Farebreakers Travel

Review: I purchased a ticket to Australia with this travel agent in February 2013. It was a round trip ticket from Minneapolis Minnesota to Adelaide South Australia with a stop over in Melbourne for 24 hours on the way, then returning to the USA with a stop over in Sydney for 24 hours on the way back. The dates of travel I believe was leaving Minnesota March [redacted] 2013 and arriving in Australia March [redacted] 2013. The original ticket had me returning to the USA March [redacted] 2013. While I was in Australia, I decided to stay longer with my fianc. I tried to contact, [redacted] the travel agent that sold me the ticket several times to no avail for 10 days to change my ticket. When I saw that he was never going to return my calls or emails, I contacted the airline that I was traveling with, which was [redacted], and changed the ticket through them on March [redacted] 2013. I switched the date for my travel home to the USA from March [redacted] 2013 to June [redacted] 2013. [redacted] left the original booking number and ticket numbers, they just changed the date as I asked. In May 2013 I decided to again change my ticket. I tried for about two weeks to contact this travel agent to no avail. After several phone calls and emails, I got in touch with someone at Farebreakers travel and they told me that [redacted] was not available. I left a message for him telling him that I wanted to change my ticket again, but I did not know the date I wanted it changed to. He sent me an email saying " I'm in London that's why it's hard to get a hold of me. I will cancel the June [redacted] flight and don't worry just call me when you want to come home". I thought all was well until I left Australia to travel to New Zealand. On August [redacted] 2013, I returned to Australia and was stopped by immigration. Part of the requirements for entering Australia is that you have a return ticket home. I gave the immigration my booking reference and ticket numbers. He went down to [redacted] and they told him that the ticket was lost because I was suppose to fly June [redacted] 2013, and nobody ever called to switch it. I was almost denied entry to Australia, but the immigration officer gave me the benefit of the doubt and let me in, but flagged my passport. Once settled back in Australia I wrote the agent and told him what happened at the airport and told him I would peruse legal action. He denied he had done anything wrong and tried to blame it on the airline however it was obvious he was at fault because he was the one who was suppose to switch the ticket. He even told me there was no such thing as an open ticket, and every ticket had to have an exact date of travel, so I needed to tell him which date I wanted to fly home in order to switch the flight. I have an email from him stating "not to worry and call me when you want to come home", so what he was stating this time around is the exact opposite of what he told me when I first contacted him to switch the ticket. Eventually the travel agent sent me brand new booking reference for a ticket returning to the USA October [redacted] 2013 via Melbourne, Victoria Australia. I checked on the [redacted] website and it seemed the ticket was legit. I continued the rest of my vacation in Australia in peace. I arrived at the airport in Melbourne on October [redacted] ready to go home. I had purchased extra baggage and preferred seat selection in the days prior to my flight home. I was held up with [redacted] customer services. They told me that the ticket numbers that were attached to the booking reference [redacted] had sent me were invalid. Basically the travel agent had sent me a new booking reference to get me off his back, and attached fake ticket numbers to the booking reference. The airline told me, and gave me written documentation that they tried to contact the travel agent no less than five times to correct this situation before my date of travel. He ignored all of their phone calls and messages. They could not contact me because my cell phone only works in the USA, and regardless I used a travel agent so it was his responsibility to organize all of this correctly so that I had no problems. We called the agent from the airport maybe about 20 times when he finally answered. He played games with the [redacted] agent for almost an hour before she got frustrated with him. After 3 hours, we finally found the real tickets in the original booking reference that never changed when [redacted] changed my flight the first time. Because of the fact that the travel agent sent the booking reference with fake ticket numbers attached, and ignored [redacted] when the tried to contact him no less that five times, I missed my flight to Sydney, NSW so I missed the flight home to the USA. My fianc and I had to stay overnight in Melbourne (he had to stay with me as I had no money anymore and hotels require the cardholder to be present to sign), we had to buy new tickets for him to return to his home town in South Australia, we had to buy additional tickets from Melbourne to Sydney so I could catch the flight back to the USA, we had to pay for 3 taxis, I lost the baggage fees, I lost the preferred seat selection...we basically spent an extra two grand because of this travel agent. I also had problems when I returned to the USA with American Airlines because he did not ever switch these flights as he was suppose to. They felt sorry for me and paid for my ticket home themselves. I will be informing American Airlines that they need to collect this money from this travel agent. We are also suffering many immigration issues and I also missed a surgery and suffered health issues. These two issues are something we are going to have to sue in civil court for, we realize. We have tried negotiating with this agent and all he did was play more games. He says he is 100% not liable and said to look carefully though the paper work and we will see he is not at fault. This is a joke because it is nobody's fault but [redacted] that he sent a booking with fake ticket numbers atDesired Settlement: We would like this travel agent to pay us back every dollar we spent due to being stuck overnight in Melbourne due to the fact that he sent fake ticket numbers, and ignoring the airline when they tried to reach him five times. Which held us up for 3 hours, so I missed my flight home. The airline did their part in tryting to contact him, he did not respsond to them so he is liable. He has no valid reason fof sending fake ticket numbers and even if it was by accident he is still liable. If he doesn't return the money we spent due to his blunder, we are prepared to take him to civil court to sue for everything.

Business

Response:

[redacted] Purchased a ticket to Australia from our office. Due to the fact that she has threatened legal action we have been advised not to outline the entirety of our counter claim. Suffice that we on the advice of legal counsel have reviewed all the documentation that [redacted] send us to prove her claim.