Kayak

As a company advertised to find the best deal for consumer, I expected Kayak to check its own vendors before advertising for them. I bought ticket from Gotogate through Kayak, and had to cancel ticket within 24 hours, Gotogate charged 80 dollars for refunds, they ignored my complaint, and I had to go to department of transportation. 1 month later, Gotogate decide to laugh at my complaint by telling me the fee is in their fine print.

Thank you for reaching out to us via the US Department of transportation (US DOT case number JY202) regarding your booking with order number XXXXXX.

We can see that you have sent in a complaint regarding our handling fee associated with your cancellation. In line with our Terms & Conditions, that you have agreed to and confirmed before you purchased your booking, do we charge a fee for the work we are doing in regards to changes and cancellation.

The fee of 39 USD per person has been deducted from the refunded amount.

Please see the relevant section from our Terms & Conditions below.

The refund has been processed in line with our Terms & Conditions and the handling fee can unfortunately not be refunded.

Wish you a nice day!

Kind regards,
Alexandra L, Customer Relations
Gotogate

Kayak can easily inform consumer their providers have any special fine print, but they instead promote any company that willing to pay to list on their website.

Nightmare! This was my first time booking airfare with kayak. I will never use them again. After I booked my flight I received an email from globebusters with my reservation information but no confirmation. I called globebusters requesting my confirmation. I was told it would take awhile. After trying for several hours to get my confimation I was told that my credit card had been declined and the new fare would be an additional $150. I informed the sale rep that I had checked my account before booking and the funds were there. He put me on hold and when he came back the he informed me the fare had gone up $300. I told him I would book somewhere else because this did not sound right. He put me on hold again and when he came back rhe increase was back down to $150. I again stated I would book somewhere else. Was put on hold again and upon his return he stated he would try sending my card in again at the original price. The card went through but still no conformation. I called again and was told my confirmation would be issued in ten minutes. One hour later still no confirmation. I called back and the same sales rep told me that I told him I didn't have the money earlier to pay the $150.00 increase and I would have to pay. I can't remember everything I said but he gave me a five digit number and I was able to go to the airlines website directly to get my confirmation.

We made a reservation for a car rental through Kayak with Dollar Rent A Car at Cancun, Mexico. The price Kayak initially provided was COMPLETELY different of the price Dollar tells you when we picked up the car.
We booked a FULL size car through Kayak for 6 days; the size car Dollar gave us was an economy size, which it should cost less. Also, the price provided by Kayak for all 6 days was $390.40 (including taxes & fees) however, Dollar tells you that Kayak doesn't include insurance so they charge you another $337.00, for a total of $727.00. What did Kayak do? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!
Basically Kayak does nothing for you, not refunds or even taking your claim seriously. They are not going to contact the 3rd party to make sure this won't happen again, just plain simple: Kayak doesn't care. They tell you that you should have read their terms of conditions and because they are not the ones who made the final transaction, they cannot be responsible for what the car rental company does, etc.
We, the customer are completely unprotected by thieves and Kayak let them. They mislead the customer through their website (which is just a search engine!) offering different prices but more importantly they should be responsible because they are selling other companies products and services, remember: THEY ARE MAKING MONEY every time they book travel or rentals for others. STAY AWAY, do not use Kayak, book your services directly with trustworthy companies and do not let Kayak throw you out to the sharks.

Recently Japan closed to all non citizen travel. Many were affected. I was one. I had booked through kayak for me and my entire party, Multiple bookings and multiple groups going round trip from the USA to Tokyo and back. When Japan closed I tried to cancel the tickets and was told Kayak doesnt do that I need to contact my agent. I then contacts Japan Airlines. They as well told me to seek the refund through my agent. What Agent? I asked and was told it was from a company in San Francisco. I looked up this company to never find it. I looked at the billing on my credit card it read Japan airlines. So again I went back to Japan Airlines for help as Kayak has no phones or email. They said they had a name which i knew didnt exist as I couldnt find it and a phone number. I called the phone number and got Ovago.Com another travel site. I contacted them and they wanted my account number and booking number. I am still waiting for there reply. WHY doesnt Kayak at lease list on its sales receipts whom you have purchased the tickets from? All i can figure out is someone is making huge kickbacks as I went to kayak bought through them but it was really from a fake company in San Francisco who then auto buys the tickets through a separate web site and so you cant get ahold of the agent and you cant contact the web site because its not your account... NEVER BUY THROUGH KAYAK.COM

I bought a hotel for all star weekend 3 days before my trip after my credit card was charged they sent me a email saying it was cancelled. I called and they said they couldn't verify my card, which doesn't make sense as my card was already charged. I asked for my money back and they said at least 5 buisness days. I believe that they could sell the room for more so they cancelled my trip 3 days before. Then I had to rebook with the hotel and it was double the price. When I called to ask questions I was hung up on 3 times and when I finally talked to the manager he kept saying I need to talk to my bank. I asked why the money was off my card if they couldn't verify it. He kept saying I need to talk to my back. I said he needed to answer the question and he replied with. I don't have a answer for that. I wasted a hour of my day on hold with them and I am waisting more time Reviewing them. Horrible buisness. Do support them! Don't stand beside wack. We as consumers have the power to take down any corporation!

