Best Posts in Thread: Headsup on kiwi-dot-com

Had a nasty experience this week, had booked flights for this April through them back in January, got an email saying two of my booked flights were cancelled but they could help me out if I was willing to pay double. One of those flights wasn't even actually cancelled, so probably overbooked and throwing out the customers with the cheapest tickets lol.
Obviously no way I'm going to pay more than I already did to correct something that should be on the airline to correct free of charge, so I cancelled the whole thing through kiwi and applied for a refund (which I am pretty sure won't happen).
I booked again through a different channel but because it's much closer to the departure date I had to pay through the nose anyway to get replacement tickets.

Anyway, lesson learned, I will henceforth study the conditions page better when booking through an agent, and not book through kiwidotcom again ever.

 

I had a similar experience last year when my airline cancelled my party's connecting flight and offered an alternative 52 hours later. With Covid restrictions at the time, a stopover of this length was not even possible, whether in airport or in the city.

Both the airline and the agent I booked through, GotoGate, referred me to the other to sort out. In the end, similarly, I had to purchase completely new tickets for the whole journey back to Manila and have now been informed by the airline that I was classified as a 'no show', despite informing them that our party could not possibly utilize the first flight.

Similar lessons learned:

1. Always book with the airline, even if it is more expensive.
2. Do not utilize GotoGate, or Booking.com, their parent company.
3. Never again book with this airline.

Eventually, these companies may begin to realize that peopled who are p****d around in this way will take their business somewhere else........or maybe not.

Just as a comparison, before requesting cancellation and refund of both flight sections, I booked an alternative flight to Manila with Philippine Airlines. I then realized that this was an error, as we would have needed to claim luggage (thereby going through passport control), effectively leaving the airport and re-entering between flights, and as stated above, this was not allowed. Fortunately, PAL then cancelled this flight and offered alternatives, or full refund. Obviously I opted for the refund and this was in the bank within three days, a stark difference in customer service.

 

Funny my experience with PAL has been the exact opposite. November 2001 (during COVID restrictions and there were no direct flights to Australia) I booked a flight with Jetstar Manila to Singapore and then Qantas Singapore to Sydney. The Jetstar (owned by Qantas) leg was cancelled and offered the following day (that was common during COVID) so I called PAL and told them of the issue and they offered me a flight to Singapore. I explained I was only transiting through Changi and not leaving the airport and they said that was fine. A week later I got an email back from PAL saying change of airline through Changi was not allowed and that they would either put in their travel bank or refund. I chose the refund. After 6 months of no response (at least 20 emails attaching their email) and 4 hang ups I gave up and swore never to use PAL again. My landlord at the time was a retired PAL pilot (left them and went onto another airline) he told me I would never receive the funds. He hasn't received the money he contributed for his pension all those years ago. He is now late 70's and tells me he won a court case in Manila against them but they have never satified the court orders against them of payment to him nor the legal fees he incurred. He is from a rich family here in Dumaguete and tells all of his experience with them.