CheapOair
reviews and complaints

After I purchased a round trip ticket from cheapoair.com via Continental airline to Asia on January 5. Within a few hours later, I found out the price had dropped $74.00 for the exact same itinerary. I called the customer service and talked to many representatives regarding the price drop and wish to be credited the differences (as other reputable web agencies allow customers to cancel without penalty within 24~48 hours); I was treated as a pest and was refused of my request.

I was wondering of my treatment by those nasty customer service representatives since I had read as many reviews as I could on their website before I purchased my ticket, and could not find any negative one. So, I intended to post my bad experience of their horrible customer service and cheapoair.com unfair business practice on their customer reviews board. But it was never appeared on their reviews board. Instead, Renee Andrews contacted me via email. After a whole day of back and forth emailing, they finally agreed to credit $65.00 out of $74.00 back to my AMEX. Don't ask me why, but it's better than nothing.

A few days later, I checked my reservation on the Continental Airline's website and found out the cost of my trip was only $1320.30 ($1232.00 + $88.30 taxes and fees). But cheapoair charged me $1344.30 and another $124.00 taxes and fees (?) on my American Express credit card. That means, cheapoair charged me $148.00 for their commission on my ticket. I have never heard of such a big commission profit from an airline web agency. The normal commission for a travel agency is around $20~$25.00 per round trip ticket.

My conclusion of this cheapoair.com is that it is a many fraudulent facets traveling web agency. Stay far away!

Continuous Lies. Prices quoted online are NOT available. The site lets you "book" that price, then you receive an email hours later claming that that price is not available and has increased. YOu either have to buy the increase, or you can cancel for a fee. You cannot escape paying something, and it's definitely not what was adcertised. Customer service is terrible, tried to say that it was twice the price online, another rep had me on hold for over 40 minutes with not a word to me. STAY AWAY!

Booked hotel on 12/16 for 12/19 & 20
Snowed out on 12/18;
Tried to cancel and after over an hour on hold I find I needed to cancel within 8 hours of booking or there is a one night + service fees charge.

Outrageous!

Don't do business with these people

I did a search for a round trip flight departing nashville going to boston leaving the 9th of dec. Returning on the 10th. Somehow I booked this flight (In the search results mind you, not sure why it was returning flights on the 16th) and it was wrong. I did not know this as I expected my search results to only return flight on my specific days so I booked it. Then I called the customer service hotline on dec. 3rd to change it and told the lady (Irene foxworthy) that there was a mistake, returning on the 16th of dec. Doesn't do me any good. I need to back in nashville on the 10th! She made me send her an email saying I cancelled the first flight and then she re-booked me another flight for the 16th! I had just told her the 10th and she re-booked for the exact day that I was changing my flight for. And the price was hundreds of dollars more... I spent 25.00 to cancel the first reservation and 488.00 to rebook another flight that was wrong! This is unacceptable and now I am going to have to book another flight (A one way home to nashville) but there is no way that I will use cheap-o-air ever again and I will spread the word to my colleagues never to use the website as they are a bunch of idiots working in there. Irene verbally confimred the 10th return date and when I got the confimation via email later, it was wrong. This is totally unacceptable and the website's ignorance is going to cost me about 500.00 more than if I had just used orbitz which I usually do.

When I arrived at the airport on 12/1 the agent told me I still owed 15.50, they stated that they were underpaid for the flight. I needed to pay before I could get on the flight. I also noted a random 10.00 charge on my credit card, it seems that Cheapoair directs you to a coupon company who charges you 10.00 to get 10.00 off of your flight price. This company is shady.I have been flying for over 30 years and never had this happen. I've used several internet companies to book my flights and have never had a problem until now. I will never use Cheapoair again.

I booked flights on CheapOair in May, the airling cancelled the flights June 29 but CheapOair never told me. Their web sight still shows me booked on those flights.

When I called Customer Service the agent said they just learned of the cancellation and sent me an email. This is a lie. It takes an hour on hold to reach a person and then they either lie or don't know what to do.

Don't even think of using CheapOair.

I ordered 4 tickets to Morocco for my wife and two daughters. Three weeks later I get an email that there is a problem with my reservation.
I called and the first rep hung up on me. When the second rep answered, I asked for her name and she hung up on me. The third time I spoke
with someone who spoke English that I could understand and they told me "Royal Air Maroc and Delta Airlines would not be a partner on the
flight as offered and one leg of my trip was cancelled and they would not refund the cancelled part. They said they would work on it and call me back. When they called back, I was told Delta cancelled the departing flight. I called Delta and found out Cheapoair was lying. If Cheapoair offers a price for airline travel(I paid $4800), they should honor it. Also, who is watching out for the air travelers. We are left to the mercy of sleazy operators with no place to complain except
an internet forum. I will never use cheapoair again-it's not worth the aggravation.

