Vayama

VAYAMA has the worst service!
Thinking about calling them -because the site is giving you an error- forget about it! They will only tell you the CARD you're using is not working. Then they will tell you to call your bank because it's not the website- it's you're card.
Tried 4 different cards- however still no luck- the site clearly tells you there a "technical error"
Called VAYAMA 3 times, however, did not get help- Spoke with a REP name CHINI who refused to give me her last name.
Then spoke with the floor supervisor ROSS. K who also wasn't able to help- gave me the same answer to call the bank. I called the bank and they said there is no issue with your card and they did not see a transaction from VAYAMA.
BOTTOM line - the worst customer service- call center is based out of INDIA- they have no knowledge of our VISA card and our banking system.
After the 4th a call and hours of back and forth- I decided to give up.

I just bought a ticket from Chicago O'hare to Mexico City one way flight and it was $142 I purchased it just to find out they took the money out of my account then cancelled my flight. I need to be gone on Wednesday January 9 and they said i have to wait 4-5 business days for the money to be placed back in my account. I DO NOT RECOMMENED YOU BUY FROM THEM. Now I do not have money for my flight and I have to leave in two days. So disappointed and do not recommend to anyone AVOID THIS WEBSITE.

This company deserves a NEGATIVE STAR! NEVER AGAIN will I ever book with them. I booked a 700dollar ticket for me and my son but something happened and I had to cancel it which I did THREE HOURS after I booked. When I cancelled, I got an email from them to pay freaking 300dollars per person for cancellation fees. Thats 600dollars for me and my kid after just 3 hours of booking. Are you kidding me? NOTE THAT THEIR TERMS AND CONDITIONS SAYS THEY CHARGE CANCELLATION "UP TO A HUNDRED DOLLARS" which means MAXIMUM OF A HUNDRED DOLLARS! This company is a FRAUD AND WILL DO ANYTHING TO MAKE MONEY. I have already reported them to the credit bureau for the charges.

I agree with other reviews, the only good thing about Vayama is their great prices and other then that it is horrible.

My husband and I have planned a trip for me to visit him in Korea, where he is stationed for a year. This is the only time I am able to visit due to him being in service. They made a mistake and put my "nickname" as my "last name" but on the e ticket, it is difficult/ almost impossible to realize the mistake since all other name information is correct. (Nickname is merc which is short for Mercedes) I did not know that it was going to print wrong on the boarding pass. When checking in for my flight, I was told I would be unable to board even though I have my passport, military id, etc all in order. I was told I needed to call Vayama which I did and I have never had such horrible customer service! I was hung up on FOUR separate times before finally talking to a rude man who was very unsympathetic and who also hung up on me mid sentence. After calling again, I was told name changes take SEVEN DAYS ( if you book directly with airline they can do it ASAP) but she can put a "note." When I explained that TSA aren't able to look at the notes, I was hung-up on again.
I missed my flight, and I am devastated I won't be able to see my husband. We just got married before he went on assignment and we're treating this as our honeymoon. We lost out on our hotels we booked and the tours we booked as well.
I would not recommend them to anyone.

Booked a flight from Vayama.com on 11/15/2018 from Jeddah to Hyderabad for the travelling date December 24,2018. It was for 2 passengers for the amount $510.52. I received en eticket from vayama with a booking reference number. On the day of travel (12/24/2018), i went to checkin my bags in Jeddah Airport and i got to know that my tickets were cancelled. I don't know why and how they got cancelled, then the check in counter guy told me that my agent (Vayama.com) did not update some details to them because which it got cancelled.

I reach to Vayama.com for 2 hours every customer representative speaks to me and put me on hold and they ends my call. And no one knows what happened. I then went ahead and booked my flight for $880. I had to wait in airport for 18 hours with no accommodation. Vayama did not book another flight on the same day, they said that it will be costlier if they book my ticket on the same day.

