“WARNING DO NOT USE BOOKING.COM TO BOOK FLIGHT.
Well I do not take a vacation very often so my wife decided she would like to go to Florida for Christmas this year. I decided to use booking.com to book our flights. I went to their website booked my trip. I figured we would do it up and I would book first class tickets. When I got a conformation email they had changed the flights down to economy seats. I called the number and explained that I had booked first class. The first 3 people I spoke to put me on hold and ended up hanging up on me. I finally got a person who said for me to just cancel the flight and rebook it first class. She then told me she could only cancel the first part of our round trip. The next morning we got news that Kellie’s Dad will not be in Florida in December. I called booking.com back they said sorry sir you can not cancel the flight. I said that I was guaranteed if I wanted to cancel I had 24 hours to do so. This is where it gets crazy. When I told her we still had two hours before the 24 hours was up she hung up on me. I called back in each time I told someone I needed to cancel my flights the hung up on us. That happened numerous times with about 20 minute waits each time.This went on for hours and hours. I asked to speak to a manager. They said the manager will get back to me in a few days. I said that would be past the 24 hours. I asked to speak to someone else. That is when I was told that they are not booking.com they are GO TO GATE. I asked to speak to someone from booking.com they said there is no one to speak to. I ASKED FOR THEIR NUMBER. Sorry they do not have one. She said that they GO TO GATE handle all of BOOKING.COMS flights. That was two weeks ago. I got an email today from a manager that said sorry you are past your 24 hour cancellation time.
Please share this post with all of your friends and family……
WARNING DO NOT USE BOOKING .
My advise to anyone booking flights make sure you DO NOT USE booking.com”
“Almost 12 months and no refund yet!
March 2020 I purchased 2 international air tickets on Gotogate.it for a total of € 2054.99.
November 2020 I called their customer service and requested the cancellation and refund, agreeing to pay 250 € / each as a penalty (which they would have discounted from the refund).
Almost 12 months have passed, I have called, solicited many times by email and through their chat and we still have not received any refunds or concrete updates on the procedure other than "we are dealing with, sorry, covid, we will talk to a superior, etc."
Not to be trusted. I contacted the consumer defense.”
“Failed to inform us that a transit visa was required. We purposedly bought a ticket through Canada only to be informed that the ticket was routed through the United States. They even admitted they do withhold that information.”
“Absolutely shocking customer service. They are a nightmare to deal with. Advertised a seating plan upgrade to be added on to our tickets to allow us to select seats together. This is actually not the case. What this "service" provides is NOTHING. They say they will hopefully be able to have us sitting together when we check in but that it is not guaranteed (therefore we have paid more to maybe sit together). This is what normally happens for free with an airline. They are also declining a refund on the seating upgrade. Shameful company. NEVER use them.”
“absolute scam. Paid for extra hand baggage but when I checked in it says no hand baggage. Therefore had to pay for even more hand baggage, which Gotogate refused to refund either.”
“This is a fraud company.
The fact is, I submitted the flight refund process from July 2021. After that, I saw that my refund process was not progressing at all on their website. The process just stuck with the refund application they had submitted to the airline, but never got a reply from the airline. The Cathay Pacific airways from which I booked the ticket has clearly told me that they only need up to 14 days to process the refund application. While I call Gotogate almost every 2 weeks, they always tell me they haven’t gotten a response from the airline yet.
In desperation, I asked the airline’s finance team to check the refund status. Then Cathay Pacific replied that they had already returned the refund to Gotogate during 16th – 31st of August 2021. It was mid-October, Gotogate lied to me all the time since they got the money.
Gotogate uses lies to get as much of your refund as possible, so that they can hold the money longer.
This agent is immoral and illegal. Stay away from them.”
“Gotogate withholding refunds
Gotogate will continue to use Covid related reasons for the delay in your refund. I myself have been waiting for a refund for over 6 weeks with the same excuses. So I decided to challenge Gotogates response that they are waiting also from the respective airline. I contacted the airline in question. They responded by saying that any refunds due to booking companies are made within 7 days of the error. However this now may take up to 10 days due to a heavy load of refunds.
I mentioned Gotogates position . They responded by saying they have had numerous enquiries and complaints regarding Gotogate and refunds. They assured me they held no funds on booking registration or ticket number that any overcharge for luggage by Gotogate has already been refunded.
So there you have it Gotogate adopt a policy of withholding funds until you tire or give up.
My advice is to contact ABTA, TTA or The Global Travel Group you should contact them for advice. If not, try Consumer Direct on 08454 040506.
