Flight Network- Do not use- flightnetwork.com

[Mckenzie]

Here is a story I would like to share to save you all what could be a potentially embarrassing and expensive mess. I fly at least 3 times a month and will never be using this company again.

A recent trip that I had booked through their website was not in-turn booked on the airline I intended to travel on. I received an email from Flight Network the night I booked the flight:
-With the subject: "Booking Confirmed- Flight Network Electronic Ticket. Booking Confirmation- ABCXYZ"
-First line of email: "Your flight has been booked with WestJet using FlightNetwork"
-A booking confirmation # in the email
-a Flight Network Booking ID number
-All other flight and pricing details were contained in this email

When I showed up at the airport, the airline had no record of the ticket being purchased and I was forced to pay 50% more than the price that was confirmed to fly. I was lucky the flight was not sold out, or I would have been stranded. You may not be so lucky.

Their customer service department is a joke and would not return phone calls or emails. They have refused to accept responsibility or refund the difference between the fare originally quoted and what I paid, instead blaming it on other causes. I have booked dozens of flights through other discount travel agencies and never run into such a pathetic response. Use Expedia.ca or the other agencies.

You risk showing up to the airport with no ticket, or your destination with no hotel reservation, and paying much more than you originally budgeted for if you use this company. You may also become stranded when you should not be. Please share to warn others.

Thanks and safe traveling.

[vtec4life]

Check in online within 24 hrs of your flight and you would have caught it.

That would be a very upsetting experience though, especially if you were going on vacation somewhere.

[CanmoreOrLess]

Anyone thinking of booking with www.flightnetwork.com for the first time will Google and find this thread. www.flightnetwork.com will quickly become known as a scam, flight liars and not a good place to do business.

It appears www.flightnetwork.com is a bad place to book, so anyone doing so is on their own for getting a refund when there is a screw up.

They look pretty bad in my Google search, avoid them!

http://www.xomreviews.com/flightnetwork.com

Post your experience on @FlightNetwork, perhaps you will get some satisfaction.

[Mckenzie]

^They still would not have honored the price even if I did and their was no ticket. I took 38 flights last year over 40,000 miles and every time I was sent me an email with booking confirmation, etc. I've never had a problem in my 25 years of flying with this.

Wow I didn't see that site with the reviews- what a nightmare!!

:thumbsdow :drama:

[ubcdbaker]

Had problems with Flight Network.com but, after several emails and phone calls, those problems were resolved. If you are persistent, they will respond to your concerns.

[AzNxHyDrA]

Has anyone else had similar experiences with flightnetwork?

I booked my flight and hotel with them this summer and it was fine but I just booked a vacation with them for NYE and this thread is scaring me.

[eblend]

Originally posted by AzNxHyDrA
Has anyone else had similar experiences with flightnetwork?

I booked my flight and hotel with them this summer and it was fine but I just booked a vacation with them for NYE and this thread is scaring me.

Don't worry you will be fine. I booked my Jamaica trip with them earlier in the year, and have my Mexico trip this saturday (got the westjet get ready e-mail..so I assume I am good), and just booked my japan trip as well.

I like them because of their price drop guarantee, can go online every day until you leave and click the button to check current pricing, if the price dropped, you have one chance to get price protection. For Jamaica I saved about $30 bucks per person doing so, and applied to $30 as a discount to my Japan trip. I intend to go there every single day and check the pricing on my japan trip (single button click) and hopefully score a discount, which I can then apply for the next trip.


Had no issues with them personally, flighthub on the other hand.....yah stay away

[benyl]

Why don't people book directly with the airline? How much are you really saving by booking on Flight Network? Airlines have realtime load information on their websites and you can't book these fantom tickets.

[eblend]

Speaking of the devil, decided to give it a go on my mexico trip that i have this saturday as I have been lazy and haven't checked recently, and just saved $160 as a credit. The credit goes towards each passanged, so my wife and I both have $80 to use later, and during checkout it just asks if you would like to apply your credit to the transaction. Sweetness, like finding $160 bucks on the street :D

[eblend]

Originally posted by benyl
Why don't people book directly with the airline? How much are you really saving by booking on Flight Network? Airlines have realtime load information on their websites and you can't book these fantom tickets.

While I do agree that booking with the airline is great, I disagree on "phantom" tickets thing as all these vendors tie into the same system in the backend and that is why if you are booking a hot item, by the time you finish your checkout, it does a final verification, and will tell you straight up if its already gone, and won't tell you you are confirmed when there is actually nothing to back it up.

