GoToGate

I paid $200 extra for a flexible ticket and bought the travel insurance gotogate.com sells (through a 3rd party company called both xcover.com and cover genius. It was another $90 for trip insurance. I thought both of these would cover me... but they don't. I called gotogate as soon as I learned that my daughter's university had cancelled their study abroad program in Florence. After a very frustrating conversation with their customer service I was told by the first person I spoke to that the flexible ticket was only good for tickets before last spring (months before I purchased the ticket - so they sold me an already expired service). Interestingly, a few days later the 2nd person told me a different story. They both told me the trip insurance wasn't through them and I'd need to contact the other company and file a claim. I did, but have not heard back from the insurance company in several days. Now we are two days out from the date of the flight and Gotogate refuses to help resolve the issue. I'm out more than $1400, and the worst part of all of this was how absolutely awful the customer service representatives both were. They talked in circles, talked over me again and again, interrupted me, and were generally rude as they stuck to a script and didn't listen. They were also condescending and told me "you aren't ready to understand". I'm not saying they were rude just because they didn't help me resolve the issue. I called United and Lufthansa directly, and they were unable to help either but both companies had courteous customer service reps who didn't speak over me or interrupt. Gotogate is JUST AWFUL and soooo shady. I will write to United, Lufthansa, and the Better Business Bureau to report my experience with Gotogate.com and express my opinion that they should not work with gotogate.com any longer. I'm also going to take the time to write reviews of this company in as many online sites as I can find. I hope this review helps someone else not lose a lot of money.

Although I must start by admitting when buying the tickets from GotoGate I miss typed in passenger details (middle name where surname should be). Having said this I do not feel that the following responses/experience I had to deal with from Gotogate was acceptable:
- Over 40 minutes waiting on the phone line to speak to someone before giving up
- Email was responded to within 24 hours to explain my ticket must be cancelled and there will be no refund
- I was dishonestly informed by GoToGate that it was the airlines who would not allow the tickets to be changed. This was dishonest because I spoke to both KLM and Flybe (the airlines) directly who both informed me that they could happily change the names but it must go through the travel agent with which it was booked aka GoToGate.
- I was called by GoToGate's centre to ask if I should cancel the flight at 4.00am, which is extremely inconsiderate. I understand GoToGate has people working 24/7 but they should really check if someone is likely to be asleep or not The incompetence shown by Gotogate is simply outstanding.
- My colleagues needed to fly over as it was an extremely important meeting we had arranged and we no other method of resolving the issue than cancelling the flight and buying a new ticket for double the original price.
- Following the cancelation I received an even more worrying display of incompetence by receiving an email for a gentleman I do not know to tell him Gotogate have cancelled his flight from Moscow to Stockholm. This was the most shocking part of the whole ordeal (his name and surname was the same as on my cancelled ticket from Amsterdam - Manchester)

It really was an expensive, painful and shocking ordeal for what should be such a simple transaction.

If you are wise you will pay the extra few pounds, euros or dollars and buy direct through the airline to avoid the stuff of nightmares that is Gotogate.

Gotogate is a brand under the Etraveli Group, based in Sweden. Online customer feedback in their thousands demonstrate that this company's customer service is extremely poor and unresponsive, and they regularly withhold customer refunds as standard business practice amongst many other things.

You can complain to the CEO of Etraveli Group via email address: mathias dot Hedlund at etraveli dot com, the CFO is: henrik dot wetterdal at etraveli dot com, Head of sales is: andreas dot marquardt at etraveli dot com. You can also complain to the company owners at: gmartinlof at cvc dot com.

You can also complain to the Swedish Government agencies about this company, who are well aware of them, at: Annika dot stenberg at bolagsverket dot se, also: konsumentverket at konsumentverket dot se, and: Marcus dot Isgren at arn dot se. The Swedish Government Minister for Business can be reached at: Ibrahim dot Baylan at regeringskansliet dot se.

Unfortunately I have bought a flexi ticket London to Madrid with your agency. I got in touch with Gotogate two keeks algo. The assistant was complete clueless and unprofessional. I have request clearly to rescheduled my ticket to Bilbao( conversation is recording for SECURITY and training purposes) he never advised me that I can not exchange my ticket to a different destination, he either did not care or just was interested in his commission only. I have to make sure asking him when I was going to receive email confirmation, as he did not confirm nothing, his name was NELSON, I strongly advise to remove this so called professional from your travel company as he is a disgrace like your company is. I have paid £29 for the trip different, to find out In your policy I could not change destination. I've been in the phone for days and hours, and they told me he booked to Madrid, not to Bilbao. You said you understand my frustration! No you don't. 2 weeks already pass by and still I am waiting for my refund. Many adviser told me my refund is on the way, lying in my face I have talk to more advisers whom hanged up the phone on me. Also I wanted to finally reschedule my flexi ticket( which I paid fairly for it) though they want to charge me more money, explaining me that they have to charge for the difference on the new trip, knowing that a new trip cost same as the original one. As far as I can see you are an Scam company with the only intention to steal money from people. Saying that, knowing that I've lost my money. I am gonna make sure posting that incident in social media and also acknowledging many people to not book services with people without principles and full of bull$#*! like you! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELVES

Worst company ever, you save a few dollars so that if you ever need to make a change or cancellation within 24 hours or even 3 minutes after buying the wrong ticket THEY CHARGE YOU to call and make the cancellations by phone $45 per person. They tell you that when you buy the ticket it says there is a fee but never when buying its states that. I asked to talk to the manager and they never allowed me to do so, told me i had no valid option. WORST SITE EVER

I booked flights via GoToGate just before the pandemic hit and so I was offered a voucher to rebook flights at some point. I've now attempted to use this voucher twice and both times I have endured the same process...
1. I book the flights;
2. I receive a message saying they will "confirm" the rebooking within 24 hours (with a sly caveat that the prices may go up in that time... guess what happens next!);
3. I receive a message saying I have 24 hours to pay £XX as the prices have increased or they will cancel the booking (not to mention they already charge a "rebooking handling fee");
4. I check the prices with the airlines and see nothing has changed;
5. I attempt to complain but they don't respond to emails and/or leave me in lengthy waiting lines which never get shorter (I think I could end up in an asylum if I have to endure hearing "your estimated wait time is 12 minutes" over and over again every minute for over an hour);
6. After stubbornly waiting it out, I eventually get through on the phone to someone who tells me they need to redirect me to a different team and then the waiting time varies anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours...
7. Despite attempting to dispute this mysterious increase in the ticket prices (which is totally fabricated as I'd been checking the airline websites and running the search on GoToGate again to find there has been no change in prices), because I did not pay the additional cost they cancel the booking and take over a week to allow me to rebook using the voucher again;
8. I attempt the rebook and undergo the exact same process again.

So here I am, with two days to go until my voucher expires and no doubt once it has expired they'll tell me it is invalid and I failed to rebook in time. So there we have it, GoToGate will have managed to worm their way out of having to provide me with new flights for a service I had already paid for with them.

All I can say is that they are appalling. I am not one to often write reviews but here we are, disgraced by these charlatans performing an act which I can only hope is illegal but I imagine, even if it is illegal, they will evade consequence and remain unscathed. So I hope that in spreading this message, word-of-mouth will simply decimate them for their crooked practices.