Travel Solutions: Airline ticket price doubled during booking

I did not want to make this booking anymore, but it wasn't immediately clear how to cancel. GoToGate charged my credit card $1,002.

I checked the AirAsia site, and the same ticket costs $500.

I called GoToGate the same day, and a representative told me they could not refund my ticket. They recommended that I contact AirAsia. An AirAsia representative said I have to go through GoToGate. Can you help me? — Lai Mun Yip, Singapore

A: Airline ticket prices change constantly, but they should not change after you push the "book" button. This was definitely unusual.

Here's what should have happened. Between the time you clicked on the fares and the time you booked your tickets, GoToGate should have explicitly asked if you wanted to continue with your purchase. Only then should it have charged you $1,002.

GoToGate was not marking your tickets up. It's far more likely that the airline had run out of fares at the fare you saw, and GoToGate was just updating the price. But, as it turns out, there was more to your story.

Online travel agencies like GoToGate have their uses. You can run easy price comparisons through a website like GoToGate to quickly find the lowest fare. Sometimes, online agencies can also offer attractive package deals that help you save more money. But I also get a lot of customer service complaints about them. They often behave like balky vending machines, at least when it comes to service.

I list the names, numbers and emails for GoToGate's customer service managers on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org. A polite email to a manager might have fixed this.

I contacted GoToGate. A representative responded, "Due to a manual mistake, we offered the wrong price to the customer." They said they would refund the ticket in full.