a consumer advocate specializing in the travel field.) I don't think you have anything to lose by asking - here's a link to his website: http://elliott.org/

Forget about it! UA is hardcore about ticket change fees. Even my 1K million miler husband is charged ticket change fees by UA. They sure aren't going to go out of their way for an infrequent flyer.

 

[Maddle]

Could you change the "St. Louis to Chicago" (the return portion) to "Orlando to Chicago?" Either with paying a change fee or just getting not using the return option - just forget about going back throw St. Louis entirely.

Sometimes throwing away half of the round trip ticket is cheaper than paying the change fee - I have had to do that when my plans changed. I just bought a one-way ticket for the new date.

First leg: fly to St Louis - using current ticket
Second leg: fly to MCO - new one way ticket
Third leg: fly home to Chicago direct from MCO - another new one way ticket

I'm sorry this happened to you. It is my biggest fear when making a purchase. Please don't beat yourself up.

Maddle

PS: - If you go the travel voucher route, you could use it for the purchase of your new ticket - you wouldn't have to postpone its use....but honestly, I would just throw away half the ticket.

 

[Pembo]

Airline vouchers are easy to get. I would go through the process.