Cheap O air pull a similar stunt on me. On 11/3 I purchased 2 round trip tickets for $578 online with a debit card I use strictly for online purchases, linked to an account I keep limited funds in. When I received the confirmation the date for the return flight was wrong it was 11/24 instead of 11/26 (I still had my web page pulled up in a different window, so I knew I put in the correct date) . I called CheapOair, and was told the only tickets available for the date I was returning home were going to cost almost double what I had already paid! We went back & forth, I was telling the man I was speaking with I was looking at their web site and saw 8 pages of return flights for the date I was coming home within $50 of what I had paid. He said that was wrong, they were all sold out. Finally he agreed to a flight we could get on, on the date we needed it.

On 11/6 I attempted to make an online purchase with my debit card. Guess what I found out? CheapOair had replaced my original charge of $578 with a new charge of $828, and added charges of $50 and $48 and $1, bringing my total for those $578 tickets up to $927.

Repeated calls to CheapOair resulted in my being placed on hold for 67 minutes one time, 31 minutes another time, and never getting a live person a third time. Emails have gone unanswered except for the READ receipt coming back.

PLEASE let's get a Class Action Lawsuit going aganist these people!

Back in March we bought tickets to Mazatlan, MX... Leave Orlando Nov. 3, 2008 return Nov 10, 2008. Cheapotickets.com had booked us on US Airways going to Mazatlan and Aeromexico return to Orlando. In May I decided to check my flights to see if any had been cancelled or times changed. US Airways flights were OK, but Aeromexico had no record of our flight and our flight #, and times did not match any of their flights. We tried to call C-tickets at first they didn't answer, when they finally did they insisted the flights were good, although Aeromex. Said no. When I would insist they were wrong and that they do something to fix it, I would be cut off. This happened at least 5 times. I called US Airways to see if they could help. The Service Lady at USA was great she worked an hour and got us a return flight, although we had to come home a day earlier. She also called our credit card company to make sure we got the same price and money was paid to the right carrier. Beware of Cheapoair, rip off. Had I not checked, we would have been stuck in Mexico, trying to find flight home.

I booked a flight from Orlando to Ottawa, Canada for a great price through cheapoair.com only to be called four days later that my flight was not available. The gentleman that called me couldn't speak a word of english and there was horrible language barrier. They basically told me that WestJet couldn't honor their price and they wanted to charge me an additional $500 for tickets. I contacted West Jet and they informed me that Cheapoair never contacted them regarding the tickets and that they have several difficulties with these websites. The take screen shots of the airlines pricing and attempt to purchase them not keeping current with up to date pricing. What they do is cancel you but still charge you the non refundable $100 booking fee. It's nothing but a scam and fraud. They have the worst customer service I have ever encountered. I'll be booking direct throught the airlines from now on. I want everyone to know of the horrible service CheapOAir provides to its customers.

I purchased a one way fare last night @ 10:54 pm from IND to LAX one way. I was told the flight was $297. I input my credit card information, and received a confirmation and booking number via email. I went to sleep peacefully knowing I purchased my ticket. I woke up today, and I received an email from Cheapoair.com @ 4:52 am (almost 6 or 7 hrs later) stating that the fare for my ticket increased, and that my ticket would not be confirmed until I called or emailed them to accept the increased fare. Mind you, in my email there is a confirmation and travel itinerary for the ticket I was told was confirmed.

I called their customer service line, which is outsourced somewhere in India, so there was a language barrier there. I talked to the rep, and they must give them a sheet of standard responses to read to American customers who call, because no matter what I said, she would only respond by saying they had no control over what the airlines do. I was frustrated and told them to cancel my ticket, at the new price they quoted me, (after telling me my other ticket with the lower fare was confirmed) I could have just purchased the tix directly thru the airline for a cheaper price.

I told them I was going to sue them for false advertising ( I have the proof with the email saying my tix was confirmed), I asked the rep for the address to forward legal correspondence, she did not understand me when I asked her this (her crash course english for dummies class did not teach her such words). She put the phone down without telling me to hold, and asked her boss some questions because of our language barrier, and I guess he told her to disconnect our call, because that's what she did.