I mainly book with other sources as I fly interesting combinations sometimes that require multiple airlines, and booking a flight to china that only has westjet up to vancouver isn't going to work if trying to book with WestJet directly.

[AzNxHyDrA]

Originally posted by eblend


Don't worry you will be fine. I booked my Jamaica trip with them earlier in the year, and have my Mexico trip this saturday (got the westjet get ready e-mail..so I assume I am good), and just booked my japan trip as well.

I like them because of their price drop guarantee, can go online every day until you leave and click the button to check current pricing, if the price dropped, you have one chance to get price protection. For Jamaica I saved about $30 bucks per person doing so, and applied to $30 as a discount to my Japan trip. I intend to go there every single day and check the pricing on my japan trip (single button click) and hopefully score a discount, which I can then apply for the next trip.


Had no issues with them personally, flighthub on the other hand.....yah stay away

Sweet, that's good to hear then. I honestly didn't find any problems with them either then this thread randomly popped up haha.
I saved a good 150/person on my flight to HK in May with the price drop guarantee.

[RX_EVOLV]

wow... I'm glad that didn't happen to me. I used them for my trip to Athens this year and Vegas last year. No issues on both trips.

[kenny]

Originally posted by benyl
Why don't people book directly with the airline? How much are you really saving by booking on Flight Network? Airlines have realtime load information on their websites and you can't book these fantom tickets.

I book most of my stuff through Expedia for TD to get 4.5% back but I always compare pricing to airline website. 95% of the time it's the same price so why not get the $ back and still collect points from the airlines.

[revelations]

google flights - easiest way to see what costs where and when :dunno: (bar graph FTW)

[RX_EVOLV]

Originally posted by benyl
Why don't people book directly with the airline? How much are you really saving by booking on Flight Network? Airlines have realtime load information on their websites and you can't book these fantom tickets.

Sometimes these travel agencies are able to combine flights between different airlines to get good flight time/price.

I.e flying Air Canada to Vancouver, then Westjet to somewhere else. Or flying KLM to Amsterdam, then Alitalia to Athens for example. Only some travel websites will do that and it is certainly more expensive when booked separately and directly with the airlines. Usually only a big deal for long, international journeys.

[eblend]

Originally posted by revelations
google flights - easiest way to see what costs where and when :dunno: (bar graph FTW)

Google flights is great, but they don't have all airlines. I usually look at them first to get an idea and use their funky graph, and then go from there to other sites.

I find that Orbitz always finds options that other sites don't. I remember I flew to Kyrgyzstan 2 years ago and all sites I tried basically said 3 transfers from Calgary to get there, Orbitz found a flight from Calgary to London and then London to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (with a touch down in Baku, just a quick 20 min to load more people), and was only like 22 hours total, whereas all other options on other sites were like 36 hours. I always use Orbitz now just to see if other sites are missing some combo. Recently I started using flight network only because of their price guarantee

[Feruk]

So OP, how do you plan to get your money back?

I've never used flightnetwork.com to book a flight so have no opinion on their service. I always use Google Travel and Skyscanner.net to find my flights and then book them directly with airline (if same price). The issue with some of the non-airline sites is they will pre-purchase batches of tickets, which makes it very hard to get any part refunded should you need to cancel/move flight dates. A lot easier dealing with the airline directly.

[eblend]

Originally posted by Feruk
So OP, how do you plan to get your money back?

I've never used flightnetwork.com to book a flight so have no opinion on their service. I always use Google Travel and Skyscanner.net to find my flights and then book them directly with airline (if same price). The issue with some of the non-airline sites is they will pre-purchase batches of tickets, which makes it very hard to get any part refunded should you need to cancel/move flight dates. A lot easier dealing with the airline directly.

Doubt its relevant anymore since this was posted in Jan, but here is my experience and how I went with a somewhat similar situation with FlightHub, different circumstances but same idea, service sucked, no one would help ect ect. The way I dealt with it was by calling my credit card company and filing a dispute. They asked me if I have contacted the company myself asking for a refund, at which point I said "No I haven't, it 4 hours to get through to them last time so I don't even want to try". The lady asked if I would be okay to go on a conference call with FlightHub to try to resolve the problem, and she will be on call driving the conversation. I didn't really want to do it as I didn't really have too strong of a case (my friend fucked up my name, their policy states there is a fee, I wanted a refund on the fee as the service was not rendered on the day promised and almost missed my flight again due to their incompetence), but went ahead with it anyways. The lady from the dispute department has her own number to reach FlightHub and had a manager on the line within a minute, who promised to refund all the money, and in like 5 min I got a confirmation email that the refund went through.

