Vayama
reviews and complaints

This is the first time I've used Vayama for a flight overseas to the Philippines. I originally went with them because the price of the tickets was a little cheaper. Had I known the issues they would cause I would have run immediately. First off they change my flight twice, and getting on contact with them is a pain in the #. The last time I spoke with them I was waiting for 45 minutes on the phone. They originally change my flight time, then suddenly a "minor change" was made to my flight leaving out of Las Vegas to now suddenly leaving out of Los Angeles two weeks about before my scheduled flight. I told the Indian man on the other end, who had no concept of why this wasn't good that I needed a flight out of Vegas. He had me on line for another 5 minutes to tell me "sorry no flights out of Vegas to California until the 17th of January. Apparently no plane will ever leave Las Vegas to go to California within a month. I finally gave up and ended up having to buy a ticket to Los Angeles the night before my flight since it's too early in the morning to drive to. So all in all, I had to spend an additional $113 for something they screwed me over with and all they could say was"no, there is no other flight". I couldn't even change airlines or anything. I will NEVER use Vayama again. On that note I had two flights scheduled with them and both flights have been changed 3 times since. I'll also include that a 13 hour layover in San Francisco is ridiculous. They picked the absolute worst times for me. On my return flight I leave out of Manila at midnight. By far the worst company I've ever dealt with on customer service.

I just wanted to give a word of warning after an awful experience we had with Vayama through a deal found on a website. A website posted a deal for tickets to Thailand for three weeks through Vayama a while back and my boyfriend, a friend and I jumped at the chance to be able to afford to go. We booked our tickets back in June for about $850 and were eagerly awaiting our November 9th departure date.

I had been checking our flights regularly and at one point we did try to request to have our flights altered so we only had one stop on the way to Vancouver but this proved to be impossible through the company. A slight annoyance since in the past it's been easy to do this through airlines but we sucked it up and figured we'd deal with the 14 hour layover we had in our schedule.

Then the day before our trip, November 8th, I checked our flights. We were flying Vancouver to Shanghai with China Eastern and Shanghai to Bangkok with Sri Lankan Airlines. I noticed a change in the time of our flight to Bangkok and upon further inspection realized the flight left TWO hours before we arrived in Shanghai! We had received "Schedule Change" emails before from Vayama over just a twenty minute difference in a flight, but absolutely no contact was made to us regarding our initial flight being cancelled and a new flight now on a different day and inconveniently leaving before we arrived in Shanghai...

All three of us were on the phone with Vayama throughout the day and they were awful. The worst customer service I have ever experienced. We begged them to rebook the flights so we could grab a connection elsewhere, we asked if we could buy a one way ticket independently but were told if we were a no show for one of the flights it would cancel the rest of the flights on our way back home. The two options they gave us were either wait 45 hours in the airport for the next flight out to Bangkok or receive a refund.

I was warned by a co-worker of maybe needing a transit visa so I phoned the China embassy in Vancouver to get more information. I was informed if we were to spend 24 hours or more in China, whether in the airport or in the country, we would require a transit visa and it would take at least 48 hours to process at a cost of $400. However, our flight was leaving in less than 24 hours when we encountered this mess and originally we had a 12 hour layover. I asked what would happen if we boarded the flight anyways without the visa and the woman told me that once we would board our flight to Bangkok, officials would notice we were in China past 24 hours without the visa and according to the law would have to be sent back on the first flight out to Vancouver.

I wasn't sure if there may be an exception to this rule if we were in Shanghai and if there may be a way to work around it, but we weren't going to risk it. We had NO other option from Vayama but to get a refund.

We had already booked accommodations in Thailand and we'd be losing out on so much money if we didn't go. We luckily found a flight through a local travel agency that left at midnight that night. It'd be an extra $500 from what we originally paid but we figured we'd use most of the money from the refund we'd be getting from Vayama. BUT, we were told it would take 25-45 business days for the refund to be credited back to the original credit card. We were desperate, so we put three new tickets to Bangkok on a credit card and flew out that night.

Vayama was of no help during this entire ordeal. The three of us traveling phoned separately various times throughout the day hoping to get a different answer. We pleaded and begged to book us tickets through a different connecting city other than Shanghai and make up for this awful mistake on their part. What's horrifying to think is that we never would have seen this mistake if we didn't check our flights the day before. When we explained this to them it sounded like they couldn't care less and they offered no compensation or apologies whatsoever.

The cherry on top of all of this is we came home from our trip recently to find that only two of the three tickets were refunded on the credit card, so now we have a whole other ordeal ahead of us...

PLEASE DO NOT EVER USE VAYAMA! It was by far the worst experience I have, and probably ever will, experience in travel. I can't believe a company would be so unhelpful and unsympathetic to such a situation. If we weren't lucky enough to have a credit card to put three new tickets on we would have had our whole vacation canceled.

Vayama is aw-ful! Do not do business with them!

I purchased tickets and some how they messed up my return flight. I called right away to change it and the person (who could barely understand me) said that they would charge me a $50 cancellation. It was their error! They would return the fee if you re-buy on vayama, but the tickets had already went up $100 after the error. When my credit card company and I called them a second time, a woman there told us that there was a 24hr. Cancellation without a fee. The first person didn't honor that and told me he had to charge me even though it had just happened! Both agents didn't make any effort to help me and were basically robots on the other line. Luckily, my mastercard helped me and gave me a credit since dealing with them was useless. Avoid them at all costs!

