CheapTicket's "Premium" Nightmare: Disastrous Experience
I'm a seasoned traveller with gold status in multiple airline alliances. The "Premium service" provided by CheapTicket was significantly below the standards advertised and caused significant chaos to my travel. Misleading "Free of charge": I purchased the Premium Service Package from merchant CheapTicket, which explicitly stated "free of charge" for changes and cancellations. This is clearly misleading and unfair. The term "free of charge" should imply NO fees, including airline fees. However, when I tried to make a change within 1 day after booking, I was asked to pay "airline fees" of $140. The merchant refused to waive the fee or refund after multiple emails. I believe that merchant's website is responsible for this misunderstanding. The unexpected additional "airline fees" is misleading and contradicts the advertised benefits of "Premium service package". Email to customer at 2:00am with 30-min to respond: as shown attached, at ~2:00am 16 Nov, I received 3 emails with 30-min window to respond. I questioned why and I was give a reason of "the team works 24 hours... cannot provide exact time". Please, Having a 24 hours specialized team is NOT an excuse for sending emails to customers at 2:00am with 30 mins to respond. The "premium package" led me to believe changes would be handled smoothly, not with such a disruptive and time-pressured chaos.