Flycheapabroad

My flight plight! O March 22nd 2009 I purchased an Airline ticket from flycheapabroad.com to travel to Latvia on a departure date of July 4th2009. The purchase price was $1,126.15 of which I was charged $1,082.32 by Northwest Airlines and $43.82 for the travel agency's sister company Solar Tours. Other agencies that I shopped offered tickets in the $1,200.00 range. So I chose to purchase from flycheapabroad.com. NWA canceled their route to Latvia and all tickets issued for travel to Latvia were cancelled. This change was made on April 4th 2009, only 2 weeks after I purchased my ticket. Flycheapabroad.com failed to inform me of the changes until June 29th 2009, 1 week prior to my departure. They had nearly 3 months to inform me and that would have been plenty of time for me to arrange another ticket. After a slew of phone calls to the agency, who refused to take responsibility, I was not able to arrange another flight through the agency. I was forced to scramble and finally purchased a flight that I had to pay almost $2000. 00 for. Flycheapabroad.com treated me like I was the problem. They even accused me of calling the airline directly and changing my flight, which was a lie. I requested a refund, which they stated would take 6-8 weeks. I waited patiently until 8 weeks had gone by. I called the agency, they said it was taking a little longer and that it will be refunded. I called regularly for several weeks and no refund. I considered filing a claim with small claims court, but since the agency is located in Washington DC and I am in California, it would have cost me more money to try to sue them. I continued to pressure them until finally after 6 months on January 20th they refunded me the $1,082.00. I inquired about the other $43 and they refused to refund saying that portion of the ticket was for insurance and non refundable. Are you kidding me! It wasn't like I had a choice to cancel or not, I was forced to. I have no idea how these people are in business, they have no sense of customer service and they lie and cheat in the hopes that people will give up and they will keep your money. I will never make that mistake again. My advice to everyone, pay the extra $100 and use a legitimate well known agency, and if you hear flycheapabroad.com run the other way.