I asked them to provide me the full refund of $510.52 but they only approved partial amount of $350.52 which is the airline refund. This is pathetic, i went through all the pain with moving forward and booking a flight for double the price. All i expect from them is to GIVE ME MY MONEY BACK.

Please do the needful and provide me full refund.

Update(01/24/2019): I got my full refund. Phew!

I'm writing to express my deep disappointment in Vayama's customer service in reference to Vayama Trip ID SHU5KZ. When our Lufthansa flights on 4/4/2014 were canceled, customer service representatives assured us that Vayama would handle the fights and work with Lufthansa. We were told that speaking directly with Lufthansa wouldn't help so we waited on Vayama. Vayama could only offer similar flights on Monday (3 days after our original departure date). We expressed our need to fly home earlier; we said we would be willing to fly into or out of airports within 2 hours of the original cities. We also offered to fly in groups of 2 instead of 4. Vayama was still incapable of resolving the issue and only offered the same flight home on Monday (4/7). After a very stressful 2 days during our vacation, we went to the airport to speak with Lufthansa directly. They resolved the issue within 15 minutes. We flew home Saturday on Air France and US Air. Vayama's incompetence is overwhelming. We will never be using Vayama again in the future.

This company has employees that don't know what they are doing. Due to all the Coronaviris hype, we asked what we could do about our flights with China Eastern that was flying through Shanghai. They told us we could cancel the flight and get a full refund. Once we confirmed that's what we would like to do, we got an email saying our refund was being processed and we would hear back in five days. A week later we get an email saying our flight is actually NOT REFUNDABLE due to the airlines "changing" their policies. We then called the airlines and they said Vayama "voided" our tickets instead of canceling them. Which meant that if they would have been canceled not voided the airlines would have refunded us. We have tried daily calling Vayama to get answers. Still have not heard from them on this matter and our calls get dropped after being on hold for an hour. This has been going on for over a month now and I am still waiting to get answers. This company has NO integrity and accountability for their mess up. You will just find yourself frustrated and stressed by doing business with them.

Vayama is actually a bad travel agency. Never again will I book with them. I had currently booked a flight from Rome to Mauritius but due to the coronavirus, I tried getting them to reroute my flight from Dublin to mauritius but they won't allow it. I called them so many times and they had disconnected my lines too many times. I wrote them so many emails and I still haven't gotten a response. They disconnected their line because they knew everyone would be calling them to refund or cancel their booking. Its actually disgraceful, we are supposed to be going in 2 weeks times and i still can't get through to them. They took a large sum of money but they can't even advised us on what are to do. The staffs are rude, they keep telling us we need to follow their T&Cs, but thats stupid especially with the virus going around. How can we travel if we are going to to be put in quarantine when landing. Vayama is such an unreliable agency because all they do is take your money without any conscience. Actually a horrible agency and I wouldn't trust them at all.

I'm the type of person that is always prepared with band-aids, a swiss army knife and a flashlight, so it was my own wherewithal that saved me when I decided to call the morning of the day before my 12 AM flight. Guess what? That flight got changed to a 10:40 AM flight for the same day, which in itself wasn't the problem.

The problem was I GOT NO NOTIFICATION in the form of an email or courtesy call, not from Vayama or the airline. Good thing I decided to check, or else I would've been stranded at the airport for 8 hours for no reason. Folks, if you're gonna be cheap and use this site, make sure you keep yourself in the loop, because they certainly won't.

Also, the phone number they have on the footer of their website is wrong. It goes to a dead line. Their real number is listed on the emails you get from them (but who goes to their EMAILS to look for a phone number when you have the internet? Get with the times, Vayama!) After I called the correct number, I had to wait 8 mins with an exceedingly annoying automated wait tone that told me every 2 seconds "please stay on the line and we will be with you shortly." I was disconnected after I connected with an agent not 2 mins into the call and had to call AGAIN.

The patience of sloths is required when dealing with vayama, trust.

We booked flight for 4 adults to Switzerland last fall for this July.
Since then our Daughter (one of the adults) found out she was pregnant and that timing was going to be very close to flight date. Tried to cancel the ticket for she and her husband but insurance said pregnancy didn't qualify as a. Worthy medical reason to cancel and get refund. So we hoped for the best.
Baby has been born and will be good for the trip. Checked w airline about ticket for the baby and we're told no problem it's just a 10% add on fee because baby is a newborn, and that Vayama should process thhe fee since they booked us for original tickets.

Call to Vayama didn't go well. Rep for Vayama said that it was $600 not the 10% fee airlines stated and also said airline was wrong.

Called airline, which said must be Vayama wasn't aware of the process. They said to have Vayama call them and they would teach the Vayama rep how to process the charge properly.

Called Vayama back, they said " no, we don't speak to the airlines".
A request was made to speak to a supervisor, response was "no, I'm speaking to you now and I am handling this call, the charge is $600. Another request for supervisor resulted in a hangup from the Vayama rep...

This company is terrible. They will add on any expense they can and leave you hanging with empty pockets.

Wow! I can't believe I got scammed into buying a ticket through this awful company. Hours after purchasing, they didnt send me a confirmation # but rather canceled my ticket due to an error on their end where the prices were not accurately listed? What kind of company doesn't keep up to date with their listings? Oh right, Vayama. AND they
Are holding my money for 5-10 business days and cannot purchase a ticket until then. Perfect. Email is as follows:

"Unfortunately, your booking request on Vayama US failed. During the booking process, the airline provided us incorrect seat availability for the price you selected, regrettably we were unsuccessful to rebook your seats.

We have cancelled your booking request and refunded your payment of USD 1195. 00.

Because of the processing time required by the banks and credit card companies, it may take up to 5 - 10 working days before you can see this payment in your account. Unfortunately, we cannot expedite this process due to external parties."

On Sep 14th, I paid on vayama.com with the confirmation of three airline tickets from Chengdu China to Los Angeles. All the information I provide for each passengers are correct.
However, due to the fact that Vayama mixed up three of the passengers information, the China Southern airlines said they couldn't changed the information in the system and didn't let them
Check. The whole fight to LA was missed.

As a result, we had to pay very high price to buy new tickets for the next available fight in order to complete the trip.

I'v made four phone calls with the agent(vayama.com), with all records made.
1) The 1st agent confirmed that the information I provided were all correct for each passengers. So she believed there was nothing wrong and did nothing to help.
2) The 2nd agent realized the information were mixed up. But it was too late to let them check in.
3) The 3rd agent confirmed that the issue were caused by the system. He said only the supervisor could deal with this matter. He gave me a number which is not valid.
4) Finally, the 4th agent said you would contact me.

Finally, vayama.com is now applying $250 penalty on us per person ($750 total) for refund request, due to the mistake of themselves... Excuse me? That's the result of what I paid, with everything provided.

The whole customer service is terrible. The last man who answered my call kept saying "we didn't make mistake" but then said "we corrected it, it's just a rare case". Excuse me?

1. The first leg of a 2-leg flight was changed, needing me to change the second leg. Both legs originally gotten through Vayama.

2. It's a telling sign that it's very hard to find even their pubic phone number. Go try to find it. Anywhere.
But finding it is worthless._Every time_ I was on hold so long (over 45 minutes) that the call was disconnected.

3. I was desperate since this change in times would make me miss my second leg, get me in late, and blow the whole reason for my trip.

4. Desperate, I finally found another number to call: *******777
If you're dumb enough to use Vayama, then use that number.
Oh, and their customer service email isn't useful either--surprise! Instead use: vayama [at] travix.freshdesk.com
(You'll notice that that isn't a "good" email: It's not much of a real company, you see.)

