FareBoomReviews 80

I booked 5 airline reservations with Farboom on 09/19/2019 to fly on June 28th 2020. The airline cancelled our reservation and changed it to July 1st. Then they cancelled again and scheduled it for July 12th. I finally had enough of them deciding for me when to travel. The country that I was going to would not open the air traffic until July 14th. In addition, the country would not allow any airline to land in it's airports except the domestic airline. The airline I was traveling with, would not be able to fly us there. I contacted Fairboom many times to refund me the money, they want to charge me $75 for every passanger. I refuse to loose $375 for a cancellation that I didn't initiate. The airline is the one that cancelled my original tickets, not me. They didn't honor their commitment to fly us on the date that we chose. I know that I am entitled to a full refund without any question!
I am going to give them one more chance for them to make right and refund me the money. I used Fairboom for many years. I travel with my family every two years and bring my mother once a year. In addition to anyone coming to visit me, I purchase their tickets with Fairboom. I am also a board member of a large community which I always recommend Fairboom for all member's travel needs.
My order number is O-2B******* and I would like my full refund!
While waiting for your response, respectfully,

This is the WORST, dirtiest, money hungry agency that I have ever encountered. We have saved very diligently for a trip to Europe 7/8-7/18/20 with our kids which would've been their first trip. Because of COVID we are Unable to travel. They issued a voucher good for one year which dosent work since we booked 1/20- our kids are school age and would need to travel in the summer. We have tried countless times to reach them over the phone to no avail. Their phone number constantly tells you to go through the website but the site tells you that you can get a voucher for a year. WE ARE IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC! DO NOT BOOK WITH WITH AGENCY. The Ceo Marc Cadez is clearly a crook and is stealing everyone's money. I would like a personal phone call from him explaining why he is doing this to me and my family. You are a terrible person and hope will reap what you are doing to all of us in some way or other. Why don't you speak up and voice to everyone what you are doing. You should go to prison!

Pushed into a refund and then charged $150
Greetings. This is our first time using Fareboom. We purchased tickets to fly from Tampa, FL to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and back to Tampa (August 14th - August 21).

We were happy with the tickets we were able to reserve through Fareboom. But then... we received an email.

When Fareboom emailed me that our flight(s) had run into seating/cancellation problems, they gave me two options: allow them to reschedule us on alternative flights (which is the choice we first made and wrote them)... OR... pursue a refund.

Their response to finding us alternate flights was to confirm out cancellation (which we did not choose in our initial response).

Having to confirm the cancellation (we didn't make), we were left with choosing a refund. Fareboom gave us two refund options (allegedly).

First option, accept the cancellation through them and pay $75. Second option, basically go request a refund from the airlines (in this case United Airlines).

Having read reviews, I learned the standard answer from the airlines is that my wife and I purchased our tickets through a 3rd party (Fareboom) and therefore the airlines were not responsible for any refund.

So basically, it appears that Fareboom did not give my wife and I any refund options other than to pay a $75 fee (per ticket) for them to provide me a refund within 2 months.

This is the email I received after having to accept their refund process with a charge of $150:

"This is to confirm that your Fareboom Order O-2B******* has been cancelled and filed for full refund per United Coronavirus waiver conditions. You chose the expedited processing option with $75.00 per ticket administrative filing fee."

My problem is, Fareboom used the phrase "expedited processing option" to justify the $75 fee per ticket (and we had 2 tickets, so its costing us $150). This "expedited processing option" is included in their response but not given as an option when I was forced to pay the $150 fee for the refund.

There was no option to get the refund from Fareboom without having to pay for the "expedited processing option".

It appears Fareboom is forcing people to pay $75 (per ticket) when the industry and government regulations / standards clearly say "Full Refund", is a terrible way to do business.

Since this whole process just occurred 30 minutes ago, I'll wait to see if Fareboom does the right thing and refunds my entire amount or keeps $150 of our money.

Fareboom sold me cheap tickets, and made me happy when I think I got a deal. That is the only good part.

Fast forward 6 weeks after I bought ticket. I happen to check my reservation on UA website, just 3 week before my flight. Boom. UA website says the flight was cancelled. Fareboom never notify me about my flight being cancelled. If I have not checked that night, I will be going to the airport for a cancelled flight.

When I contact their agent ( which took a good 40 min wait through chat, and near impossible through phone), they told me that their system did not catch this cancellation that happened few days ago.

So I need to rush buy tickets that are more than double the price, and then when I try to cancel the ticket for the cancelled flight, it is another nightmare.

