Is Arangrant Legit? My unfortunate experiences with this travel Agency.
Arangrant is a travel booking agency I found through KAYAK and while I've traveled extensively in the last year I've never had an experience as awful as my experience with this company.
When reading through their terms and conditions, I noticed that they have a uniquely long clause regarding credit card chargebacks. I didn't think much of it when booking through them. That was a mistake.
The Situation with Arangrant
I had a flight with British Airways in March that I feared I would miss, so I called ahead of time. The gate agent sympathized with my situation and told me that they would usually be able to get me on the next flight but since I booked through Arangrant that I should call them after waiting some time to be sure.
I obliged and called Arangrant. They replied that switching to the next flight would cost me around $15,000 more on top of my $6,000 ticket but that they could instead give me credit to use on a future British Airways flight if that was too much. Great! This was all I needed to make the change. I appreciated all of their help and even decided to book a replacement flight through Arangrant using another airline.
According to British Airways customer support, however, Arangrant never contacted the airline regarding my ticket. So they simply marked my $6,000 ticket a no-show, rendering it invalid. I did not realize this while taking my flight from California to South Africa, and the Arangrant agents never properly updated me on this order.
Round Two With Arangrant
Either way, I successfully made it to South Africa and enjoyed my stay there... until Arangrant decided to cancel my return flight just days before the scheduled departure.
Based on my experience with other booking agencies or working directly with the airlines, other organizations would typically rebook you. Unfortunately, Arangrant decided to cancel my return flight during the onset of the Iran war when ticket prices absolutely skyrocketed into the thousands of dollars. They refused to give me anything beyond the bare minimum of exactly the price of that leg based on when I booked it.
I called various booking agencies and airlines throughout the night of the cancellation and couldn't find anything within a reasonable budget. Every single remaining economy flight from South Africa to California was booked. I was forced to take a $7,000+ last minute business class flight back, raising my total flight costs up to $15,000+.
The Finale
It was an extremely unprofessional experience, but I was hopeful that I at least had my $6,000 credit to use at a later date. A few months later I decided to redeem it. I called Arangrant in late July, they gave me a few options for the supposed credit, and I asked about some possible modifications.
The very next day they finally gave me the news. The credit was actually never even given and in fact they couldn't even honor the same options they provided me just days before?? They asked if I wanted to get a refund on the runway tax as compensation. I called British Airways and they told me that Arangrant never even contacted them. At this point I was so fed up with the Arangrant booking agency that I had to call Chase card services regarding a credit chargeback.
After going through everything the Chase chargeback agent gave me the following news in an official notice:
Here's a summary of our investigation
- Based on the information available, we found that a significant amount of time has passed since the date of the charge. Despite our efforts, the merchant is not willing to credit your account.
- The merchant isn't required to credit your account because the charge took place too long ago.
Note: I can't post images here, so I posted these emails and letters to my website for proof.
Part of me is wondering whether Arangrant has a deceptive policy in place to lie to customers about credit in order to prevent any potential for credit card chargebacks, especially considering their extensive chargeback terms and conditions.
TL;DR: The Travel Agency Arangrant is a cheaper option for airline tickets but this comes at the expense of being manipulated into leaving your money with them until chargebacks are no longer valid, and if your flight is cancelled: being completely stranded overseas without much compensation or care about whether you get home at all.
Has anyone else had similar experiences with this agency? Or possible courses of action for me as a customer?