Cheapflyingfares Avis 2

Made reservation via BestAirFares.com 2 monhs early for 3 and received confirmation.

When no chg on CC, I called and learned it didn't go through because seats were no longer available for that price but, for $50/ticket, they had seats in the main section. Bait&Switch.

Because they were still so cheap, we accepted this and then got msg from airflightfare.com saying that the reservation was good and merchant name was 'Cheap Flying Fares'.

Represntative (Nicole) assured us we were good and tickets would be issued about 10 days before flight. She explained that they were a consolidator and that they definitely had a block of seats to sell. Turns out they did *NOT* have the inventory in hand and at 9 days out, they refunded and told us the flight was overbooked.

We immediately checked and seats were availably on both flights, only now we had to pay twice the price via the open mkt vs. a discounter like them. Huge scam and it cost us over $1500 more in the end than if w had bought on the open mkt originally.

Don't do it unless you don't have to travel at a specific time and you're willing to let someone 'hold' your money on a gamble that the seat will materialize. And don't rsrv a room at destination until you actually have your tickets.

Terrible business practice to sell a seat you don't have and then string the customer along until the last minute and leave them stuck.

*BEWARE* This is a highly sophisticated SCAM. I made a booking for a flight on their website. My debit card was charged immediately. I received an email stating I could get a refund within 30 days. I received a screenshot of an itinerary with a confirmation code for American Airlines. When I checked the booking on American Airlines website, I saw that the tickets were not ticketed but only placed on a hold. I spoke to customer service for AA. They told me the ticket hold would expire the next day. I never received an e-ticket. I called hotflightdeals and they told me they did not send me the email, my card was never charged, and they could not give me a refund. I got the run-around every time I called. They gave me phony names like "Tim Smith" and "Andrew Anderson" even though everyone had a thick accent and an English language barrier. They would not give me an address but said they were in AZ and then WY. My bank could not stop the charge because it had already gone through. These people are parasites.