The way I read about it online, is that a Credit Card company has a lot of pull as a certain number of disputes can lead MasterCard or Visa or whoever to drop the merchant, leaving the merchant unable to accept credit cards. Obviously no business doesn't want to lose the ability to accept plastic, so they bend over backwards for them, even though they give 0 fucks when you call them yourself. So in the future if anyone is in the similar situation, just file a CC dispute and let them take care of it. Mine was with Chase and they followed up on everything to make sure all was taken care of and stuff, were good experience.

[revelations]

Originally posted by eblend


Google flights is great, but they don't have all airlines. I usually look at them first to get an idea and use their funky graph, and then go from there to other sites.

I find that Orbitz always finds options that other sites don't. I remember I flew to Kyrgyzstan 2 years ago and all sites I tried basically said 3 transfers from Calgary to get there, Orbitz found a flight from Calgary to London and then London to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan (with a touch down in Baku, just a quick 20 min to load more people), and was only like 22 hours total, whereas all other options on other sites were like 36 hours. I always use Orbitz now just to see if other sites are missing some combo. Recently I started using flight network only because of their price guarantee

Good info, thanks.

[Env-Consultant]

Originally posted by Mckenzie
I took 38 flights last year over 40,000 miles

Is the majority of that for work!? Air marshal?

[yellowsnow]

If you are a frequent flier, and collect status miles with aeroplan or another star alliance/one world airline, you could be potentially screwed over.

I booked a flight to australia through cheapoair.com because it was around $100 cheaper a few years ago. I entered my aeroplan number, and got confirmation everything was good to go. Fast forward a month, I never got any aeroplan miles credited to my account. So I do a trace, and discovered my ticket was not eligible for any points because they booked me in a fare class that did not offer status miles.

So the $100 I saved was offset by the lack of status miles... was definately not worth it for me. I always try to book directly with the airline now.

edit... changed from orbitz to cheapoair

[sabad66]

^ are the miles you missed out on actually worth more than $100 cold hard cash?

[hurrdurr]

Originally posted by yellowsnow
If you are a frequent flier, and collect status miles with aeroplan or another star alliance/one world airline, you could be potentially screwed over.

I booked a flight to australia through orbitz.com because it was around $100 cheaper a few years ago. I entered my aeroplan number, and got confirmation everything was good to go. Fast forward a month, I never got any aeroplan miles credited to my account. So I do a trace, and discovered my ticket was not eligible for any points because they booked me in a fare class that did not offer status miles.

So the $100 I saved was offset by the lack of status miles... was definately not worth it for me. I always try to book directly with the airline now.

How many years ago was this?

Until very recently there was only Tango Plus (now known as flex) and up to anything transborder or further.

Strange that they somehow got you a tango fare (where you should still get miles to use for future travel) but not the status miles. Would be interested if you still had your boarding pass to take a look into it for you, but that's likely not plausable

[KrisYYC]

Originally posted by sabad66
^ are the miles you missed out on actually worth more than $100 cold hard cash?

Status miles for a flight to Australia would be worth way more than $100 cash. Status miles are different than regular mile points.

[yellowsnow]

Originally posted by sabad66
^ are the miles you missed out on actually worth more than $100 cold hard cash?

yep. if you fly a lot, status miles are VERY important!


Originally posted by hurrdurr


How many years ago was this?

Until very recently there was only Tango Plus (now known as flex) and up to anything transborder or further.

Strange that they somehow got you a tango fare (where you should still get miles to use for future travel) but not the status miles. Would be interested if you still had your boarding pass to take a look into it for you, but that's likely not plausable

this was around 5 years ago. the aeroplan agent said I got a lower fare class which was not eligible for status miles.

sorry just checked my email records, it was with 'cheapoair.com' not ORBITZ.

but the itinerary doesn't say what fare class i purchased. the boarding pass is long gone i'm afraid.

[adam c]

I book all my stuff with cheapoair.ca now i haven't been able to find flights cheaper anywhere else especially with my recent trip to Philippines