Call Kurtis: Avoid the blame game when buying airline tickets
EL DORADO HILLS -- When an El Dorado Hills couple used a third-party site to book their Europe airfare and then found themselves stuck in the blame game, they decided to call on Kurtis Ming to investigate.
Gary and Tamra Merlo sent CBS13 proof of what they thought the problem was: no spaces on their online airline tickets. That came to a head when Lufthansa in Italy told them, no spaces, no flight.
"It was just the worst feeling ever," said Gary.
The couple booked the original $2,800 roundtrip tickets through the site Budget Air, which even addresses the spacing issue on their e-Ticket, saying: "the reason that there are no spaces is because the airline reservation system does not accept spaces."
United Flew them to Italy okay, where they spent time with their daughter. But on the way back, they say Lufthansa told them the names on their tickets had to match the names on their passports.
This forced the Merlos to buy new tickets with a different carrier for $3,100.
"Everyone is pointing the finger at each other," said Gary. "We just want our money back."
CBS13 reached out to everyone involved but never heard back from Budget or Lufthansa.
But the Call Kurtis team contacted United, too, considering they flew the couple to Europe. After United investigated, they said they spotted the travel agents' error and re-issued thickets the day of the couple's flight to Europe.
But after hearing their codeshare partner, Lufthansa, did not, United decided to cut the couple a check for the $3,100 for the new flight home and even threw in $1,000 in travel credits. Maybe, so they can take another trip to Europe?
It's for this very reason that Kurtis never books airfare through third-party sites. If something goes wrong, it becomes the blame game. When he finds a good price on a flight, Kurtis goes directly to the airline and asks them to honor that price.