Vayama

I am really overwhelmed by the pathtic service provided by vyama. One of the wrost so far. Without knowing the rules how the ticketing works you are operating this agency, have a proper training program in place. For my issue airline was able to do just in 2 min without any issues. You guys never attempeted to solve the issue, always gave the reasons to escape. You almost forced me to change a ticket by shelling loads of money. If you did all this to just get the comission you should have told me I would have been happy to tip. Its not really acceptable to give false information. Not sure if this mail will be seen by some one who can take action and put improvement in process. When airline was ready to refund the ticket vyama people stright forward said they cant cancel and refund. Vyama is just waste of time. I had to folllowup for a week with them and finally they did not resolve. I have to goto airline to have my issue solved. Dont ever use vayama

This travel agency has the wost customer service. I booked two flight ticket on 05/18/2014 for $3188. 00. The tranvel egency claimed my card was delcined. I call my bank and my spending limit was increased on that same day. The said again my card was declined. I went to my bank and they were called from my bank. I was given all assurance that my flight tickets are in process and it will be isured soon.

After two days, not flight ticket. What a shame. I called my bank and was told that they had authorized my transaction. Vayama claim it was not authorized. What a change of story. The customer service person has not idea why I do not have my ticket and gave me another number. What a shame. Why have a customer service if one will only be directed to another department that is not even open.

Like other folks here, I don't have a choice to but go with one star... I wanted to give them negative rating.

Let me start... Vayama is a rogue organization... more like organized mafia... sucking every dollar from you. I've started to doubt business practices of Kayak through its association with Vayama.

Why would any travel agency not allow a passenger to cancel a ticket? - With Vayama's rules you book a ticket through us you have to travel. It doesn't matter what has changed at your end, if you chose not to travel just forget your monies.

Now that they have delivered the sucker punch by saying you lose your money if you don't travel, you'll start talking about new dates... here Vayama is back in action, you have to pay 100 USD to change a date from X to Y apart from airline change fee and fare difference... yada yada yada

What really made my day worse was after all my tussle with customer service rep, the individual says "Sir, Vayama will provide you with nice new quote with all fees in 48 business hours"... great, you cannot even finish the transaction, even if I'm ready to pay monies and get it done with. What if I need to change my travel date right now for an emergency? "Sir, you still have to wait for 48 hours for our change department to process this request"... seriously

STAY AWAY

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.

I have th head the most horrible experience. I believe they are a scam, i couldn't even take the flight that I booked with them. We were stranded on the airport and couldn't board the flight after we had paid for the tickets in full and in advance. We called the customer service numerous times with no response. At last we had to book another airlines at last minute. Don't be fooled by their lower prices, I would never book with them again.

Thieves, I was charged for a flight I couldn't take and of course they would credit my account only when I use the account I had to paid fees that was for the amount credit. Legit yes, but a scam since the ticket was e-ticket and charges could have been reversed at any time before my flight. They use the excuse that the changes and fees were out of their hands, but when it was investigated China Airlines never issued a ticket and Vayama collected all the fees. I will never do business with them again and hope others will follow. There is no customer service and if you follow what everyone else is saying on these reviews, stay away from Vayama,

Vayama is a red flag in the landscape of travel bookings and I strongly advise anyone to stay away from their business. Their call center agents are not qualified, give out misinformation, are unreliable in their promises to call back and ultimately, am losing my ticket entirely due to the wrong information received by Vayama employees.
I am a frequent traveler with 6-12 flights monthly, and experienced in booking and changing tickets. The experience described below is so unparalleled in its lack of customer service and qualification that I feel compelled to share it broadly as to warn other customers.

I booked a trip with them early in 2013, a flight from Germany to the US, and had to change the ticket shortly before the travel date because of a death in the family.
For my first attempt to change the ticket, I spent a good 3-4 hours on the phone with various agents who did not speak English well enough to communicate about the matter at hand.
I tried to change my ticket to a flexible date approximately 2 weeks after the initial date, and learned that Vayama did not have any tickets available (though the airline, Lufthansa, had plenty available on their and other travel sites) except for a price three times the original fare. After an excruciatingly painful process I was able to change the ticket to a different date. I specifically emphasized that I might need to change the ticket again because the travel dates may change again.
When calling back to change the ticket, I received contradicting information from call center agents. I was told the ticket could not be changed "due to the airline rules", which I had never been informed about. In nine separate calls, I spoke with various call center agents and supervisors, all of whom were unable to deliver any explanation or information to resolve the fact that their customer service representatives had given me wrong information about the possibility to change my flight.

Please do not ever use Vayama.

