Aggressor bumped me to a different cabin

[wetb4igetinthewater]

IMHO, it's kind of a racket. The whole system relies on you buying trip insurance as the way to protect yourself which is in and of itself another sort of racket. There must be some threads on here somewhere about people going through their CC dispute process, but I can't recall if I have ever seen one succeed. Maybe @Dan or one of the other more hardcore LOB folks will drop by and enlighten us with their wisdom and experience.

I get that running these boats is hugely expensive and that customers can be really flaky, but these games being played here are simply unacceptable. If liveaboard.com cannot guarantee the bookings, what good are they?

 

[O-ring]

I get that running these boats is hugely expensive and that customers can be really flaky, but these games being played here are simply unacceptable. If liveaboard.com cannot guarantee the bookings, what good are they?

They have a cool website that is an easy way to see all the LOB options for a particular destination and compare rates but other than that I can't really think of anything..

 

[Boarderguy]

They have a cool website that is an easy way to see all the LOB options for a particular destination and compare rates but other than that I can't really think of anything..

Then use their fluffy website to browse the LOBs in a given area and then contact them directly. Nothing says you can't let them do the research for you.

 

[O-ring]

Then use their fluffy website to browse the LOBs in a given area and then contact them directly. Nothing says you can't let them do the research for you.

I suspect that's what most of us are doing..

 

[lavida]

Hi @paulkhsu

Do you have the confirmation for the Master cabin? I assume you paid your deposit and have proof of that too. If so, it would seem either liveaboard.com or Aggressor pulled a fast one.

I have been on five Aggressors as well as other liveaboards. All my trips on Aggressor, Red Sea, Cocos, Galapagos, Cayman, Belize, were very good. Of course, the Red Sea Aggressor I caught fire and sank 2 1/2 years after I was on it.

I have always made my reservations directly with Aggressor, have never used a 3rd party booker.

Yes, I have confirmation for the Master Cabin, and paid for the entire trip, not just the deposit!

Update on this:

Liveaboard got back to me and said they would provide me a full refund, and are fighting with Aggressor for the funds. I have no idea exactly what happened between them for my booking, but kudos to Liveaboard for stepping up.

 

[lavida]

Not that I am defending Aggressor in any way, but maybe liveaboard.com didn’t turn in your booking info to Aggressor right away when you first booked with them. Although if it happened that way I would think Aggressor reps would have thrown liveaboard under the bus and told you so. Did Aggressor tell you when they received your booking info?

That can't be because I had requested the discount that showed up the day I went to pay, and liveaboard told they talked to the operator who said they will give me the discount and placed a hold for me. I paid the discounted invoice and they gave me the aggressor booking ID. TWO weeks after I received the booking ID came the news that it's not available.

 

[pickens_46929]

Anytime you use a middleman to book travel, you're only covered as far as what the middleman will do for you. *You* are not the live board operators customer - the middleman is.

When things work as they are supposed to, you don't see any difference.

When things don't work as they are supposed to, everything is an order of magnitude harder for the customer.

 

[Dan]

IMHO, it's kind of a racket. The whole system relies on you buying trip insurance as the way to protect yourself which is in and of itself another sort of racket. There must be some threads on here somewhere about people going through their CC dispute process, but I can't recall if I have ever seen one succeed. Maybe @Dan or one of the other more hardcore LOB folks will drop by and enlighten us with their wisdom and experience.

I have booked several liveaboards through liveaboard.com, but haven’t gone through such experience. I have cancelled a trip via liveaboard.com and gotten a refund as long as you are meeting their cancellation policy.

 

[DeepMeditation]

Yes, I have confirmation for the Master Cabin, and paid for the entire trip, not just the deposit!

Update on this:

Liveaboard got back to me and said they would provide me a full refund, and are fighting with Aggressor for the funds. I have no idea exactly what happened between them for my booking, but kudos to Liveaboard for stepping up.

I also use liveaboard.com for research, and then book directly. But I have been told that Aggressor is not usually running their trips; that they don't own or manager most of the boats/trips they sell, but are basically providing marketing and sales, reselling trips for private owner/operators (similar to flagged hotels). Which accounts for the wild variability in experiences with different Aggressor boats and trips: some are great, some are far less. We had a suboptimal trip on the Palau Aggressor and now try and book with owner/operators that actually do both.

 

[Dan]

Aggressor is a franchise like McDonald.