Opodo Review: Worst Online Travel Agency Ever
I used to be a big fan of Opodo for the simple reason it's a tech startup in travel and alternative to Kayak. Who doesn't like an underdog? Opodo is a British company that was started in 2000 and is now in my opinion the worst airline booking search engine out there.
Don't just take my word. See their low review on Trust Pilot. Or see their 1.4 star review on ReviewCentre.
- My review -
Since 2010, I've used Opodo a couple times and subscribed to their newsletter. I was actually an advocate of Opodo to my friends. My online flight search engines were Kayak, Opodo, and Skyscanner. Kayak usually gives good results but sometimes Opodo and Skyscanner find airlines that aren't covered by Kayak.
Top reasons why Opodo sucks.
1. Horrible things can go wrong. I booked a flight using Opodo for a leg of my family vacation in Brazil. They sent me this e-ticket below.
On the day of the flight at the checkin counter, the airline said the e-ticket didn't work. The e-ticket I had wasn't valid. Opodo never actually booked it. Can you imagine thinking you had a valid ticket for 2 weeks and then being told you needed to buy a last minute ticket at 5-6 times the normal price because Opodo didn't actually make your reservation? Even worse, the airline was fully booked on Christmas Eve and we actually had to fly out the next day. This means wasting a day of holiday, ruining the itinerary, paying for an extra night of hotel, wasting a night of paid for hotel, paying for transport from and to the airport again, and buying last minute tickets for 5-6 times the price. And then multiply that by 3 because it's 3 people. So yeah. Opodo sucks.
2. Extremely bad customer service. After begging non-English speaking people to use their phones and spending £30 on long distances phone calls. Being put on hold for 30 minutes at a time. Being put on hold for 5 times. We got to the bottom of it. Opodo couldn't book the flight and refunded us the money. They said they sent an email telling us it was refunded. We did not receive any email. And here are the worst parts they 1.) denied responsibility and 2.) did not try to help us re-book in a foreign country where people don't English.
Not only did they ruin Christmas for us (along with wasting a helluva lot of our time), cost us a boatload of money, but also they did not provide any assistance or even apologise. Instead, guess what they do?
3. Lies. Instead, they lie. First, they said there was a technical system issue and they couldn't book the ticket and the money was refunded. Second, they said they contacted us about the cancelled ticket. Would we have strolled up the the checkin counter on the day of the flight if we knew the ticket was invalid? Yeah, that sounds about right. Third, they said there the payment was declined so they couldn't book the ticket.
I'm not sure what to believe. But I do know this: I received a Opodo e-ticket and was never contacted again by Opodo.
4. Very inferior technology. Their technology sucks so hard. I don't know how they operate. How do you even live with yourself when people trust you with something so important as their travel plans? You'd not selling popcorn. You're uniting families. You're getting people to important business meetings. You're helping people see their loved ones one last time. Opodo's incompetence can be seen in their emails.
And this is the email you get when you try to reset your password. WTF did I just get? There's not even a link to reset the password. There aren't pictures. The email doesn't even make sense.
Basically, this company sucks. There are so many alternatives, you have no reason whatsoever to use Opodo. I'm not using them ever again even if their prices are way cheaper. I'd rather pay the difference. It's a matter of principle. You don't f*ck people over like this.
Check out SkyPicker for cheap deals and stick to Kayak and Skyscanner.