After reading all of these complaints on the many different websites, I am seriously going to pursue a class action law suit against this company. They are a fraud, and a rip off. And to all the other consumers out there here is a tip: If you look on Cheapoair's website, at their published fares and then look at the airline, they are publishing those fares for, most of the time, the airlines published fare is cheaper than cheapoair's website.

They are a ripoff and I am going to report them in everyway I can.

Good luck!

This company does not tell you openly that they charge $25 service charge on top of the actual ticket cost. Their charge is included in tax and other fees, so you do not know. I founded out by going to airline and check their tax and fees, but it was too late. Cheapoair.com customer service is not going to help you at all. Their service was terrible. I was on the phone for a long time. They kept transfering my call between billing and customer service. They would not let me talk with manager or manager refused talk with you. I must say their price is not cheap. You get charged behined and get bad customer service .They should change their name to expensive air.com.

As the name stands Cheapoair miss leading customer to thinking your ticket is lower in price than going through airline company.
But truth is customer is charged $25 more for your service which is not clearly spelled out on the site.
Which is unfair practice to me. Why not tell all the customer that your airfare is same as airline offers, but if you purchase from us you will be charged $25 extra. See how many people purchase ticket from them.

As i read all the above comments with them i don't agree because once i traveled from jfk to del not only i got a cheapest fare in the market as well as the friendly and professional customer service, therefore i would recommend to all my friends and family members to choose only cheapoair.com... only way to go chepoair.com

Even though it might save you a few dollars, don't book through cheapoair! They double billed me for my flight and after two hours of being bounced around on hold I was told that it will take at least 10 business days to refund my money. The customer service was horrific and they did not apologize or offer anything to make up for taking several hundred dollars from my bank account. When I asked to speak with a supervisor the agent refused. Also, since every other merchant that one would go to can refund a purchase within a day or so I find it very suspicious that this refund is taking so long. Save yourself a headache and book through a reputable agency!

We booked and paid for our flights from Calgary to Guatemala back in March 2008. On Aug 30, we checked-in, only to be told by the airline that our booking numbers did not have an e-ticket 'associated' with our e-ticket number. This meant we could not get on the flight.. After speaking to cheapoair.com, we were informed that the earliest they could deal with it was on Monday, when the call centres for the travel agencies would be open. We waited for Monday, did not receive a call from them, and called them ourselves. They assured us that someone was dealing with our case.. Apparently, they conducted a conference call between the airlines involved in our flights. None of them accepted the responsibility for the booking mistake. This is interesting, as the check-in representative at Air Canada, after trying for 1 1/2 hrs to find the source of the problem, could only work out that it had to be the booking agent's fault. After painfully calling cheapoair, each time having to repeat a process of retrieving our booking details and our file notes, which would always take forever and be a different phone consultant, I was eventually able to speak to a supervisor. This was the best they could do, despite requesting a manager over and over again. A senior supervisor informed me that the re-booking penalty and fare difference would not be covered and the earliest flight would cost us $659 per person to fly out the next day. Otherwise, we could fly out 2 days later for only $302 in total.. Obviously, we went for the cheaper option, despite the inconvenience. We received an email outlining the change in dates & awaited the confirmation booking/itinerary. We thought this was all settled.. At midnight, (6 hrs later!) we received a call claiming that we could not fly out on the date expected for that price. Instead, because it took them so long to book it with the airline, the price had gone up and now we had to fly out a day later for the pre-agreed price! Obviously, we had no choice but to accept a further day delay. We awoke the next day, assuming the situation was booked and done. We were soon mistaken.. An email at 11.30am revealed that they had had problems with the re-booking fee and our credit card. Instead of someone phoning us to re-check our credit card details, they had left the communication to a crappy email! What if we didn't have access to a computer? Were they just going to leave us stranded? Further frustrating phone calls (and some expletives) finally produced a re-booked flight. We received the itinerary. Hooray! We rang the airlines to double check that the same mistake of our e-ticket not being attached had not happened again. WRONG! My partner's ticket was clearly on their ticketing system, but mine was not.. Imagine if we'd turned up at the airport to deal with the same thing all over again? When we checked the emailed itinerary, sure enough, my e-ticket number is the same as the one for our original flight details... NOT the changed version. How incompetent are these people? We are still currently trying to get someone who knows what they're doing in that stupid call centre to work out where the heck my e-ticket has disappeared to! Each time, it is a painful process that takes hours to do something that any ordinary individual can do online in a matter of minutes. To their credit, they gave us a whopping $50 discount towards the re-booking fee. How generous. How is this possible, that a company who offers a product, can not deliver what they promise, then not accept any consequence as a result of their terrible business operations? I can understand that this is a non-refundable ticket option - it's not the first time I have made this decision to book in this way. However, when we have done everything right, why do we get punished for something the booking agent is clearly to blame for? I have told all my friends about this company. I just wish I could do more..

