Opodo

AVOID AT ALL COSTS. This company uses predatory bait-​and-​switch tactics and fails to respect the privacy of its customers’ credit card details.
I recently booked a flight through Opodo, paying with my usual credit card. A few days later I got an e-​mail from them saying that for «security» purposes I needed to send them a scan of my credit card (by fax or e-​mail) or else they would cancel my booking in 24 hours.
Like most people, I don’t own a fax machine, and since they sent me this e-​mail on the weekend I couldn’t use the one at my workplace. And I certainly wasn’t about to send them my credit card details via e-​mail, which anyone ought to know is insecure. I wrote back to Opodo explaining the problem; they offered no secure alternative for confirming the credit card, so they cancelled the flight.
When I got my credit card statement, I saw that they had applied a hefty cancellation fee. I complained to them about this and demanded that they reverse the charges. They admitted that the fee was bogus but incredibly claimed that they were unable to reverse the charge! I had to go through the rigmarole of filing a dispute with my credit card issuer in order to get my money back.
I’m convinced that Opodo does all this on purpose as a bait and switch tactic. They entice customers with low prices on flights, but if the prices go up they try to back out of the sale by making sham credit card «verification» demands. Most people will miss Opodo’s incredibly tight response deadlines, or will very sensibly refuse to use the insecure verification procedures. Opodo then cancels the flight, awards itself a sizeable cancellation fee, and resells the seat to someone else at the new higher price.

WATCH OUT: BAIT AND SWITCH!
Booked an airline ticket with them online in Germany — was suddenly charged a higher rate than offered, supposedly because I added luggage to the flight… When the airline confirmation document came, guess what, there was ZERO luggage included! Cancelled the booking immediately per email (you have 24 hrs to do this) and called them the next morning, so 12 hrs after booking, because their offices were closed. They started telling me there was a charge to cancel, even though it was their error!
The next ‘line’ was that they could add luggage at no charge (that’ll be the day!) and after I insisted they cancel my booking, they made me hold for a half hour to cancel the booking… Of course, on a toll call. The cancellation document never came, forcing me to call both the airline overseas and call Opodo again — because in spite of all of this they charged my AMEX the full amount for the fare! Big mistake, because my AMEX is very customer friendly!!!
Easiest is to stay away. There are decidedly more hassle free ways to book!

We had a horrible experience. Due to an urgent situation, we needed to book a flight last minute at 5am, we used Kayak to look for flights and found one on United, but in the UK for some reason «Kayak» directs you to «Opodo» and does not let you buy through United directly. We went ahead with it anyway, since Kayak is a trusted website of ours and we figured we could trust their partner site. Big mistake. After staying up all night, we book our flight at 5am (due to the urgent situation we stayed up all night), we get a confirmation that our booking has been booked successfully and a few minutes later our phone app for amex alerts asks for our approval for the charge and we confirm we made the charge. Then we finally went to sleep around 6am and woke up at 11am for a 2pm flight. At 11am, we see an e-​mail message from Opodo with the time stamp 8:30 am with this short message:
Your Opodo booking reference ######
For security reasons to protect both you and Opodo from fradulent transactions on your credit card, we carry out random checks on bookings made through the Opodo website. Your booking has been selected and these checks have been made on your reservation.
We regret to inform you that your booking has not passed our security checks and therefore, we have no option but to cancel your reservation.
Regards,
The Opodo Team
Tel: +44 (0) 333 300 02 91 — After Sales enquiries
Fax: +44 (0) 333 300 02 92
Opening hours:
Monday — Friday: 9am to 6pm
Saturday — Sunday: 9am to 2pm
Bank holidays: 9am to 2pm
If you need to contact this Opodo department whilst abroad, please call +44 (0) 333 300 02 91 (international call rate applies).
So then I called them in a panic to figure out what went wrong. They explained that all flights booked within 24 hours of air travel are flagged for security reasons and that they had called Amex and «Amex told us to cancel the charge, that is looked suspicious because something did not match»…we pressed them for details and they would not give us any more details «for security reasons»…we asked them if they could do anything and they just kept repeating themselves placing the blame on Amex. We asked why they had not called one of the two cell numbers we provided (no answer).
So then we called Amex to learn the details — basically a charge was put into Amex from Opodo and then Amex blocked the charge for being possibly fraudulent until they could confirm with us, which we did within 10 minutes of the initial purchase time via our phone app. According to the Amex representative, standard procedure for companies at this point is to resubmit the charge, which Opodo did not do and instead cancelled our confirmed booking. Amex said that its possible the reason this charge was flagged as possibly fraudulent is because the merchant (Opodo) has a history of fraudulent charges. Another thing Amex mentioned, which is a shady business practice is sending a confirmation before the charge has actually been cleared, which Opodo clearly did.
But the point is this has created a lot of last-​minute stress and hair pulling as we try desperately to get a seat on our flight today — mostly due to booking via Opodo. In hindsight, we should have searched for flights on Kayak and then manually researched for the same flight on United. Amex has been very helpful in getting our flights sorted out and we’re hoping to recover some of the cost through the travel insurance… we’ll see how that goes.

In Deutschland unter
bekannt.
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weiterhin in der ECO Prem Class rund 150.- EUR teurer wurde in der Vergangenheit desöfteren
getestet immer mit sehr schlechten Ergebnissen vermutlich falsche Programmierung zur Datenbank
Ein Hoteltest ergab bei einem Kurzurlaub ein Preis von 26,00 mehr als bei anderen Anbietern
Wichtig. der Test ist eine Momentaufnahme könnte bei anderen Test abweichen