Adrienne B.

I had booked a Sun Country flight for mid-January through CheapO Air, and had an emergency gallbladder removal surgery that was restricting my ability to fly less than two weeks before my scheduled flight. I called Sun Country and was told that I would need to pay a change fee, but I could apply for a medical waiver, but it would need to be done through CheapO Air. From the first experience with the CheapO Air customer service person, he said he didn't believe that Sun Country had told me that, thought I should pay for an entire ticket again and then apply for travel insurance (I explained that it would fall under their preexisting condition policy), so the change option was the best for us. He kept saying that it wasn't in the fare rules, despite what I had been told by Sun Country. I asked that he call Sun Country to check, and he rudely asked what proof I have that I actually had surgery. He told me that I should have known about this (needing emergency surgery in January) before booking the flights in November. I asked to speak to a manager, and he wanted to know why. He was extremely combative and unhelpful, and said no manager was there and I would have to wait 24 hours for a call back. At this point, nothing has been resolved. Had I booked directly through Sun Country, the ticket would have cost the same and this issue would be resolved. It is bad enough to have a serious emergency health issue, but CheapO Air's unprofessional handling of this manner has been extremely unwarranted. I will never use them again.

Update: Since then, my husband called CheapO Air and was hung up on after being on a call for a long time with a representative. We were told we had no options and the cost of the change fee plus the difference in the ticket price was going to be almost the price of a new ticket. At no time during my husband's phone calls was the medical waiver mentioned as a possibility. Due to this, we made the decision to cancel the flight, since we were told the waiver wouldn't happen. CheapO Air sent an email that they had a request to cancel both of our flights, despite my husband specifically stating his flight was not to be cancelled. He had to call yet again to make sure that only my flight was cancelled. Again, we only cancelled this because we were told the waiver was not a possibility. We were told on the initial call that a manager would be returning our call within 24 hours. We have yet to receive that phone call.

After posting on social media, CheapO responded to my contacts and seemed willing to do a waiver, so I called them back to see if they would make this right. I was on the phone for a long time, the representative called the airline and put me on hold, then the call was disconnected on their end. I got an email from CheapO Air that they tried to contact me, but I was right next to the phone (same as the one provided in the booking) and it never rang.

So, instead of making the situation better after our first point of contact, CheapO Air has now made it exponentially worse. I have full medical documentation and will try going through travel insurance. However, lesson learned--only book directly through the airlines.