UA says this is a travel agent ticket, need to be cancelled through the travel agency. And Fareboom is hell bent on charging me $75 per passenger, even though UA says the ticket price should be refunded in full, and Fareboom already caused me to spend thousands extra on getting new ticket.

Also Fareboom says I should be contacting UA to request cancelling those ticket to avoid being charged by them.

Eventually after a 3 way call with Fareboom and UA, during which they talk about why my resservation record is not found in UA system, and how Fareboom find in their system that my flight was cancelled on 5/1 ( so they have been sitting for 5 weeks on notifying me of my cancelled flight)

Finally with UA agent's instruction Fareboom agent requested the cancellation of my ticket... Then the ticket cancellation request was denied by UA. I end up needing to do charge back.

This is the worst experience I have with a travel agency. They may have cheap fares, but make sure you never ever need to change or refund ticket before you try to use Fareboom, also pray that your flight will never ever be cancelled. Else you might have a unpleasant surprise and financial loss. I end up spending almost 4 thousand more for my 4 tickets, all due to fareboom did not notify me about my flight cancellation.

We purchased tickets for our family to go overseas. It was the first time for us to use FareBoom. We have been traveling for 20 years in several parts of the world. Well, this year Covid-19 hit. So, you all know, our flights were cancelled. We had purchased the tickets in February, before the pandemic became a thing. So, they told us not to worry, and they discouraged us from getting the money back because it would take up to 6 to 12 months for the refund to go through. We said we would like to use the free change of tickets, and made sure it was all free, FareBoom said it was. We kept contacting them, asking them if there was any available flights. But there were still restrictions and flying bans. Finally, we saw that the flights bans were lifted, and we contacted FareBoom asking them to use a different date. They checked and said we had to pay a charge because the fares were NOW higher. We told them we could change the tickets for free because of Covid-19 (we are victims, we did not change the tickets). They said the "free" was referred to the "Dates changing", not for the fares difference. Well, If we were NEVER able to find flights because they were not flying, how do I keep those fares? It was not our idea to change the tickets. Anyway, we decided to ask them for a refund. They told us: "you will be charged $75 per ticket, because we are small family owned business, and we will lose the commission". Dear FareBoom, we are a family that does not make so much money, and have children to feed, yet you are holding our money. So, they actually stopped answering the phones, and answer only by emails every 2 or 3 days, making it even worse Since tickets are surging even more.
So, recap:
1) It was not our mistake for changing the tickets
2) Government issued a free change (not honored by FareBoom)
3) Government issued a money back if we do not agree with the offer the airlines makes (not honored by FareBoom)
4) They do not answer the phone anymore, only emails making it hard to cooperate.

PS
Many friends that travel a lot like us told us that their airlines and ticketing companies send them money back in no time. So, FareBoom is different. We just went ahead and contacted the Department of Transportations, since they wrote an article in April saying that if we were effected by the covid-19, we are to get our money back.

I am having a very bad experience with Fareboom. I bought two plane tickets in January for travel in April to Switzerland. Due to the Covid 19 flights were canceled and I was told by fareBoom that I had a choice between them giving me my refund of course with some fees or the airline with no fees. I chose to get my refund from the airline with no fees. I filled out the form with airline and waited for over a month and then got an email from the airline stating that my refund will be sent to Fareboom and they will send me back my money. I wrote to Fareboom and at my surprise got a reply stating that they will process my refund in two to three weeks. So after waiting for more than a month I will now have to wait for another three weeks for Fareboom to process this refund.
This an extreme rip off I feel and when I call I got a recorder and never a human being.
I just wish that you should remember that business will start again and you would want your customer to trust you again however this is not a situation that people will confortable doing business with you in the future.

In December 2019 we booked our flight to Germany and then covid-19 happened.
We tried many times to cancel starting in March and now they don't answer their phones.
I have tried to find the flight on swiss air and lufthansa. There is no such flight and no one will talk to me. Germany is letting only eu members in and they must quaranteen for 2 weeks. Ec-261 says we can get our money back. Lufthansa also does not care. So please stay away from fareboom, swiss air and lufthansa.
John C.

This company is shadey at best. They are more than happy to take your money under the name of Best Travel Store, which is them dba Fareboom. They offer an "affordable " travel insurance. They do not honor their own policies,. Fareboom in writing tried to circumvent a Presidential proclamation that canceled flights,. With no regards to our health, or possibility of detainment, they tried to put us on a different flight. That flight also canceled,
Then Fareboom stated we'd be getting a full refund since flights were canceled. 2 days after stating they would refund our money, they stated they weren't going to refund the money. We had bought travel insurance. Didn't matter. I'm having to file complaints with several agencies against them. I'm considering contacting others with similar issues and filing a class action suit against them. STAY AWAY FROM FAREBOOM.