This is a sleazy outfit based in Bengaluru (or Bangalore), India. I have nothing against companies based there, as I am from there, but I hate sleazy outfits like this one
that spoil the reputation of Indian companies in general.

Here is my experience: I booked a ticket from US to India on Vayama at a good price.
Before booking, I checked their Change policy, and they were reasonable: Small penalty
plus DIFFERENCE IN FARE BASIS. My complaint and troubles were based on how Vayama computes the DIFFERENCE IN FARE BASIS. Here it is:
1). The new flights must be EXACTLY same as the old flight (though on a different date).
2). They will use the FULL FARE for the new flights as the new FARE BASIS.

So, when I tried to change the date on my $1300 ticket, they wanted $4500 for the change.
Luckily, I was able to convince American Airlines (the ticketing airline) to change my ticket at a much lower cost. I would not try my luck again.

If there is any likelihood of you making changes to your ticket, avoid Vayama.

Vayama just stole, scam, cheated, took my money and ran., All eleven hundred dollars of it... ($1, 100) surely I made a complaint, but they got away like a white collar crime... there ought to be a law against such scammers and have to pay a penalty for their stealing cause they are just thieves on a computer. I booked tickets to China round trip for me and a few friends. the tickets were e-tickets and a three week before the trip, my a friend couldn't leave the country so vayama refunded his money. A week before the trip, another friend couldn't leave and I ask for the same refund and they gave me a voucher instead. since we many many trips overseas, It would be no problem to use those tickets withing the year. Getting within four months before the year end. My friend who cancel the ticket needed to go the same route with the same airline... Vayama didn't respond the the customer service held you up on the phone for 20 mins at a time. Can not wait, so we went to orbitz and got a ticket instead and off he went. I was to follow behind the next month and the same thing started with Vayama... no, NO customer service for 20 minutes. I book the tickets as instructed and it didn't go through. Called again and another 20 minutes. Later they said I can not use the tickets unless I paid the penalty. No problem which was half of the ticket price. After they did not book me on a flight I ask for a refund... non-refunable they added, but I can change ticketsss for the flight, but I told them that I tired that. No refund and I talked with the superviser, clerks etc. No refund, no ticket... couldn't wait so I went to ORRBIZT. Got my ticket and left the country... so I ask for a refund when I return, they refer me to China Air... I was told that they never issue the ticket anyway and that Vayama was refunded the ticket a long time ago and China Air never got paid and never held the funds. That was strange because Vayama clains that they sent the money to china Air and nothing can be done by Vayama since they have your money (lies) So still in limbo... Vayama kept my eleven hundred dollars and worked the scam by passing the buck like a hot potatoe until the weary customer is tried out to pursue them. VAYAMA STOLE

Originally I thought Vayama was fine, maybe even good until I looked at my credit card statement and realized they had charged me for making 2 phone calls to them because I was having problems with their website. I didn't ever book through them on the phone b/c the attendant told me I would be charged $15.00. It didn't matter anyway, as they turned around and charged me approximately $100.00 in fees for making 2 freaking phone calls! They are AWFUL. Do NOT use this site! It's a rip-off.

Had a disappointing experience with Vayama's customer service. So far and based on my experience solely, I think this is a good agency, if you never need their customer service, i.e. buy your ticket online, pay for it, go through your travel plans accordingly. It seems that whoever wrote their computer programs did a good job. However, if ever you need any support from their team, good luck. Note: they are in Banglore, India. My experience started when halfway through the trip, the airline forced a schedule change which forced us to change our plans. Plan change required rerouting which they refuse to do. This ticket involves multiple airlines (Air Canada & LuftHansa) and its tickets is issued by Air Canada. I started with Lufthansa which pointed me to Air Canada. Air Canada Local branch (in Middle East) pointed me to my agent (Vayama). Made a call to Vayama, spoke to a representative called "Ash". Pointed me back To Air Canada. After 1 hour being on hold, Air Canada told me since no other A. C. flights are left on the ticket, they cannot do anything about it. Back to Vayama. Spoke with Vayama (this time Sam) who tried the same story on me one more time. Did not fall for it for this time. Asked for supervisor (Vivek). Told them that I spoke with A. C. They did not believe me and dialed Air Canada on the phone. Their representative (Anne) repeated the same thing that I told Sam. They tried with LuftHansa. I think the representative felt sorry for me and decided to take care of this. I ended up calling LuftHansa on my own and now they are looking into my case. They booked my desired route and told me that they will get back to me with the associated Fare. This whole ordeal took me over 3 hours. I should not be spending this amount of time to change a ticket. It is Vayama's responsibility as I paid the fare to them. The ticket is changeable and airline is looking into it. Simply saying "The airline has denied your request to change the routing of the return flights unfortunately" is a quite irresponsible act from Vayama's side. BTW, this was the line that all Vayama representatives mentioned over and over, while it is not true. It is doable, albeit at a cost. Vayama should have done this on my behalf. This is something that Vayama has taken the responsibility of when they sold me the ticket in the first place. They should have looked into my requests and see if Airlines could do it. Not pass the buck. Even worse than that, they started by saying my desired route does not even exist. I am not sure where do they find these folks to deal with customers. I am extremely disappointed in their customer service.

Stay away from this company.
No customer services after travel tickets are bought nor do they care. There's very little human to human business interaction. Call center is in india and if you have any problem explaining your problem/issue and the agent can't handle it, there isn't any on-duty supervision to help.

Another rip off so called service company