Hi,

The short form is that Trip.com was bought by a mainland Chinese company, so buyer beware of all that implies, as they operate on different principles than a Western business. For instance, as soon as you click on the button, there is NO REFUND or CHANGE policy on any air ticket, even though there is no note or mention of that at any point on their site. Since it was a Tripadvisor flight search that brought me to this site, I expected it to be more legitimate, and would ask TripAdvisor if they have any influence, to try and conform to higher standards expected of other flight sites.

For those that want to read the long form the following is my experience with them.

I bought a couple of air tickets Calgary-Shanghai, through Trip.com. They showed up on the Tripadvisor flight search, and were twenty five percent lower than anyone else. I immediately bought one ticket, really wanting two tickets but it could have been my mistake. Then trying to buy a second ticket (for my wife), did the everything the same as before but at the very end was told it was sold out.

So I went online chat with them, and asked them, asking for a second ticket or a refund. The rep sent me a weblink, the same one I booked my first ticket with. I told him it was the same and said sold out at the end, but I tried to buy the second ticket as before on this link, and did get a second ticket for my wife. By this time the online rep had hung up the chat.

Upon closer inspection, however, the second air ticket for my wife was for a different departure time on the same day from Calgary, and meant she was on a different flight to Shanghai from San Francisco, arriving 12 hours later on a different day (the return flight was the same). So I immediately went back online chat, and asked the rep to change both to the same flight or cancel both tickets, and it was so soon that the flight booking didn't even show up on her computer. When it eventually showed up, she said that I couldn't cancel without paying 90% of the ticket price for some booking fee. She said sorry this was the airlines booking policy. I asked to just change the departure flight of either ticket to match the other, or else refund them both, that airlines normally had a 24 refund policy. She said no. I said could you please ask a supervisor. The following is the supervisor's return e-mail.

Dear VICTOR (Account: D254041****),

I tried to call you but was transferred to voice mail. So I am writing to you about the questions you mentioned on chat regarding Flight Booking. 5374325469.

First of all, you mentioned Mark gave you the link which caused the second flight. I checked the link and the link he sent to you is the online search page on which many flight packages are listed. This link does not indicate only one specific flight. And after the link was sent to you , you answered,” Yes I did all the fill in the blanks up till the end when it said flight sold out." When Mark wanted more details from you, there was no reply from you. So the window was closed. And When you book the ticket online, the flight details are listed on each page.

Secondly, when you started chat with Victoria, the ticket was not issued but was paid successfully. The booking status was in processing. When Victoria was confirming the booking details with you for booking security, the ticket was issued successfully. Please kindly noted that even if the ticket is not issued after we verify the booking detail with you, we apply the free cancellation but cannot guarantee. So now according to your booking policy, this ticket is non-refundable and unchangeable.

Now Booking 5374325469 and 5374077873 are still kept. If you have question, welcome to contact us.

Best regards,

Ann

I didn't quite know what to make of that. So I contacted both Air Canada and United Airlines by phone, the airlines on the tickets, and BOTH SAID THEY HAVE A 24 HOUR FULL CANCELLATION POLICY, but that the foreign booking companies formed their own rules. Very lucky for me, the United Airlines phone representative (Connie, and a big thank you if you read this), changed the departure flight of my wife to match my own.

I am an overseas Chinese, but so glad to be living in North America. Thanks, again, to United Airlines.

You fail to understand that while the airlines may have a 24 hour cancellation policy, that is applicable to THEIR customers, and you are NOT their customer, Trip.com is, and they have their own terms and conditions which you ticked as having read and agreed to.

Not one regular on Trip Advisor would recommend booking anything through TA, and there are much better search engines for flights than TA. A search engine merely searches the net for you and then presents the results, and you chose the cheapest option without doing any further research first.

I never ticked any such thing. Check the site.

Nor was there any notification on ther site of such a policy, ie non-cancellable or refundable.