I booked a flight on their site for Frontier flight from Phoenix to LAX for my favorite cousin funeral next morning leave Phoenix@6:23pm I arrive at gate at 6:20 attendant tells me flight left 10 min ago. No other flights out of there from any other airlines. I never received and email ticket phone confirmation nothing just screenshot my info after I entered my card info to pay for flight. So call customer service after probing extremely rude frontier worker that didn't want to give me frontier customer service number. She was telling me to "Google it"... all in front of everyone. So I said wow ok I know I can google anything but your an employee just thought would ask. Anyways called customer service after all that it's a holiday Juneteenth I guess so nobody working. Now again I never got an email or phone confirmation still. Call customer service next morning to explain to them I'm also not usually a flyer so don't know gotta get there way earlier. Again never got an email nothing. Call customer service next morning they say I can't get a refund my "Ticket has lost its value. Sorry ". So I'm like ok. I can't can't get anything a credit for future flight nothing? They tell me no. Sorry after being hung up on and waiting on their oversees customer service that could care less about any Americans problem or any lost loved ones funeral for that matter. This company is a nightmare! Would never book thru them again... spend your hard earned money on business that appreciate you as a customer and preferably American based customer service definitely matters Be nice to speak with someone who would actually understand me!

Wow I almost used these clowns...
There is a HUGE amount of angry customers here. NO WAY would I use them!

I agree with everything said on this forum. I booked flights through Kayak for my family and me for a trip this June to the World Cup. Booking the tickets was easy enough. Everything was very simple until I received an email from Travelocity that my flight itinerary has changed and to call the Customer Support Center to confirm the changes. It took me five phone calls each lasting over 30 minutes to fix my flight itinerary. The first four times I was told by "Dennis", "Katie", "Ricky", and some other made up name for their overseas support person that they could not get through to the airline to fix my flight. Finally, on the fifth try, I was able to arrange my return flights so that they worked for my travel dates. Great! Done! Now I can get on with my life! Except, when I get the confirmation email the next day listing my new flight itinerary, I notice that they also changed a flight on the last leg of my outgoing trip so that I am now missing a connector flight to my final destination. This was never reviewed with me during my five phone calls so I have no idea why they changed it to begin with. Now I am in the process of getting this flight fixed. I'm two calls in. The first time, I got the same response, "We're having a hard time connecting to the airline. Please call back." This morning, I just got off a call with "Nancy" where I was on hold for over 30 minutes before my call was picked up. When I explained to her the situation, she said that I'd need to contact the airline directly. What?! I was very adamant that I would not be doing that since this was their mistake and that they need to own it until it's resolved. After a few minutes of back and forth, "Nancy" finally realized that it is indeed an issue that they need to fix. So, she calls the airline and guess what? She's having a problem connecting and I'm asked to please call back in a couple days. UNBELIEVABLE! NEVER EVER WILL I BOOK THROUGH KAYAK AGAIN!

We are two families who bought tickets from kayak for the same itinerary. One family got redirected to http://Expedia.com and my family to http://Justfly.com Both families decided to cancel the tickets. Family with Expedia got refunded with $300 per person charge from airlines. Yesterday When we called Justfly to cancel, an agent named Leo said the ticket is fully refundable except the $300 per person airline charge and a $150 from Justfly. I questioned him why we need to pay extra $150 per passenger when the family booked through Expedia did not charge. Agent Leo said they cannot waive the cancellation but lower it to $125 per person. The agent said the tickets are cancelled and we will be refunded the amount except the $425 per person. We then rebooked a non refundable ticket through Alnita travels today. After all the new tickets got confirmed, Agent Leo calls and tells there is some $300-$600 fuel charges that the airline won't refund and the cancellation was unsuccessful. How come the tickets bought from kayak with same itinerary and airlines can go to different websites for booking and have different cancellation charges especially what just fly saying "fuel charges ". I called one more time and second agent France confirmed that agent Leo made a mistake and only better option I have is to agree the extra charges and cancel. After almost 3.5 hrs on phone and talking to his supervisor I was forced to let go additional $600. They cannot keep up their word and do not care about customers. This is the worst travel company. Kayak should take the ownership and remove justfly from their list of travel companies. Kayak should not allow different travel companies to have different conditions. Based on this experience I will never use online travel companies.

Their search engine is the best consolidator and easy to compare and find lower fares and options.

USE THIS SITE FOR JUST THAT - never purchase a reservation! They have the WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE!

I made a reservation the site calls it - 'booking' for three rooms for 2 nights as a backup for a party that was coming up. I "cancelled the booking on time" on the website and it gave me the cancellation number. All three rooms were under this single booking.

One week later, I saw a credit for just one room. I called the customer service and the supervisor on the floor, they keep telling me that it only cancelled one room and they wouldn't be able to refund my money. I have printed the screen that shows clearly the cancellation of this 'booking' which clearly lists three rooms and total charge but they refused to refund. I am sure I am not the only customer who was robbed because of the hidden technicalities they didn't fix on their side of the system.

USE THE SITE FOR LOOK UP and NEVER PURCHASE ANYTHING because the CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS!