Vayama

Vayama:
I bought a flight ticket at the beginning of the year. Unfortunately, 2 months ago, the airline canceled the flight providing no reasonable alternatives.
I requested my refund on 9/14/19 to Vayama and immediately submitted a complaint with BBB after reading the poor reviews on their website of Vayama.
The BBB was unable to do anything regarding my refund but they pointed me to the right direction.
Vayama kept giving me many excuses about the status of my refund. Then, a random company contacted me asking for my checking account number and information saying that Vayama didn't save credit cards information for security reasons and that they could only refund me via a wire transfer to my checking account. Almost a month went by and still no refund. It wasn't until I filed a complaint with TCRC, www.tcrc.info.org that Vayama refunded me for my plane ticket within days and interestingly enough via my credit card, so they did have my cc information after all.
Do yourself a favor and avoid Vayama. They won't help you find another flight alternative if the airline cancels or changes your flight. They are liars and they will do anything to avoid reimbursing you despite the fact that you are the victim of the situation. They will provide no support and unless you file formal
Complaints it is very unlikely that they will refund you. This company is pretty shaddy.
It took me nearly 2 months and 2 different complaints to get my refund back.

I booked a flight for my family of 4 to Kenya. After a week I needed to change the return flight and that's where the nightmare began. First they told me it was going to be over $12,000 in ticket price difference and that they would send me an email in a few days when the price dropped. I never got a call back. So I called again and they said there were no seats available for the day I needed to return. I was literally looking at seats online when the customer service rep said that. I had to argue with him to get him to offer seats to me! Then he rattles off all the fees associated with changing the tickets ($100/ticket admin fee to Vayama, $200/ticket to the airline) and he tells me that the difference in price was like $18. I said fine, make the change, he sent me a link to pay and I did. I was told I'd get the e-tickets in 4-5 hours. I call back the next day because there were no tickets. Then I was told it takes 24 hours to get the tickets. Then I get an email saying they tried to call (but they didn't leave a message) and for me to call them. I call them and they claim that I agreed to an additional $150/ticket for a fare difference and that they tried to charge my credit card but it was denied! Uh yeah, because that wasn't included in the email requesting payment! Anyway I'm talking to the customer service rep (clearly Indian) and he's blaming me saying I was being rude, etc. I asked to speak to a supervisor hoping for better customer service. NOPE! I agree with the rest of the reviews. If everything goes smoothly and you don't need anything besides the ticket, it might be worth it. Otherwise, book directly with the airline.

Vayama says a lot of things but does not follow through. I am a college student going on a trip with my class, needed to cancel my ticket and make a reservation for another day. $1,000 is a lot of money for someone with nothing, even $100 dollars hurts. After finding out that my ticket is non refundable but I had to cancel anyway, I want to complain as much as possible because no one should go through this.
Finding Vayama's contact information was difficult. They say that they have a "great track record" and that they are "all American", but that is a lie. Their reviews show they do not have a great track record and their phone line is British so that isn't a good start. All I wanted was to feel supported and cared for as a customer, and they couldn't even do that.
Money is important to be because I do not have that much. I trusted this company to help me get a cheap flight and they ended up screwing me over in the end.

Anyway, after a long long struggle with customer service, calling and emailing, I finally was able to cancel without a refund. I am extremely dissatisfied with the support of this agency and do not understand why they do not care for their customers. No one will ever come back if they are pushed away like I was. I have nothing good to say about this company and hope that they have a change of heart and give me a partial refund, or a reimbursement for all of those fees that it takes to cancel or even request to cancel.
I would not wish this upon anyone. I hope that I somehow get reimbursed in any way from this company... I still have hope. But I am sure they will let me down.

The only people who absolutely cared were the travel agents. I luckily bought the cheapest travel insurance, which still doesn't give me much (barely any reimbursement) but their staff was 100x better than vayama. They would call to check on me and tell me exactly what I needed to do. They were so good it makes me think that they must have a lot of experience with this kind of stuff! Vayama must do this a lot to their customers... So that is a sign right there to never go with this company.

I had to use Vayama to book 2 new plane tickets for my boss and a fellow employee, my boss accidentally chose the wrong departure time. I called Vayama, they looked up the tickets and told me it would be CHEAPER for us to CANCEL the first set of tickets and book NEW flights as opposed to changing the tickets my boss selected.

THIS WAS A NIGHTMARE. I sent the request to cancel the first set of tickets through the website and through the email they list - *******@vayama.com and booked the new tickets. After MONTHS of emailing back and forth, Vayama now says the tickets first booked were not REIMBURSABLE - YET I WAS ADVISED BY VAYAMA THAT IT WOULD BE CHEAPER AND BETTER FOR US TO CANCEL THE FIRST SET OF TICKETS AND PURCHASE NEW ONES.

THIS WEBSITE IS SUPER SHADY AND THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS BEYOND HORRIBLE. I SPEND 3 HOURS ON THE PHONE, WOULD BE ON HOLD FOR 45 MINS AND THEY WOULD DISCONNECT ME. I WOULD BE ON HOLD AND THEN MY END WENT RINGING, I WAS SENT TO A VOICEMAIL AND THEN WAS DISCONNECTED AGAIN.

NOW THE COMPANY I WORK FOR IS OUT THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. I ASKED TO SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR TWICE VIA EMAIL - THAT NEVER HAPPENED.

DO NOT USE THIS SITE!

Yeah the price may looks good but trust me, do some research on google before actually booking the tickets or you may end up like me, wasting lots of time to deal with these dishonest people.

Long story short, flights got canceled by airline and in my case the travel agency (Vayama) should be the one contacting the airline and starting the refund process. Vayama sent me multiple mails saying that "they will prioritize my refund, by asking the airlines, request my patience during this process."

Two months later, I called the airline myself and found out that Vayama hasn't sent ANY request to the airline, which was already ridiculous. After I wrote another email to Vayama pointing this out, they finally sent the request to the airline. Vayama sent me some more updates basically saying that it's all the airline's problem and Vayama was already pushing them blablabla (which turned out to be bullshxt)

Then after another month of waiting, the airline told me that they already replied and confirmed Vayama's refunding request a month ago, but they haven't received any response from Vayama to continue the refunding process since then.

So basically Vayama has been lying to me for over three months. While me and the airline try to solve the problem during these crazy times, Vayama is the one playing some kind of stupid tricks and delaying all the process.

So again, prices may look good but they don't get this kind of rating for no reason. Think twice unless you have too much time to mess with them when there're some unpredictable schedule changes. This company has been and will definitely keep on lying to its customers.

I work with a small non profit so I always look for the best flight deals and found one on Vayama. I booked the flights through their site because it advertised a 24 hour free booking cancellation policy. Ultimately, after speaking to over 7 customer service agents, sending multiple emails with proof of cancellation policy and phone calls, the supervisor explained to me that the cancelation is at the airlines discretion, not Vayama's and that I was the rare exception that he could not honor the 24 hour cancellation policy free of charge. I asked him how this was my fault and why I should be charged for a service Vayama could not provide and he simply apologized and said I was the rare exception. Had I known that I was not guaranteed the 24 hour free cancellation policy, I would not have booked with this site. Worse off, Vayama would not wave their booking fees for changing the flight. So I ended up having to pay $300 to the airline, $20 difference in flight fees and $75 to Vayama for the change in booking. After all of the inconvenience, I thought the least they could do was wave the $75 fee but instead he told me I should be thankful he wasn't charging me the full $100 fee.

Additionally they have very poor customer service. I sent an email requesting to cancel the flight and they responded that they could not help me because the departure date was in 4 days however the departure date is over a month away. I'm not sure they even looked at my request or the booking. When I called, the calls dropped or I was hung up on multiple times. I waited about 10 minutes to speak with someone and when I thought I had been connected, the call ended. I called back and the same thing would happen. On a few occasions, I would get connected with someone and they would ask me to wait for a moment while they looked into my request then as soon as they put me on hold the call ended. I only spoke with one agent who was helpful and tried to assist me but the others were defensive from the start and refused to put me through to the supervisor when I asked.

