Last week I noted that Travelocity was cancelling bookings made with their $200 off air and hotel coupon.
The discount had been offered in conjunction with the National Federation of the Blind convention in Dallas. NFB tweeted it out, and Travelocity even re-tweeted it. The terms and conditions of the coupon did not require NFB membership, but many folks who took advantage of the deal joined the National Federation for the Blind — only $10 and it was either in honor of the offer, or to be ‘on the safe side’ since it is members of that organization who were ostensibly supposed to benefit.
But Travelocity hadn’t really anticipated that since it could be used to book hotels in completely different locations from where air travel took passengers to, it would be possible to spend say $30 on a 3-night hotel stay in India or Southeast Asia and take a $170 straight discount on airfare. Or to buy the cheapest possible flights and take perhaps a $130 discount on a 3-night hotel stay.
Travelocity’s response was to cancel everyone’s bookings that they said hadn’t actually attended the National Federation for the Blind convention itself. Even though the promotion’s published rules contained no such stipulation.
They sent out e-mails indicating that the reservations were being cancelled at the request of travelers, and showing a cancellation charge. They’ve since clarified that this was a mistake, and that everyone would get a full refund. Eventually.
It’s a crazy story for how this was handled. The total exposure to Travelocity is potentially a few hundred thousand dollars (they won’t confirm how many bookings were made in this fashion). They’ve added new terms and conditions to the promotion after customers have made purchases, they’ve spent tons of resources managing customer communications and handling cancellations and refunds. And they have had a constant barrage of negativity on their Facebook wall. (There’s a dedicated Facebook page were affected customers are complaining, as well.)
The media is even beginning to pick up on the incident. A Baltimore Sun piece has Travelocity explaining that my blog was the cause of the affair.
The online travel agency allotted several thousand redemptions for the code. Frey said as the weeks went on, there was a normal number of redemptions of the code until a blog was posted on the travel website BoardingArea.com in late July.
After that, he said “It went crazy. We saw a huge spike in redemption of the codes. So that made us pause, and we took a look at it.”
Travelocity’s spokesman acknowledged that they re-tweeted NFB’s publicizing the offer.
Meanwhile the New York Post (HT: Jeanne) calls Travelocity a ‘short-sighted website. (Ouch. That’s like when a friend of mine once wrote an op-ed describing the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act as being ‘like the blind leading the blind’. Umm….)
A travel Web site used e-mail to cancel reservations, including those of blind customers — apparently forgetting they couldn’t read the messages or might not even have e-mail, The Post has learned.
Travelocity had offered a special promotion to 2,300 visually impaired people attending a National Federation of the Blind conference in Dallas over the Fourth of July holiday week: $200 off any three-day hotel and travel package.
But the Web site tweeted the offer to some 67,000 of its Twitter followers without mentioning the federation-membership requirement.
When it realized its mistake, it canceled the reservations of everyone who had jumped at the offer.
…A Travelocity spokesman said the company is trying to determine which of its canceled customers were at the conference, and said their discounts would be honored.
My issues with Travelocity in all of this are:
- Taking a week to decide to cancel tickets that were booked in accordance with terms and conditions.
- Claiming that the discount included terms and conditions which it did not.
- Implying that it was improper to use a discount code they had tweeted.
- Not refunding customer funds right away (it may take weeks in some cases) once they made the decision to cancel, and after telling folks they wouldn’t even be getting all of their money back.
You win some, you lose some, and in full disclosure I did not book any of these tickets myself.
But Travelocity’s pitch, the unique selling proposition they developed for themselves to differentiate from other online travel agencies, was that they stood behind bookings made on their website completely — hence the motton, “You’ll never roam alone.”
They probably should have set up the code not to allow hotels in a different city than airfare, or to specify in terms and conditions that only the targeted group was actually eligible to use the discount.
Not having done that, I do think they should stand behind the booking. And I suspect that the cost of cancelling and the loss of goodwill will exceed what they would have incurred by standing behind their offer.
This was handled poorly by them, especially the cancellation fees.
It’ll be like another korean air. can the dot intervene here?
Amen!
Big thumbs up to Travelocity. It’s great that they’re standing up to societal parasites who spend their waking hours thinking about how to get something for nothing at others’ expense.
Another reason to why I hate Travelocity. They are a horrible company and deserve to go out of business. Read my post in the last thread as to why I feel like this. I would never do business with them again.
I filed a complaint with the DOT. I recommend others do the same if they had their package cancelled by Travelocity
Voice of Reason,
I think that applies to all of our elected reps, CEOs, Websites that offer deals to get free publicity for their grand gesture of sending emails to the blind etc etc as well as readers of blogs for travel tips as well…..
Wouldn’t Travelocity incur some sort of penalty for cancelling non-refundable airfare? I can’t imagine the airlines would let a travel agency offer full refunds on airfare without incurring some penalty, particularly since it was Travelocity’s error in allowing the coupon to be used and Travelocity’s decision to not honor the coupon.
Loss of Goodwill? Like you would have booked at Travelocity without this promotion!! Come on! You likely have not booked at Travelocity before becoming aware of this and even if you had, I doubt very much whether your boycotting them over this matter would actually occur.
Just another example of people attempting to take advantage of another’s mistake, which under contract law can be vitiated and upheld by a court of law, if necessary.
@Colin – actually I’d frequently book at Travelocity (through the Ultimate Rewards mall) but that’s not the point, it’s the negativity that spreads to everyone else via word of mouth and via Facebook
I have noticed that many businesses these days do not give consumers much, if any notice when they change their terms/conditions or downgrade rewards. Definite lack of courtesy in this day and age.
I do NOT like travelocity and this is one example why I will not book with them. I usually book direct with the airlines/car rental/hotels. The few times I booked with Expedia, they were decent. I booked with Expedia a few times over the years because I either was able to book mixed carriers, wierd routings, or in one instance, I was able to buy United tickets some years ago for $180 pp when UA wanted over $600pp.
One time I got an e-mail from Expedia to call the 800 number. Trouble was we were on the flight from LAX-FRA on LH Biz. I called using “magic jack” and was able to call the 800 number from Germany. It turned out that one of the hotels got cancelled and the Expedia rep (lucky for me, this person was USA based in Texas) was very flexible. This deal was booked with the 40 GBP rebate using Expedia UK site and I was able to substitute one night in Venice (on the Grand Canal!!) for the cancelled night in the mountains of Italy.
With travelocity, I had nothing but headaches. I do not book with them whenever possible.
What travelocity has done is just poor. Post a promo with specific rules and to then cancel trips that were booked according to the published rules…
That said, I have never understood why anyone would book their airfare though any OTA (unless you want to FD which I have never done)…I always book directly with AA and UA so that when things go wrong, I can handle all issues with the airline where I hold status….
@AAExplat – reason (1) is to combine multiple airlines, (2) is sometimes you get better pricing (based on showing availability in different inventory buckets based on point of sale or GDS being used), (3) is rebates provided through shopping portals, eg 2 ultimate rewards points per dollar for travelocity purchases
I booked after talking to a Travelocity agent who looked at the same terms I was looking at and told me I was fine to use the code.
I didn’t abuse anything. I double checked the terms and followed them and am now all told out a couple hundred bucks.
Travelocity is counting on the general public, the press and the even the DOT not looking at this too deeply and making generalized assumptions about what happened.
All I can think is the Travelocity is so wrong in their interpretation of this that their errors and omissions liability coverage wouldnt apply. Otherwise why do this?