I bought my ticket to go to KUL on 1/24/14 on 11/22/13, I was told by my boss to change the reservation on 12/9/13, I tried to make changes online following instruction on the email, it won't go through… And emailed them but never get any reply, After a few days, i called the customer service at Vayama, i was told that i have to pay $500 (he told me that vayama is charging me $100 and the airlines $100 for change fee plus $300 for price difference), and just as i was asking for more information and asked them to send me everything in writing in email, the customer service guy hang up on me… i then called the China airlines, China airlines told me that there were no change fee, but they will have to put me on a waiting list as I bought my ticket from Vayama and not directly through the airlines. And so I was put on the waiting list for returning on Feb 13. However, my seat on the waiting list was canceled on Jan 20th, because Vayama has confirmed the slot on Feb 9 on my behave, which is ridiculous… and i was pull off the waiting list for Feb 13…. Never use Vayama again, they are a scam, not sure how they get an A+ rating on BBB…And now i'm without a returning ticket and my travel is this week….
Updates: I called the airlines today (1/21/2014), they told me that it was indeed the Vayama that cancel my seat on the waiting list, they put me back onto the waiting list and asked me to told Vayama not to do that again.

The worst. They are either the most incompetent company in the world or just flat-out scam artists. You decide.

I've had the unfortunate luck to be booked through Vayama (via Kayak) for several different flights around Asia. The routine always involves the elements I outline below - and I think that together they paint a picture of a business purposely working to manipulate and defraud travelers:

First, they offer what appears to be the lowest airfare. Then, they collect your details and ask that you agree to their Terms of Service (which includes an evil no-refund policy). Lastly, they tell you to wait for confirmation (supposedly a 24 hour time period). After waiting, you will receive an email stating that your credit card has been declined. Vayama will offer to resolve the issue by booking a more expensive ticket for the same time/date/flight.

Trying to contact customer service and deal with any issue? A time consuming nightmare. After connecting with a Customer Service Agent, I've been put on indefinite hold for 20~30 minutes, until I finally decide to hang up and call in again. It's clear the people working the call center would rather not deal with all the righteous anger being generated by this scam business model. Every issue has to be elevated to some "higher department" as do issues related to payment processing.

To "re-process" a supposedly declined credit card means going through the payment department, which again means a 24-hour wait. I'd like to point out that in today's digital age, NO ONE makes you wait 24-hours to process a credit card payment.

I believe this process (wasting massive amounts of time) is all part of the scam – to wear down customers who cannot afford to wait, whose vacation or business travels plans are being threatened, so that when a more expensive "solution" is offered, it's taken immediately. It's a well-known negotiating tactic used in situations where the other party has a deadline and/or cannot afford to wait. It seems to me Vayama's entire business model is built around this concept.

During my most recent experience, the insanity was taken to all new levels. Having learned from previous experiences, I preemptively called Vayama customer support to verbally confirm credit card details and provide a second credit card number in the event the first one didn't work. Guess what? They told me, before either card had been processed (or any attempt to process them was made!), that the card had been declined! How can a card be declined that hasn't even been put through the system!?

Both of these cards worked perfectly for other transactions that day and that week – AND I called both banks to alert their processing departments to the incoming transactions. Both banks confirmed that the cards were fine and that they would be on the lookout for possible ticket purchases. At the time of these calls, and AFTER Vayama claimed the cards had been declined, neither bank had any record of attempted transactions or either card being declined.

Later that night, I received an email entitled, "Vayama Ticket Confirmation/Receipt" and an SMS from one of my banks detailing the charges made to my credit card in connection with this ticket. Success?

You'd think the story ends happily there. You don't know Vayama.

Seven days later… I get an email entitled "Booking Cancelled" telling me (again) that my credit card has been "declined" and that the booking has been canceled. This, on a ticket, for which I have email and SMS proof of purchase! It's now SEVEN DAYS since the "confirmation" email and SMS from my bank saying my card has been charged.

BEWARE this scam. When Vayama tells you your credit card has been "declined," check with your bank and the airlines through which the tickets have supposedly been purchased. If they have no record of the transaction then you're being set up. What comes next is additional waiting, during which time you'll be informed your tickets are no longer available at the previously listed price - and then an option to buy more expensive ticket.

"Declined" as defined by Vayama simply means the price you agreed on is about to increase. The best part? Remember the Terms of Service agreed to during the original booking? If you try to cancel your tickets at any point, Vayama will KEEP their "booking fee." You're screwed either way - in other words, they win either way.

Search online for "Vayama scam" and you'll find others repeating this same story.

Heed the warning. Avoid this awful company at all costs. Even when you think you'll save a couple hundred dollars using them, think again - the wasted time and emotion isn't worth it. Take it from someone who has learned this lesson multiple times in the worst way.

