FlyTelligent has been both inept and unresponsive. I purchased tickets from them for my wife and myself around the first of the year for a trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina. This involves about 15 hours of flying time. I’ve never flown anything but economy before, but due to the length of the trip, the fact that I’m 6’3”, we decided to fly business class. The cheapest fare I could find for coach from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires and back was $1, 700 for the both of us together. Instead, I bought two round trip tickets to fly first class from FlyTelligent for a little over $5, 200.

When we got to the airport the night of our travel we were told by the ticket agent at COPA Airlines that while the leg of the trip from Panama City to Buenos Aires and back was business class, the trip from Los Angeles to Panama City and on the return as well, was coach class. They told me I could call the people I bought the tickets from but no one at FlyTelligent answered any of the numbers I had. On arrival in Buenos Aires I called and e-mailed almost every day over a period of two weeks to make sure that at least the return trip would be all business class. I got one e-mail back and no return phone calls. The e-mail promised they would reach me again but they never did.

On my return, I began calling FlyTelligent again. Of perhaps twenty phone calls, the phone was only answered two times and I only got two calls back. I was earnestly promised that the situation would be resolved. I told them that I would settle for a reimbursement of the difference between what I paid for business class and what economy class would have cost me for just that leg of the trip. I was promised that I would receive a call back over a week ago now. Since that time I have called repeatedly and again, no one answers the phone.

I paid FlyTelligent a lot of money. I am being very reasonable about what I expect to be reimbursed. I have asked for no restitution for the discomfort I experienced on the trip nor the constant anticipation of an uncomfortable return flight, nor the nagging concern during the whole time I was down in Buenos Aires that FlyTelligent is a fly-by-night company who I became increasingly aware had defrauded other people and were skilled at avoiding their responsibility to their customers.

I’m not the only one who has been treated like this. The internet is filled with similar complaints.