Scam travel agents create fake Google listings and take out Google ads to look like they’re the airline you’re trying to reach. They also take over old, defunct airline numbers because people will still find those listed and call. Tell Siri to call an airline? It may dial one of these scam agencies instead.
This winds up costing you big – getting charged fees for things as simple as seat assignments, getting charged to get rebooked when the airline cancels your flight. They stick unwary travelers with bills as much as $1,000 or more unnecessarily.
American Airlines is suing the consolidator that enables these scam agencies. (Skift)
American Airlines has sued airline ticket consolidator U.S.A. Gateway — which does business as GTT Travel — alleging that GTT duped travelers into thinking they were booking direct with American, and then gouged them with exorbitant fares and fees.
GTT has a contract with American and, it says, also “United, Delta, Lufthansa, Emirates and around 50 other global airlines” for wholesale rates, and earns volume sales incentives. It generates volume by partnering with sketchy agencies, according to American’s complaint, and it charges “$20 commission per booking, and it may collect an additional 3% of the total booking.” It also gets a cut of any scam fees the sub-agencies collect, it seems. For instance, “a GTT sub-agent charged a flyer $1,500 for what should have been an airfare of around $1,000, and GTT allegedly helped its travel agency partner “hide the additional $500 charge.””
According to American Airlines,
GTT and its sub-agents have been engaging in extremely deceptive practices solely to profit GTT and at a cost to travelers. GTT is overcharging and hiding charges from customers and engaging in prohibited ticketing practices. Such actions are harmful and unfair to consumers, misrepresent American Airlines, and violate numerous clauses of GTT’s contracts with our airline.
Apparently the agency fails to monitor the activities of its sub-agencies, and refuses to share their details with American despite a contractual obligation to do so.
And while American goes after teens who buy throwaway tickets and agencies who sell them, this lawsuit alleges that scam agencies book throwaways and don’t tell the traveler.
- Say a passenger wants to fly from Jacksonville to Charlotte
- The agency might book Jacksonville – Charlotte – New York LaGuardia for a cheaper price
- And (1) not tell the customer, (2) charge the full Jacksonville – Charlotte price, and (3) pocket the difference.
Recently, American says, GTT booked 20 passengers to fly Dallas to Shanghai on American with an onward connection to Hong Kong. 17 of those passengers were on throwaway bookings, where GTT kept the savings by booking the Hong Kong connection and didn’t tell the passengers. In another example a customer was billed a “tax fee” of $400 (this does not exist!) on top of a $1,086 ticket. GTT failed to stop it, but had an obligation to do so according to the airline.
Customers who think they’re reaching American get redirected and then fleeced. American loses money (for instance due to throwaway ticketing and also paying out commissions) and consumers lose money (by getting stuck with scam fees). Oh, and customers are apparently being charged “wheelchair fees” by the agencies.
I am not often sympathetic to airline lawsuits seeking to enforce their ticketing agreements. But this one seems like a no brainer. In fact, hopefully other airlines will pile on and it will clean up the scams that Google has become a party to, where consumers trust the search engine to direct them to the company they’re trying to reach so are even more trusting when ringing up the scam agency that pretends to be the airline.
Update: GTT’s attorney offers,
GTT strongly denies the allegations in this litigation. In this case, and in other recent filings, American seems to be blaming the industry’s operational deficiencies on its business partners and others. GTT values the company’s decades-long relationship with American and regrets the rush to litigate, and hopes to amicably and productively work together to resolve any issues. If the parties cannot successfully resolve this matter, GTT is prepared to vigorously defend itself against these unfounded claims.
Hahahahaha…………
I don’t believe that there are that many customers who use consolidators that are easily scammed into paying extra fees, i.e. a higher price. That’s because people using consolidators are looking for absolutely lowest prices and often are savvy travelers.
As for charging “exorbitant fares and fees” and “being harmful and unfair to travelers” —— why don’t American and the other major US carriers just look into a mirror!
They should terminate the contract with the offending agency, and sue Google while they are at it. Google has the power to stop this kind of nonsense they choose not to.
“American Airlines has sued airline ticket consolidator US Airways. — which does business as AA — alleging that US Airways duped travelers into thinking they were booking direct with AA, and then gouged them with exorbitant fares and fees.
Wow. Use the airline website number and be ware. I hope the companies keep publishing information on this awful scam. And I hope they slam these heartless bastards too. Sadly such people are always around. When I get scam calls I usually ask the person how they like being a criminal. Most deny they are (I guess for their own sanity) but one told me he loved it as this as a good living. Give them no mercy.
This “problem'” is way overblown by the holier-than-thou airlines.
I don’t believe at all that there are that many customers who use consolidators that are easily scammed into paying extra fees, i.e. a higher price. That’s because people using consolidators are looking for absolutely lowest prices and often are savvy travelers.
As for charging “exorbitant fares and fees” and being “harmful and unfair to travelers” —— why don’t American and the other major US carriers- just look into a mirror!
Sorry – Gary – please remove dupe and only post the second comment. Thanks.
Whoa. I thought this was going to be about AA going after the scam agencies, which would be absolutely legit. I’m pretty familiar with GTT, having worked with them in the past. They don’t even sell tickets to the public. They are a consolidator that is very straight-forward with their pricing, and typically have razor-thin margins. They sell discounted rates to other agents who in turn create vacation packages and whatnot (I’m guessing in this case a scam agency bought from them). From what I’ve read, AA is suing GTT for not controling what agencies sell to their customers? If so, that’s truly insane, and I wish AA the very worst of luck. I don’t think this is as cut-and-dry as this article makes it seem.
Wait…I thought this was going to be about AA going after scam agencies, which would be great. But going after the consolidator that sold them the tickets? I’m familiar with GTT and have dealt with them many times (albeit years ago). They’re a big consolidator that operates on thin margins and high volume. They sell discounted tickets to agents, who then sell them as parts of vacation packages. Suing the middleman for bad actions of a travel agency just doesn’t seem right. I don’t think it’s as cut-and-dry as this article makes it seem.
Be aware that these scams exist for hotel bookings too. Double and triple check you are on a hotel’s actual website when booking rooms…the scammers will literally clone the website, put up a typosquatting URL, and then con you out of booking fees.
If you’re lucky. I’ve heard of people thinking they booked through the hotel and finding out they didn’t have a room.
Don’t click on the link in Google when booking hotels, because if there’s a scammer squatting that hotel they also take out ads so they rank above the actual hotel. If you think you’re on a hotel’s site but the site tells you the rate will go up in 15 minutes, you aren’t, back out, make a note of the URL and start over.
It’s easy for even a seasoned traveler to be got by a clone, the website really does look *exactly* like the hotel, and they target independent hotels.
Gee James and John….you guys sound so much alike, you must be siamese twins.
American Airlines is supposedly a service-based carrier, in fact they prefer to be just cargo and treat everyone like cargo. Hello Emirates, Delta , Qatar Airways and JetBlue, thank you for treating your customers with respect.
I bought my tickets from LAX to BKK from a consolidator travel agency in 1988 for my first trip to Thailand. Everything worked out fine so I used them again the next year. Consolidators can be fine but if you want to change things it could be a problem. After that I started using discount travel agencies that were closer. Now I usually book online. If more information comes out, I will be interested in reading it.
I am a victim of the google American Airlines number ! I was directed to fly vault deals telling me that my seats were on standby and needed to purchase the seats! I was charged 846.00 for seats that I knew I did pay for through American Airlines ! So I ended up paying double for my seats and have not been able to get through to Fly Vault Deals!
It’s awful that as a consumer and paying for high prices for traveling that we have no protection from these scammers