I can only recommend Vayama for people who are seasoned travelers with a lot of experience and patience. I booked round trip airfare from LA to Cambodia for less than $900 with Vayama. There was an airline change in a country that I did not have a visa for and I was concerned whther or not my luggage would transfer. I called the two airlines first and got conflicting information. I then called Vayama. What a waste of time that was. The representative asked me what I expected him to do! He would not call the airlines on my behalf as he said they have nobody to call and that I was calling a "call in" center. He also stated that Vayama is not responsible for luggage policies. At that point I reminded him that I had paid Vayama to get me AND MY LUGGAGE to my final destination. Still the only answer he could give me was "what do you want me to do?"

Through my own efforts everything worked out fine but it was a bit nerve wracking, no thanks to Vayama. Would I use them again? Possibly if it is a route I am familiar with a the savings is huge. Otherwise I would say stay away from them. They are nothing more than a clearing house.

1- We booked 4 tickets for international with an average cost of ~$1200 per ticket. The flight included mixed airlines; Air Canada for first trip, and Lufthansa for return trip.
2- Due to unforeseen issues, we had to request an exchange for a future date, and were given a credit option to utilize within 12 months expiring March 2014. Conditions included
I- Same origin and destination
Ii- Same airline of first trip
Iii- Payment of $100 for Vayama + $250 fine for Air Canada
Iv- Payment of any extra difference in new ticket fare
3- Contacted Vayama 12/2 via phone to utilize 3 out of 4 tickets for international round trip. The rep advised the response would be via email. We provided range of dates of travel, and confirmed on Kayak search engine that tickets were available for requested dates, for comparable fares to what we paid AND through same airline.
4- Exchanged 4 emails with CS, all responses mentioned there were "no fares available". In each response I extended the window of dates until I explicitly requested ANY round trip flight throughout the expiration date of the ticket. The response via email said
"Dear Ahmed, *************No fare available in any date **************************
Sincerely,
Vayama Ticket Exchange Team"
5- Called in customer services the next day and requested to know reasons for discrepancy; Kayak showing available comparable fares reps say no fares available. Was advised by rep to call between 10PM to 5AM PST to talk to reps in the Bangalore call center. Stayed up late to speak to one, and requested an escalation of the matter. After being hung up on 4 times (they never called back nor apologized for disconnecting), and a total of 1.5 hours of wait time, I was promised a resolution in 3-4 days and to hear back via email.
6- Three days later I called in again and was told a reservation was being prepared for a specific flight to leave in 4 days. Rep said I would receive e-tickets and seating via email over the weekend. That never happened.
7- We called CS reps 2 days before the intended flight (call lasted for an hour and a half). CS mentioned ~$500 in additional fare price per ticket. We compared that to published fares on Kayak AND Air Canada website, and found 20 available bookings that were +/- $100 from what we paid originally. Upon seeing that, we rejected Vayama's offered booking and requested CS rep to book one of the "comparable" bookings to what is published online both on their own website (Kayak) and Air Canada's website.
8- We were spoken rudely to, made several requests to speak with supervisor that was resisted for more than 40 minutes into the call. When I finally got through to supervisor, we were promised that this would be fixed ASAP. This was the only person who acted upon what she promised, but even then came short of delivering any results.
9- Last day before intended flight I called in 5 times to get a confirmation or an e-ticket issued. CS reps responding said it's all stuck at the subordinate agent in LA handling the booking. The CS reps were helpless, and could not do nor offer anything. 10 hours before the expected flight, I receive a final call apologizing for their inability to issue a ticket on time, and that they will look for a booking in the next few days.

So after more than 12 phone calls, about 15 hours wasted in wait times on the phone and speaking to various agents, 6 email exchanges, $4800 wasted, we're left here with our business not taken care of. While it's understandable to see some incompetence here and there, our general feeling is that Vayama's system lacks a lot, and doesn't empower their own employees to get things done right. A quick check for reviews and issues on BBB.org shows that this isn't just an obsolete case, rather a pattern that Vayama continues to follow in it's business model

http://www.bbb.org/sanjose/business-reviews/travel-agencies-and-bureaus/vayama-in-mountain-view-ca-*******/complaints

My advise, don't book with them... and if you have committed this mistake and they screwed up, take it to BBB or even to a small claims court in California. Only then will they realize that improving their system and keeping their customers happy is more cost effective and vital to their business.

WARN ALL TRAVELERS - DO NOT USE VAYAMA.COM, WORST SERVICE, IRRESPONSIBLE AGENT!