Beware! I recently booked a trip to Italy for March 31 to April 8. Despite the fact that the CDC issued a nonessential travel advisory for the foreseeable future due to to the Coronavirus, they will not return the price of my ticket, and because they purchase their tickets in bulk from American Airlines, the only way I can use my ticket without paying a $400/ticket price is by using it by June 30th. All other airlines are allowing people to transfer the ticket to another date. I spoke with a representative from American Airlines, and they said it was up to Fareboom and Iberius, but that they would allow us to transfer our nonrefundable ticket to use anywhere up until December 26,2020.

Yes it was very stressful to be in another country to wake up n see in my phone: your flight is on progress'. Yes flight was anticipated 10 hours n not communicated to me. Partner airline sensing its flight was getting full tried to drop me. I ended up taking the first leg of my trip n the last one as planned. It took me several days to de-stress as I couldn't get in touch nor w fareboom staff nor w any one of the airlines in question: Azul n United.

We were taken off from our flight in Chicago (we had booked ticket from Tampa-Sarajevo)
We called the Fareboom agency from airport gate just to move the ticket for an earlier return... and we can board on our flight. The "SUPERVISOR" responded to the phone call, which, with its inability and laziness, made a mess. He took us an extra $ 2200 more and put us on the waiting list without issued ticket. So they sent us an email asking us to go to the airport. We went for three days in a row with bags on the airport for nothing. The agency did not answer us on phone calls but only sometimes on e-mails. We called together with travel insurance (AIG) our airline company to see where the problem. And guess what.? The problem was in Fareboom's bad business and careless about its users.
They do not want to answer the phone call of travel insurance companies because they know they are guilty of this mess. They took us for $ 4,600 for ticket and they did nothing for us... Imagine our stress and agony so much money in the air and you need to use extra money for hotels. Uber... foods etc... On the end FAREBOOM cancel all and want to charge us with a penalty of $ 400 per ticket... We also had to buy a new air ticket at more expensive prices. BEWERE THIS IS NOT A GOOD TRAVEL AGENCY.!

I'm far less than impressed with how complicated the booking process was, the charges that ended up going through which were slightly different than what was quoted (even the ticket and itenrary email still show a different amount than what my bank statement says), the rebates were not INSTANT as advertised and the payment verification charges were not reversed within 24 hours as promised. That could be quite possibly the reason behind the variance in charges, that however was not explained to me upfront on the site, but rather in a surprisingly confrontational email that I received directly from the CEO. This review was edited for clarity after an email request from the CEO. I was contacted by a customer support representative who was professional and sympathetic to my situation, he apologized for the miscommunication and misunderstanding validating my experience and assured me that Fareboom is constantly striving towards improvement and doing things better.

Fareboom takes a lot of steps to ensure payment security, and I commend them for that, they pre-auth a small amount to verify that you have access to the card that you're using for the purchase, the email asking you to enter the verification says that the charge will be reversed within 24 hours, that's incorrect, it takes about 48 hours during normal business operating hours for this to happen. The site also says that they have an "instant" rebate, that rebate is not instant and will have to be charged to you first then applied within several business days, which is not instant, nor clearly communicated to you at the time of purchase.

Now this may not seem like much but here is what I'm comparing this with, my experience with [other provider] which I used to process another flight recently. That experience was phenomenal if not flawless, super straight forward in terms of me providing my information for payment and otherwise and guess what, no change in the amount charged the final amount ended up being exactly as quoted, no surprises there.

This experience has been traumatizing to say the least, save yourself the hassle and use any other provider, no this review is not planted by a competitor as the CEO claims in his hostile and condescending email I'm a customer who feels extremely slighted and irate by a lack of empathy and professionalism by this organization. My issue is not with the additional amounts that were charged, it's about the difficulty and complexity of the process, the false information and the variation in charges quoted vs applied and the hostile email communication I received from the CEO himself. I had many options to choose from in terms of providers for the price I paid, unfortunately Fareboom was the wrong one.

I am more than happy and willing to provide evidence of all my claims including emails and screenshots of communication with Fareboom and my bank statements.

Some times you just run into a air travel web site that has all the good tools to find great deals. This travel web site is one of them that has found me some incredible deals to fly around the world and I. Fly around the world several times in a year. One problem I found is that the deals do not last long, so know your prices of travel destination and when you see the deal, book it, cause they don't. Last long. Example I found flights from IAD, Washington d c to Bangkok, Thailand this past year, round trip $548. A bargain to consider for a flight half way around the world. They also show you when the peak prices are and use multiple airlines to choose from.