Costco travel

[Anonymous]

We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

PP here who just booked a Mexico trip. I'm sorry that happened to you - sounds really stressful!

I'm just curious, though - wouldn't the airline notify you if you signed up with them on their app? Like, I booked on United (where I have an account already), and minutes after booking I could already see the trip in my United app and change seats, etc. So I'm assuming that like any other flight, they will send me push notifications and emails to any changes in itinerary. Or will that not be the case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

PP here who just booked a Mexico trip. I'm sorry that happened to you - sounds really stressful!

I'm just curious, though - wouldn't the airline notify you if you signed up with them on their app? Like, I booked on United (where I have an account already), and minutes after booking I could already see the trip in my United app and change seats, etc. So I'm assuming that like any other flight, they will send me push notifications and emails to any changes in itinerary. Or will that not be the case?

I usually get changes from the airline as I'm a frequent flyer with status. In this case the airline told us they only notified Costco because they were our agent. I didn't get the normal change email from the airline. According to the airline, Costco was suppose to notify me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]People were on hold for hours when the pandemic travel cancellation started.[/b] Never ever use Costco travel!

Yes, never use Costco because the customer pandemic was a completely normal situation…

Because nothing ever goes wrong in vacation. Hope those savings were worth it when you really need help!

EVERY Travel operator - from airlies, hotels, airbnb, vrbo, etc had horrific hold times at that time. They were literally dealing with the entire country scrambling to cancel ane rebook, like 10's of 1,000's of people, maybe 100's of 1,000's, trying to rebook/cancel at the same time. Just what travel company do you think had no back up at that time??? Stupid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

Wow. That sounds awful and infuriating. I'm glad they made it right for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

PP here who just booked a Mexico trip. I'm sorry that happened to you - sounds really stressful!

I'm just curious, though - wouldn't the airline notify you if you signed up with them on their app? Like, I booked on United (where I have an account already), and minutes after booking I could already see the trip in my United app and change seats, etc. So I'm assuming that like any other flight, they will send me push notifications and emails to any changes in itinerary. Or will that not be the case?

I usually get changes from the airline as I'm a frequent flyer with status. In this case the airline told us they only notified Costco because they were our agent. I didn't get the normal change email from the airline. According to the airline, Costco was suppose to notify me.

We have a trip booked through Costco for this summer. I just got an email from Costco last week with a flight time change. It’s a three minutes delay in arrival.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]People were on hold for hours when the pandemic travel cancellation started.[/b] Never ever use Costco travel!

Yes, never use Costco because the customer pandemic was a completely normal situation…

Because nothing ever goes wrong in vacation. Hope those savings were worth it when you really need help!

EVERY Travel operator - from airlies, hotels, airbnb, vrbo, etc had horrific hold times at that time. They were literally dealing with the entire country scrambling to cancel ane rebook, like 10's of 1,000's of people, maybe 100's of 1,000's, trying to rebook/cancel at the same time. Just what travel company do you think had no back up at that time??? Stupid.

Please use Costco! Every travel agent I know doesn’t compete on price. If you plan on no value on service, most TA’s don’t need you!

[Anonymous]

CostCo is good for a lot of things. Incl travel. BUT you have to understand that this is a good retail deal. Not service. So anything goes wrong you're screwed. This is very different than booking via a reputable travel agent. Also, you can get some really nice places, but it really depends on where you're going.

This is applicable for a lot of CostCo deals on non food items. Example - we got a washer dryer at a great deal from them. Upon installation it just didn't fit right. But with their unit we had to purchase EVERYTHING related to install. So we had a really big prob returning everything for some reason. It was horrible. Their service was such that we will never buy anything but food from them again. They pissed off my diehard Costco DH to a point I've never imagined he would be. He was all about only buying this from them to him never wanting to buy big items from them ever again.

So you just have to realize that sometimes what you pay for goes being the product but the value of the item - sometimes service is worth that extra cost for peace of mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

PP here who just booked a Mexico trip. I'm sorry that happened to you - sounds really stressful!

I'm just curious, though - wouldn't the airline notify you if you signed up with them on their app? Like, I booked on United (where I have an account already), and minutes after booking I could already see the trip in my United app and change seats, etc. So I'm assuming that like any other flight, they will send me push notifications and emails to any changes in itinerary. Or will that not be the case?

I usually get changes from the airline as I'm a frequent flyer with status. In this case the airline told us they only notified Costco because they were our agent. I didn't get the normal change email from the airline. According to the airline, Costco was suppose to notify me.

We have a trip booked through Costco for this summer. I just got an email from Costco last week with a flight time change. It’s a three minutes delay in arrival.

We got one from them for our spring break trip. I can’t even figure out what the change is, so probably nothing significant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of any Costco travel that works with a family of five? I've searched a few places several times but if we are looking for one room nothing populates from the search. The kids are small so a single room, suite, or even two bedroom is better for us than two separate rooms. Anyone have any luck?

