I agree with Terrell.
This is the worst travel agency I have experienced so far. I bought two tickets for me and my wife in 2008. Airlines and TSA require that the name of the passenger on the ticket should exactly match the name on the passport. Since my wife hasn't changed her last name we provided the name as it appears on the passport to the travel agent (Neetu Chopra)
After making the payment for the ticket and the flight itinerary we were interested in, we got a confirmation email upon asking the travel agent. Clearly they didn't have an automated process to notify the customers upon purchasing tickets.
I didn't bother to check the names on the tickets (which I realized was my mistake later on) thinking that the tickets would be purchased for the names that I provided in the email to the travel agent. Apparently the travel agent assumed that my wife had changed her last name and used my last name instead.
Although this went undetected as I was happy to get the tickets in a short span of time, I decided to call Cathay Pacific, 48 hours prior to the flight, to confirm our tickets. The Cathay agent confirmed my wife's last name and it didnt match her actual last name. I explained the situation to the Cathay agent and she suggested that I call the travel agency and that they would be able to correct this mistake since it was their oversight. Since I didn't book the tickets from Cathay, the fees for changing the name would have been $100 but the Cathay agent told me that the travel agent should be able to correct this without any extra fees.
I called Travel Merchant and reached another agent who told me that the agent (Neetu) was off on that day and he couldnt help me with my situation. Upon persisting that I had a flight soon I was told that Neetu would call me.
After a few hours Neetu called me and after explaining the situation (that I has sent my spouse's name correctly as it appeared in the passport and the fact that it was in the email that I had sent her) she said she will do what she could and that she was not at her desk. I asked her to let me know as soon as she could rectify this problem.
An hour later I called her to check if she was able to change the name on the ticket but she told me it was my mistake for not checking the tickets upon receipt. I was also told that the name can only be changed if I paid $200 extra. I tried calling the travel merchants office in burlingame to see if anyone else could help me but to no avail.
I finally called Cathay and told them about my plight. They changed my spouse's name without charging any fees. I was glad that they were able to make the last minute changes as a one time courtesy.
Travel Merchants has let me down. i had purchased tickets in 2006 and had a good experience so I decided to do business with them in 2008 but had a TERRIBLE after sales customer experience. I would not recommend this agency to anyone. Look for some other travel agents or buy directly from the airlines. ( you may pay a little extra but the service is definitley worth it) read more
