About Travelocity:
Travelocity
is a self-proclaimed leading provider of consumer-direct travel services for the leisure and business traveler. It markets and distributes travel-related products and services directly to individuals through Travelocity and its various brand Web sites and contact centers, and Web sites owned by its supplier and distribution partners. Travelocity customers can access offerings, pricing information about airlines, hotels, car rental companies, cruise lines, vacation and last-minute travel packages, and other travel-related services. For business travelers, Travelocity BusinessSM provides the integrated online corporate travel technology and full-service offering of the GetThere® product along with the online expertise of Travelocity. Travelocity is the leader in European online travel through its European brand, www.lastminute.com
. Travelocity operates multiple businesses tailored to customers domestically and internationally, offering a larger number of sites in 12 languages. Their wholly-owned European brands include 1ski, a2btravel.com, all-hotels.com, Arte Udland, bargainholidays.com, Box Office, deckchair.com, exhilaration, ferrybooker.com, First Option, flight4less, Gemstone Travel Limited, Globepost Travel Services, holidayautos, holidayhotels, holidaysandmore, ifyouski.com, medhotels.com, Odysia, onlinetravel.com, Resfeber, TATC / ITIC, travel4less, travelbargains, Ticket Service, Travelocity, Travelprice, travelselect.com, and travelstore.com. In the Asia-Pacific region, their wholly owned brand is Zuji. Travelocity is owned by Sabre, probably the best-known computer reservations system.
Likes:
- Travelocity is free to use.
- One-Stop shop for all your travel booking needs, including airfare, car rental, hotels, packages, etc..
- Access to customer reviews.
- Allows you to compare travel packages offered by a number of different companies before choosing a booking.
- All prices listed already include the Travelocity facilitation fees, which vary depending on the type of travel booked and which company you go with.
Dislikes:
- The Travelocity site is "busy", and we expect more organization out of a large travel agency. The home page can be difficult to navigate through for first time users.
- Their "destination guides" are confusing to navigate.
- Their "fine print" has too many variables and rules. Read it carefully before you book.
- Last-minute customers will not have a very wide selection to choose from.
- Poor customer service.
- Customer service representatives are difficult to understand.
- Resolutions to customer complaints don't compare to that of other online travel agencies, such as Expedia.com
or Vayama.com
, for example.
- Does not include budget airlines in their search for low airfares, although their brand, www.lastminute.com does have some.
Conclusion:
We found that Travelocity.com does not offer better pricing or a better selection of flights, hotels or car rentals, in most cases, than their competitor Expedia.com. In fact, over the last 5-years we found that Expedia.com continuously provides a wider selection of flights to most areas and has either the same or better prices than Travelocity.com, making us question why anyone would use Travelocity.com instead of Expedia.com. Yes, there are instances where Travelocity will have a flight or hotel that Expedia won't, but they are so rare that it's almost a waste of time checking with them. Furthermore, when we encountered a problem with Travelocity, they did not offer any reasonable solutions and were slow to implement the resolution that we provided to them. For the full review on Expedia, please go to http://thevacationadvisors.com/post/2009/12/15/Expedia.aspx.
Our experience with Travelocity:
Like all online travel booking sites, when a booking is made and no issues arise, they are all equally great and the only real difference between them is price. Unfortunately, the real difference between the companies isn't only in price, it's really how the company deals with a problem if one arises. In fact, this is where our only problem with Travelocity
lies. Although we have used Travelocity.com on several occasions without any problems, we can't be sure that their customer service is any better than that displayed by the Canadian affiielave of Travelocity. Although our experience is with Canadian Travelocity, it's still a reflection on Travelocity.com. After all, they are part of the same group of companies.
Our issue started on October 29, 2009 when we booked a flight on EgyptAir with Travelocity.ca. After checking for a flight (from Malta to Bangkok, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Amman, Jordan to Malta) with multiple online booking sites, Travelocity.ca offered the best price in Canadian currency. Although we were booking the flight while in Malta, our credit cards where in Canadian currency so we decided to book with a Canadian online travel site to avoid unknown and inflated exchange fees that would be imposed by our Canadian credit card. Several hours after booking the flight online, we received an auto generated email from Travelocity.ca to say that they "...learned that the airline did not confirm the flights [we] requested..." and that we should contact them within 48 hours. Since we could not call their toll free number from Malta, we responded to their email and provided our phone number for them to call us. Several hours later, they did respond by email to say someone would contact us within 24-48 hours...so far so good. Unfortunately we did not get a call from anyone at Travelocity.ca before receiving a further email from them to say that "A review of the records shows that Travelocity Canada do not have ticket and baggage agreement with the airlines however Travelocity.com has an agreement with the airlines and you can confirmed your reservation with them you will be charged in US dollars." Okay, despite the obvious grammatical errors in their email, we understood that our option was to book on Travelocity.com in US currency; the thing that we were trying to avoid by booking with their Canadian counterpart. Okay, not a big deal, right? Wrong. This would not be a problem if the charge in US dollars would be equivalent to the amount we agreed to pay in Canadian dollars; however, it wasn't. The price on Travelocity.com was a bit higher than Travelocity.ca and it would be even higher once the credit card imposed their exchange fees. As such, we called their call center (at our expense) to discuss the issue. After all, why should we be penalized for a mistake that Travelocity.ca did by allowing us to book on their site with an airline that they don't have an agreement with?