I think it really depends on where you are going. We are a family of six, and I have found rooms in Disney, Costa Rica, Mexico, Hawaii, etc. when I've searched (although I haven't booked those places yet--just looking around) but not in other places like Europe where rooms for 6 people are in short supply or non-existent.

Pp. Thanks I'll keep looking then!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone know of any Costco travel that works with a family of five? I've searched a few places several times but if we are looking for one room nothing populates from the search. The kids are small so a single room, suite, or even two bedroom is better for us than two separate rooms. Anyone have any luck?

I think it really depends on where you are going. We are a family of six, and I have found rooms in Disney, Costa Rica, Mexico, Hawaii, etc. when I've searched (although I haven't booked those places yet--just looking around) but not in other places like Europe where rooms for 6 people are in short supply or non-existent.

Pp. Thanks I'll keep looking then!

PP who just booked a Mexico resort - we got a 2bd/3ba suite that sleeps 6. You have to go through each resort, look under the "rooms" drop down and find the suites or larger rooms, and check the actual layout/number of beds. I did a double check for many of them by going to the actual hotel's website where they had more photos. I found that some "suites" still only slept 2 people, but many places had 2 or 3 bd suites that had a king, two queens/doubles, and a pull out sofa bed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We had issues with Costco Travel. We booked Mexican resort stay and flights. The airline canceled one of our flights and rebooked us on a replacement that wasn't going to let us make our connection (think 15 minute international connection during the holidays). Apparently the airline only notifies your "travel agent" and us us that was Costco. Costco never told us. I found the issue when I logged in for a work trip on the same airline about a month before the trip.

I called Costco and they said they get tens of thousands of flight changes per day and don't notify anyone because it's too hard to do so. They told us it was going to be $5k per person to get us on different flights because all of the flights at our fare level were sold out. The airline wouldn't talk to us because we booked through and agent. Costco suggested that we just take the booked flight, plan to sleep in the connecting airport that night (as we weren't going to get on any of the very oversold later flights) and try to get a connection the next day standby with 5 people, including a 3 and 5 yo during a holiday weekend. It was insane. Costco would have refunded the cost of our flights (because the original flight was cancelled) but we would have lost the full value of the resort stay because we were inside the 30 day cancelation period.

I finally found a provision online that required the airline to fix our flights because they rebooked us without the minimum time to transfer. When I used the magic words, the airline did fix it, but not until I'd spent about 15 hours on the phone either talking to agents or sitting on hold. It was a mess.

We would have had a much easier time rebooking if Costco had actually notified us at the time of the flight change in August rather than having me find it in early December after everything was totally booked up. I'll never book flights through Costco again.

PP here who just booked a Mexico trip. I'm sorry that happened to you - sounds really stressful!

I'm just curious, though - wouldn't the airline notify you if you signed up with them on their app? Like, I booked on United (where I have an account already), and minutes after booking I could already see the trip in my United app and change seats, etc. So I'm assuming that like any other flight, they will send me push notifications and emails to any changes in itinerary. Or will that not be the case?

I usually get changes from the airline as I'm a frequent flyer with status. In this case the airline told us they only notified Costco because they were our agent. I didn't get the normal change email from the airline. According to the airline, Costco was suppose to notify me.

We have a trip booked through Costco for this summer. I just got an email from Costco last week with a flight time change. It’s a three minutes delay in arrival.

We got one from them for our spring break trip. I can’t even figure out what the change is, so probably nothing significant.

Yeah, I had to go through line by line to figure it out. Our arrival time changed from 12:50pm to 12:53pm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CostCo is good for a lot of things. Incl travel. BUT you have to understand that this is a good retail deal. Not service. So anything goes wrong you're screwed. This is very different than booking via a reputable travel agent. Also, you can get some really nice places, but it really depends on where you're going.

This is applicable for a lot of CostCo deals on non food items. Example - we got a washer dryer at a great deal from them. Upon installation it just didn't fit right. But with their unit we had to purchase EVERYTHING related to install. So we had a really big prob returning everything for some reason. It was horrible. Their service was such that we will never buy anything but food from them again. They pissed off my diehard Costco DH to a point I've never imagined he would be. He was all about only buying this from them to him never wanting to buy big items from them ever again.

So you just have to realize that sometimes what you pay for goes being the product but the value of the item - sometimes service is worth that extra cost for peace of mind.

Exactly. This is why we won't use it for flights, just cruises, hotels, car rentals, etc.

[Anonymous]

We've booked cruises, a trip to universal studios and rental cars through costco. All good experiences. They even helped out once after I'd accidently booked my airline tickets in my maiden name (I blame an auto-populate error).

[Anonymous]

Any luck using Cosco for Caribbean trips?