Samantha had to change her travel plans when her father passed away. Instead of taking a family vacation as planned in November, she had to pay double for tickets to visit immediately and attend the funeral. Knowing she would no longer be able to afford the November vacation, she asked Orbitz to refund the tickets and the company came through.

She writes:

It was middle of the night when I received the sad news, and after calling Orbitz to see about changing my tickets to no avail, I bought a separate ticket on their website so I could fly out the next morning. I then called Orbitz back to request for a refund of my original tickets, and was connected to one of their reps, [redacted], who were most empathetic to my request for a cancellation without penalty. She gave me detail instructions to call back with documentation after the funeral trip, and she even assured me that Orbitz would not be charging me for the cancellation fee due to a family death.

When I returned home after the funeral, I immediately faxed my documentation to Orbitz, so that Orbitz could send them to the airline to ask for a refund on my behalf, since the airline would not deal with me directly as my ticket was purchased through Orbitz. After many follow-up phone calls over several weeks with different Orbitz reps and a little frustration due to the airline rep’s unwillingness to help or provide any information, I finally got a satisfactory answer.

The airline gave Orbitz the waiver code so that Orbitz could give us a full refund, which we should be seeing on our credit card statement within 2 weeks, and we did, yesterday. This time, it was Orbitz rep, [redacted] who took ownership of our incident in the most diligent and professional way, and contacted the airline on our behalf.

All in all, in spite the ordeal, I would like to commend on the great customer service we have received from Orbitz in our time of sadness.

If you’ve ever had to alter travel plans due to a death, let us know how understanding — or otherwise — airlines and travel agents were with your needs.

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