I just used it and am having buyer's remorse. I booked a room and had to give my credit card but it's not "booked" until you get a confirmation email that can take up to 12-hours later (at least my email said it could take that long, but it only took about 10 minutes). The check-in time they listed wasn't until 7 PM when I accepted the terms but when I received the confirmation, there was a 3:00 check-in. If trip.com is not able to book it, you won't be charged. However, once you give them your credit card and they book it, your money is gone.

Be careful on the late check-ins because you will not be able to use the hotel's amenities until you check-in since you didn't book through the hotel's website. So basically you have to be watchful of the check-in time (because it can be later than a normal check-in time) and not need it right away because you pay and then wait to see if it's accepted.

#4

I did check the site. For hotels, after you make your selection to book, comes the page where you enter your personal information. There's a red BOOK button to go on. Immediately under that button, almost touching it, is "By submitting this booking you agree to the Terms and Conditions & Privacy Policy ." with a link to the Terms & Conditions and the Privacy Policy.

For flights, the same notice appears immediately above the Accept and Continue on the personal information page.

The site does not treat me any different from you, so you did indeed tick it.

I can't know about notification of cancellation policy, because that's different for different hotels, but I see that it appears beside each of the possible room selections under "Policies."

Now, I agree there is no notice in the T&C or otherwise about fares being non-refundable, but it is naive to imagine that a cheapo site can do anything to offer a cheap fare but sell the cheapest available fare, which is always, including direct through the airline, non-refundable. In fact, the complete lack of information about cancels and refunds would put me off using them at all. So I take the uninformative T&C to, in fact, be highly informative in terms of whether I would use this site, which I would not, but imagining that their Asian base is why they behave as they do and contrasting that with "western" practices is absurd. Look around this forum at the many "western" travel sites with tons of complaints of the same kind.

Hence my belief that people who don't have a pretty solid grasp of the travel industry shouldn't let some web site make their decisions for them and should book direct with suppliers where the supplier web site makes them make knowing choices.

i am based in australia and used trip.com via skyscanner.com to book a flight from AKL to MELB. i was very hesitant at first, but with baggage inc, the flight using Virgin, was $100 cheaper than others, so i closed my eyes and booked it!!!

one of the conditions was that the ticket would not be issued straight away after booking, but within 72 hours of the flight departure. To get your ticket immediately was almost double the price.

once everything was paid, i received a payment confirmation to my email and held my breath waiting for the ticket to be issued within the week.

Pleasantly surprised to find that after 3 hours, the ticket was issued complete with a Virgin booking number. i looked up the flight on the Virgin website and was relieved to find it on their system, with correct details and everything.

i was nervous as trip.com doesnt have any published reviews and reading bad reviews on tripadvisor didnt help. the four star rating on skyscanner.com is a bit annoying as i cant find a way to see what other users experience was like and their recommendations. skyscanner shouldn't show the star rating if they cant back it up with a review system similar to what tripadvisor has.

if you choose to use trip.com, sign up for an account as all your ticketing info is held there, and get the app. it was an easy and quick method to book a cheap flight, especially with a deal that couldnt be missed.

i found the booking terms and conditions to be very clear. they have a booking and price guarantee if the airline has a change, however if you change your mind or cancel your flight, thats when it becomes non-negotiable and there is no refund.

I just ran AKL/MEL through SkyScanner, selected a Virgin, and booking with Virgin direct was $1 cheaper than trip.com. Why insert a third party between yourself and the supplier?

I would not choose to trip.com, and I certainly wouldn't want to add the complication of a third party and pay more for he privilege.

I booked, received a confirmation and a week later received a phone call asking my nationality, which is American. Half an hour later they called back to tell me only Chinese people may book and my reservation has to be cancelled, if I agreed within 3 hours they would refund me in full. I accepted as I saw no real option. I called trip.com to ask for an explanation which they are investigating. I provided a phone number and address from America, it was clear where I was from. This is fraud.