Email address for the managing director of the parent company
mathias.hedlund at etraveli com”
“Terrible customer service, retrospectively added terms and conditions to charge 'administration fees' despite performing no administration or handling and insisting the customer has to arrange everything with the airline directly. Do not answer phones, responded to emails after about 9 months. Shocking company, steer clear.”
“I cancelled my trip due to covid 19 travel concerns during the lockdown, the airline agreed on refunding the money however Gotogate for almost 9 months has not yet paid the money despite several attempts to talk to them. Please stay away from them.”
“Total scam. Undisclosed fees except in small print at end of lengthy document. Inconsistent policy - in small print terms and conditions saying they will not provide refunds and saying opposite in emails. Cannot contact customer service. And the supposed vouchers you automatically receive are computer code gibberish. Top to bottom - a total scam. $500 lost.”
“I purchased their flexible ticket and I had to reschedule it today. After I called them they said that I have to pay a $600 difference, so I asked them how much is the price per ticket (I purchased 2) they told me $850 and when I went to THEIR website and put the exact same flight (destination, time, airline) it was $700. When I tried to talk to the guy he got very rude and defensive so I asked for the manager he told me that manager will call me back within 24-48h! complete joke”
“I was issued an open ticket to my returned trip when boarders of the destination closed and now being told that I can't use the voucher even though it's due to expire in Feb 2022. I have send so many messages via their web form but never received a confirmation or any response back. GoToGate is highly unlovable company. They should not be in the business as they are deceiving people and rob them. It's our hard earned money they are stealing away.
They are coming up different issues each time i speak with call centre staff. There's no email address to contact the support team behind the call centre staff as they don't travellers to contact them.
The lesson i've learnt ere is that not to trust any travel agent but book your flights direct with the airline.”
“SCAM OPERATION
Nobody answers the telephone not even goes to voicemail. Does not answer messages as well. If you need to make any changes to a booking ... you are screwed. AVOID AT ALL COSTS”
“Total scammers who have defrauded us of £1000 with ‘flexible’ tickets which are distinctly inflexible, customer service who take 2.5 hours to answer and then say they need to transfer you to another department and paid for luggage which the airline know nothing about. DO NOT USE - DAYLIGHT ROBBERY! And Skyscanner are complicit for listing them.”
“Scam alert
Order no-L2I4TP
Bunch of thiefs they are who stole my money. Stay away from them at all cost.
Booked London - Delhi return tickets for Q4'20. UIA cancelled the flight due to pandemic and refunded 100% amount to Gotogate way back in Jan, after 6 months and 100s of mails, I just got 50% refund. Gotogate have eaten balance 50% citing Mannual handling charges and airlines taxes for which there is no explanation till time. Nobody picks up the phone & there is no escalation process. Don't know what to do.
Warning others to stay away from them.”
“I booked a flight via GOTOGATE Canada on July 9th for a Toronto to Edmonton with Swoop Air, flying out on July 16th.
This was a last minute flight due to a personal emergency. Even after I booked, I kept checking Google Flights to see whether there were better deals.
The following day after I booked my flight, I found a better deal with Air Canada. So I reached out to SWOOP and was able to get a full cancellation, confirmed with SWOOP Airlines on July 10th , they would refund me the full $392.
The next step after getting the confirmation from SWOOP was to inform GOTOGATE of the Cancellation via their online forms. There were no details or prompts about a cancellation fee or cancellation policy on their self-serve portal. Nor was I able to find any specific details around booking cancellations. That is why I went ahead, and cancelled the flight, informing GOTOGATE that SWOOP has confirmed the cancellation. To my surprise a few days later, my account was only reimbursed $242, because $150 was retained by GOTOGATE as a cancellation fee. This was very alarming because there was no indication to me that such a fee, or any, would be charged to me, nor would I have cancelled had I known about the fee.
Since then, I have tried emailing and calling the company multiple times, with no response and just hours of wait time on the phone. I have sent follow-up emails every other day, and have made several phone calls with over 2 hours of wait-time on every occasion. And if I’m lucky to speak with an agent, they would put me on hold and my line gets cut off. This is terrible customer service and there is an extreme lack of transparency and responsibility to their customers.
Issue is still unresolved and company is still unresponsive.”
“Bought 3 tickets in 3/20 for $3,374 from US to Thailand then COVID hit. Here I am 7/21, countless hrs on the phone and I've received $863 in refund. This place is the ultimate scam and cant believe airlines are dealing with them.”
