I'm boycotting Travelocity. If you want to too, it would mean a lot to me, but I don't expect anyone (whoever reads my blog) to follow me. I know I'm not important in the grand scheme of things, but I make several travel arrangements a week online for my company, and NONE of them will ever be with Travelocity again.

I don't mean to flame. I usually like to mind my own business and not get involved in these types of things, but I feel so helpless that I really don't know what else to do. I've barely stopped crying long enough to type this. The short story is that Travelocity scammed my aunt and uncle out of $2,000.

The whole story is a bit longer. A year ago May, my aunt and uncle and their two kids were supposed to fly from their home in Vegas to Massachusetts to see us. It was a really important time for our family, and my huge extended family was all here. It was my college graduation and my brother's high school graduation, Eagle Scout ceremony, and sendoff to the Army. My aunt was pregnant at the time and she found out a couple weeks before the trip that she had some complications with her pregnancy. Everything worked out in the end and they now have a beautiful baby boy. However, at the time her doctor said she could not fly. If she did, she risked hemmoraging, possibly causing her unborn baby's and her death. Obviously, my aunt and uncle had to make the very upsetting decision to cancel the trip. They cancelled over the phone and Travelocity said that they would have a year to use the ticket credit. My aunt and uncle never received a confirmation email with all the fine print of the cancellation terms. They just wrote down their confirmation number. That is unfortunite because there is now way to prove that they didn't receive a confirmation in writing, which would have cleared up this whole mess.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. My aunt and uncle had been putting off their trip all year to wait for a special occassion. In June my cousin is making her First Communion and my grandparents are celebrating their 50th Wedding Anniversary. My whole family will be here, and they are both such joyous occassions that they decided to come out then. Now here's the terrible part. When they went to make their reservations, Travelocity told them that the one year was from the date they booked their flights, not the date of their flights. My aunt and uncle didn't know that because Travelocity had not been upfront with them in the first place, and they'd never received anything in writing with all the legal terms. They tried calling Travelocity, and after waiting forever to get to a real person, they were told that they were going to lose their $2000. Travelocity did not care that it was a life or death situation that kept them from flying or that they were not properly informed of the terms of the credit.

There is no way that my aunt and uncle can afford to eat the $2000 and then spend several thousand dollars more to come out here, so they had to cancel their trip. They haven't seen their family in two years. Only my mom and one of my other aunts have seen the baby. My cousin who was so looking forward to being able to play with her cousins is going to be devistated. We'd all decided to take at least a week off to be with my aunt's family. My aunt can't celebrate her parent's 50th Wedding Anniversary with them. Now all these things are ruined because Travelocity's business practices are unethical.