I will not book with them again in the future and I wouldn't recommend them to others.

Absolutely terrible company when emergencies happen. They do not have the customer service staff to take the flow of calls due to the Coronavirus outbreak. This is no excuse, as they never had customer service even before the epidemic. Vayama shirks responsibility for refunding tickets. If you try calling their customer service hotline, they hang up on you "due to the increased call volume." And when you try emailing them, they say to contact the airline. Refunding and rescheduling tickets is the vendor's responsibility and not the airlines'. They'll give you the run around: my flight was through China Airlines and when Covid-19 put everyone in California in shelter-in-place, I tried to cancel my flight even with the offer of paying for a reschedule. Vayama told me to call China Airlines. I did. China Airlines said to call Vayama. I did and all the told me was to wait for the flight status. CA probably will not cancel this flight so now I'm down $850. This is what I get for booking through shoddy, travel agencies. Oh the irony of trying to save money on travel.

Update:
So I finally got my refund back for my trip to Thailand. It's a miracle. This company's website was riddled with ineffective links; to say that their customer service helpline was abysmal would be to suggest that there were actually any kind of customer service helpline; any time you called, you'd wait on hold and then be inevitably hung up on with no explanation or human contact; they gave no updates on the status of the refund at any point of the refund process; finding a telephone number for the customer service line was extremely difficult and well-hidden. I have learned my lesson to never use Vayama or any other travel agency again. Instead, I will plan through kayak but book through the actual airline. You should too. F*** Vayama.

This is the first time I've used Vayama for a flight overseas to the Philippines. I originally went with them because the price of the tickets was a little cheaper. Had I known the issues they would cause I would have run immediately. First off they change my flight twice, and getting on contact with them is a pain in the $#*!. The last time I spoke with them I was waiting for 45 minutes on the phone. They originally change my flight time, then suddenly a "minor change" was made to my flight leaving out of Las Vegas to now suddenly leaving out of Los Angeles two weeks about before my scheduled flight. I told the Indian man on the other end, who had no concept of why this wasn't good that I needed a flight out of Vegas. He had me on line for another 5 minutes to tell me "sorry no flights out of Vegas to California until the 17th of January. Apparently no plane will ever leave Las Vegas to go to California within a month. I finally gave up and ended up having to buy a ticket to Los Angeles the night before my flight since it's too early in the morning to drive to. So all in all, I had to spend an additional $113 for something they screwed me over with and all they could say was "no, there is no other flight". I couldn't even change airlines or anything. I will NEVER use Vayama again. On that note I had two flights scheduled with them and both flights have been changed 3 times since. I'll also include that a 13 hour layover in San Francisco is ridiculous. They picked the absolute worst times for me. On my return flight I leave out of Manila at midnight. By far the worst company I've ever dealt with on customer service.

They are THIEVES! They stole my money!
I have a refund from American Airlines with them and they are refunding it back to me. I don't understand what gives them the right to keep my money when the Airlines has refunded it back. THEY are THIEVES!

I even spoke to Interjet about my refund and Interjet said Vayama needs to initiate the process and we will refund the money. I even send them email for this and no response from VAYAMA.
I've sent VAYAMA over 20 emails explaining them my medical situation and provided them Doctors letter and Refund Receipt from American Airlines and I get 1 email from Vayama asking for Charge back Withdrawal letter from my Credit Card company.
Even after a 3 way call with Vayama Associate(which I managed to get hold of after a long wait) and the Credit Card associate and Vayama associate confirmed the withdrawal letter from the CC company is what they needed and providing them the letter I still did not get my refund. This happened more than 3 weeks back.

All I can say is Vayama has stolen my money and has no intention of returning it. After requesting and pleading them to refund the money which I can use during this pandemic times for my medical needs they chose not to respond back to me.

NOTE: The refund was travel plans that got cancelled due to COVD-19 and I'm a high risk patient so doctor's advised not to travel. My parent who are old and were travelling with me also at high risk cannot travel.