After speaking to two customer representatives who we could not understand because of their strong accent, (presumably because their call center isn't located in an English speaking country), we finally managed to get through to a supervisor who we understood and who agreed to look into the issue and call us back. After he examined the issue (over a couple of days) he told us that he could book the tickets through Travelocity.com and we would be charged in US dollars. Hmmm...wasn't this stated already? Once again, we couldn't understand why we would have to be inconvenienced because of their poor operational practices between Travelocity.ca and Travelocity.com. We suggested that they book the tickets through Travelocity.com and charge us the amount that we originally agreed to pay in Canadian dollars and work out the details between Travelocity.ca and Travelocity.com without involving us. To us this seems like a simple solution that we would happily accept. Once again, the supervisor told us he would look into it and call us back. The next day he called back to say that it can't be done and offered another solution that would involve us booking directly through EgyptAir (through Travelocity.ca). Don't ask us how that works, but it involved us emailing our credit card information to the EgyptAir representative that the Travelocity.ca representative contacted to finalize this booking. Although the price with EgyptAir was higher, it was in Canadian dollars and Travelocity.ca did promise to refund us the difference. Finally, we were done! Well, until three days later that is when another email from Travelocity.ca arrived to say that they can't book our tickets, leaving us unsure if we had tickets or not. To make a long story short, it turned out the EgyptAir representative was sick for a couple of days so the reservation wasn't made until he returned, hence the email from Travelocity.ca. When the EgyptAir representative returned to the office our tickets were finally booked and the charge from EgyptAir went through on our credit card. At this point, we notified the Travelocity.ca supervisor with the amount we were charged (which he knew because he was CC'ed on the email to EgyptAir) so that Travelocity.ca could issue us the difference. Almost two months, several emails and phone conversations later, the cheque has still not arrived, but is in the mail, so we are told. No apologies have been offered for the delay in issuing the refund or for the lack of a less intrusive solution to the original problem. We should mention that we did email the General Manager of Travelocity.ca and the President, North America of Travelocity.com during this process to inform them of our experience, who both had their teams look into it, but other than fixing the problem of Travelocity.ca displaying flights who they did not have an agreement with, did not offer any solutions that would help us. This is disappointing because in our opinion they should have given us at a minimum a voucher of $25 or $50 to be used on any future booking so that we would return to Travelocity.ca.
Although this issue was fairly petty, it did give us the opportunity to see how Travelocity.ca deals with problems and their customers. Since this issue at the time of writing was still not resolved, it really shows that they can't deal with simple problems in a timely fashion. Furthermore, they did not offer remorse or apologies for the problem we encountered but did use our negative experience to fix their operational issues. Good for them, bad for us. Overall, this simply does not compare to the level of service and resolve we received from Vayama.com or Expedia.ca
when we encountered problems using their systems, which you can read more about in their respective reviews.
Other reviews of Travelocity:
PCMAG.com - The editors of PCMAG.com gave Travelocity.com a respectable rating of three out of five possible stars. The website was lauded for offering users the ability to find cheaper rates, if their travel dates are flexible. The editors were also impressed that you could book attractions and select a specific seat on your flight through Travelocity.com. However, the website was generally rated lower than competitors for failing to find the cheapest rates. In one specific instance the rate offered on Travelocity.com was $100 more expensive than the rate offered on the hotel’s website. Travelocity.com was also disparaged for the inability to find nonstop flights when all others competitors were able to do so.
About.com – Mark Kahler, the About.com Guide for Budget Travel, included Travelocity.com in his, “Top Ten Internet Sites with Hotel Reviews.” Kahler did not have anything negative to say in his review and praises Travelocity.com for providing, “a very useful system for finding good value.” He also notes the “most reviewed” link which shows you which hotels are garnering the most attention from visitors is very helpful.
Epinions.com – The users of Epinion.com gave Travelocity.com an overall rating of two-and-a-half out of five stars. Ease of use was one of the pros mentioned by many users of this site. They found the website easy to navigate and provided an easy way to compare prices on flights. One of the most prevalent cons listed by users was poor customer service. Some users were also disappointed to find less expensive flights available through other travel search engines.
MouthShut.com – Overall, only 8% of MouthShut.com users recommend Travelocity.com. The users who rated this website were decidedly negative to neutral. The average rating was a two out of five for service & support, information depth, content timeliness and design/usability. The average rating for website load time was a three. Users who favoured the website thought the depth of information, content timeliness and website load time were all above par. However, most users, even those giving favourable reviews, were disappointed with the customer service.
Our Rating: 3/5 Year Reviewed: 2009