I booked a ticket from Beijing to Boston on July 28th, 2008. The ticket was $100 cheaper than my other choices on that day. I called them and asked about restriction on this ticket since it's cheaper and provided them with my passport and nationality. I called again to verify my credit informations and asked about the restrictions again. Nothing was mentioned to me. Then paid the bill.

Today is July 31th, I got a call saying if I'm flying with this ticket, I need to apply for a transit visa, which will take at least 5 business days. My flight is August 7th. I called cheapoair.com, 3 times, one hanged up my phone. one supervisor mislead me with the credit points thing. He told me if I cancel the ticket, I get credit points and I can use them in the future at any agent or air companies. Then I asked again to double check, he changed his words and said no, I could only fly with the same air company. So I hanged up and called the airline to double check this credit points thing. And I was told NO. IT's Not the Truth! Even if they give me the credit points, I'll have to fly with the same airline only, within one year.

But the third one, a supervisor again, gave me a different explanation that I can only fly with air Canada from Beijing to Boston only. God. I can fly with any other airline with this price for a round trip. This credit points means NO Points.

Cheapoair is absolutely a NIGHTMARE. Avoid them whenever possible. Speak with an accent, always trying to interrupt you, impatient, bad attitude. And LIE! How can they provide wrong informs to customers and trying to cheat them?

Fraud!

I bought a round trip from San Francisco to Copenhagen, Denmark through cheapoair.com. While in Denmark I had to renew my visa and the procedure dragged out, which meant that I had to postpone my return flight.

When I tried to contact costumer service by email (three times) they never responded at all. Then I called them and was on hold for almost an hour. When I finally got a representative he (Norton) told me that he would get back to me immediately by email. I never heard back from him. I emailed him to ask for an update- no reply.

I called again and talked to a different representative. After being on hold for various reasons again for almost an hour she said that she could change my flight but that it would mean that I had to spend the night at Heathrow airport AND it would cost me $2500! The original (roundtrip) ticket was $1300 all included.

My advice is to stay away from this company. Most other airlines that I have dealt with in the past try to help you even beyond what they are required to do. CheapOAir will just try to milk you. Take your business somewhere else.

My mom bought two international tickets for me and my daughter. She accidentally booked the wrong departure and arrival date for us. She did not realize until she got an email from Cheapoair. 20 minutes later my mom called cheapoair explaining what has happened. The agent Nigel Slate told my mom that for him to cancel the ticket she has to pay the $150.00 fee for each passenger ($300.00 total) and purchase fee. With that said my mom was forced to buy the new plane ticket from them. The total price for the ticket was about $3600.00 for me and my daughter which is okay. But on top of that they have charged my mom an additional $400.00 for an agent fee. This is ridiculous. They didn’t even bother looking for the cheapest rate for my mom and they have the nerve to charge for agent fee of $400.00. I have tried calling the airline the next day (bought the ticket 6/06/08) and they wont help at all. I do understand that some of us work for commission but how can these people sleep at night for doing this.

June 2, 2008
When reservation was made the fare was listed at $138.00, during booking I was informed that fare was no longer available but I could book at $219.00. While at the same time I was looking at the Express Jet online booking page the fare was listed as $235.00, so save a few dollars and go with cheapoair.com. I received an email confirmation from cheapoair.com. I then checked the itinerary at the Express Jet website, everything was there and an Express Jet confirmation number was issued and to check in online 24 hours before flight.

June 5, 2008
My husband calls @ 8am to inform me he received a phone call stating his reservation has been canceled unless he pays an additional $106.00 to book the flight, which leaves WITHIN HOURS.

When I returned to the house, I also had a message about the reservation I assumed was from cheapoair.com although not one word was understandable because of the thick accent and the speed in which the woman was speaking, had I not received the phone call from my husband I would have deleted the message as a wrong number.
I then check my reservation for the customer service number and contacted a rep who informed me they had tried a number of times to book the ticket days after the reservation was made and that the fare is now higher and would I like to pay the $106.00 difference.

Why was I informed only hours before the flight, why was the ticket not purchased at the time of the reservation, and why is the ticket only $82.00 higher on the Express Jet website. This is a bait and switch operation and that is a practice which is not allowed in the United States. I see a class action heading their way and I will be a participating plaintiff.