I booked a ticket via Kayak 2.5 months prior to my departure, the booking went straight to Vayama.com. My 4 hour flight schedule with TAM had changed, 4 hours after my booking. Vayama.com did not provide any information regarding the change until 5 days before my travel date, forced me to take an alternative flight, which take 14.5 hours and cheaper than the original flight I purchased. I tried to fix by calling the airline and get an alternative flight (takes 6 hours, instead of 14.5 hours), the agent failed to booked that flight over the weekend even though I made them conference via my line and made a confirmation of this fight twice. The agent came back to me 3 days before my departure, and again forced me to take the 14.5 hours flight as the 6 hours flight was booked (2 days after all parties agreed). Vayama.com failed to perform its task multiple times. I therefore decided to book a new flight directly with the airline i. E. more expensive as the travel date is in 2 days, the flight I got with the airline is horrible time schedule as I was left with no choice and I needed to be at the destination. I requested Vayama.com to give a full refund, I DO NOT WISH TO CONTACT THIS AGENT VAYAMA.COM ever again in my life. AND Every call I had with the representatives was rude, incompetent, not helpful, and unacceptable, in some call the representatives hang up the phone on me, yelled and screamed at me. THE OVERALL EXPERIENCE IS HORRIBLE, UNACCEPTABLE, NIGHTMARE, AND DEFINITELY NOT WORTH A STAR FOR THIS REVIEW.

My conclusion for services I received,
• The agency is not providing the best option available for the client
• The agency failed to perform its task properly e.g. not provide the information of the flight change in advance, forced client to take the option that is almost impossible to take (14 hours and 30 mins flight for when there is an alternative)
• The agency does not resume any responsibility for its fault and mistake in providing the service
• The agency is rude, incompetent and definitely the worst one that I ever experienced in my life.

Worst website ever! We did a huge mistake by buying tickets from vayama.
Had to get dates changed and can you imagine there is no phone line for the department who takes care of it!
They told us to wait for an email from that department since thats the only way to communicate with them and they didn't even give us the email contact of them.
It has been 24 hours we are waiting and there is no sign of any email. We have a dying family member in the other country whom we have to reach and the call center of vayama guys say they can't do anything about it.
Made several phone calls asked for the higher management contact numbers but they refuse to provide any.
We are stuck with our thousands of dollars with the website and can't explain the level of frustration we are in right now.
Never felt so helpless before.
Please please i am warning you do not ever think of doing business with these people even if it is saving you huge chunks of money. Worst customer service ever experienced!

Booked ticket through kayak. Had to make a simple change on the ticket. Vayama said the "Credit Card company bounced " the transaction back was told I had to call. Credit card company said there was nothing wrong and there was not an attempted charge. Called Vayama back they said okay they will submit. Then I get an email back from them that their is a new rate (which was approximately $600 more and it said " we don't guarantee the price of the change". This back and forth went on until monday when I was assured that the ticket had been changed. We even looked on Vayamas site and Luftansas site and the change was there.

Yesterday, I received an email dated september 25 th that we needed to pay for the change. So, I called Vayama to make sure everything is okay and gave them another credit card. This time they told me it was okay and the passenger can fly today.

This morning, I received an email from the passenger that the departure information disappeared from both Vayama and Lufthansa(the departure was missing but the return part was still in the system) when he went to the airport the airline said they have no record of the ticket.

Angry I went directly to the airlines site and booked my colleague on a later flight (with no issues)

About 20 minutes ago, a Vayama "customer service" rep called. I cut him off told him I wanted a refund he told me he couldn't give me a refund because the person flying missed the flight and the "airline" didn't make refunds. Asked to speak to a supervisor. He refused several times. I told him that they are committing fraud. He insisted they are not and that the passenger didn't show up for the flight, therefore they will not refund the ticket!

I told him I would go on every review site and tell what happened. He said I'm hanging up, good buy!

Save your money and the aggravation, Don't go through Kayak or Vayama. Simply look on kayak then go directly to the air carrier and purchase the same ticket for probably less money and less stress

TERRIBLE.

Took two separte payments out of my account, causing me to go well over £1000 overdrawn. This meant I had no access to any of my funds what so ever obviously having a knock on effect on my day to day life. They denied authorising this pending payment that caused me to go over drawn and claimed that "after a review by our accounting department, we found no additional pending charge associated with Vayama against your account" well clearly there is because my bank can see it. They also asked to see a bank statement to prove the pending payment. As we all know, this is not possible as pending payments do not show up on statements. So i'm now stuck in a position where i can't even prove what they have done, and they are getting away with it!

Ringing their call centre was a waste of time and money, after explaing the situation to a woman, she just proceeded to tell me the amount i had paid for the flights in $'s. What use is that to me when I am trying to make a complaint? The woman also said something about taking $1 out then putting straight back into my account to make sure i had available funds. I then told this woman that no, it wasn't a dollar it was over a grand. The phone call then came to an end when she said that all she could do was put a note on my account to say that i called. Completely unhelpful.

I'm now currently sat waiting for the next 10 working days to discover if this money will reappear into my account or if Vayama go ahead with taking this unorthorised payment. Till then, I have no money. I get paid next week but because Vayama have technically made me go over drawn all that money will be sucked into that overdraft till all of this gets sorted out.

What if i had kids that depend on me? What if i have to pay rent? Even with whats happend i consider myself lucky that i'm not in a worse position.

Cheers Vayama, you are currently ruining my life.