5. Even using that "secret" phone number and email, it took so long to try to fix things through them that I would have literally missed my flight if I kept trying.

6. Luckily, the airline I got a ticket for (Cathay Pacific) themselves helped me book a flight on a different (non-affiliate) airline to help me out.

Let me restate this:
Vayama was a HUGE problem and of NO help. I had to finally beg the airline to act as my booking agent for another airline!

Tl; dr
Sure, if you never have anything ever go wrong with your flights, maybe consider Vayama. But THEY WILL SCREW YOU if anything goes wrong at all.

I purchased two tickets from them late 2019, the flight was canceled due to COVID. I got email notification from them that they are working with the airlines on my refund (this was in April 2020) 5 months passed and it was the same message them telling me the refund is taking a long time due to airlines not releasing the money.
I got tired of it and called the credit card company to dispute the charges (September 2020) The credit card company told me that I was lucky, the day I called them was the last day to make any dispute for plane tickets purchase in December. A week later after my dispute, I received an email from Vamaya notifying me THEY ARE JUST NOW SUBBMITTING MY REFUND TO THE AIRLINES (September 2020) and I received my money back.

Their game plan was to lead you on, so you will wait until credit card dispute period is over. After that it would be impossible to get the refund. They might have your refund but they are using shady practices in order to keep the money! If you are waiting to get a refund, CALL YOUR CREDIT CARD COMPANY ASAP!

CUSTOMER SERVICE by PHONE HORRIBLE.
On the 28 November I reserved my trip through Himpmunk. Departing December 13. I present myself at the Airport & I am told at the counter that my reservation was canceled. 10 minutes after Im told that my reservation is canceled I receive a REMINDER by email to not forget my trip!

I then proceeded to contact VAYAMA. They stated that they apparently sent me an email stating that the price increased. The email they sent me was BLANK. They proceeded to explain to me by telephone yesterday Dec 13 that the email stated that the price increased by $1000 AFTER The transaction was completed, & asked if I accepted to pay this difference. So now i have hotels booked in Europe that i can not cancel, meetings that i needed to attend as well as a car that i also cant cancel. After explaining this to them by telephone they hung up on me. I have sent an email to the customer service as i want to be reimbursed
Has anyone else had this issue?

Hi there my name is Marcel. I purchased one ticket to go to South America. Unfortunately I couldn't fly in that day... so I had to deal with their costumer service team to do change the ticket. I tried to do it during 12 days of frustrating long hours talking to them on the phone. I realize they are a bunch of rippers. I thought it was a joke. I was willing to fly anytime between November and December my original ticket was $1700 they gave me to options one was to fly on the 13th of no member to pay $2000 more then than original ticket or $8500 for 9th of December... I started laughing and recorded the all phone conversation... so I will post it on YouTube as "VAYMA SCAMMERS ". Anyway I lost my flight my money but I will share this with everybody. DO NOT USE VAYMA SCAMMERS ".

I purchase a ticket ti Europe with Vayama using the Kayak site because it was a bit cheaper than the airlines - HUGE mistake! First of all, you never receive your ticket confirmation code of the airline until you get to the airport to check in so you cannot assign your seat until you are there. Second is imposible to change the returning date after you are in the country you flight to, you just lose your money if you have to do that. Took me 5 long distance calls and 4 hours (paying long distance) to get to talk to someone to just to tell me that they cannot change my return flight and that I lost all my money because I would have to buy a new ticket to return another day! Any agency or airline at least give you the return flight information so you can later use it another day! When you call the airlines to try to change it with them they tell you that you have ti talk to your "travel agency" because they don't have anything reserved, thus they just emit the ticket at the last minute so you are force to deal with them to do any charges. If you want to do changes before the flight -even if you just bought them- you have to talk to them directly and besides the airline exchange fees you have to pay THEM $100 for their "change services". They are a bunch of thiefs! If you have to do changes in any airline within 24 hours of purchase they do it for free!