Via.com

I was flying to San Francisco on a business trip and had booked my tickets on Via.com. My connecting flight from Delhi to Hong Kong (Air India) got delayed by around 6 hrs due to a faulty landing gear. The onward flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco (Cathay Pacific) had already left by the time I landed in Hong Kong and I was clueless what to do next.

I checked with Cathay Pacific help desk and was told that they wouldn't be able to help me as the delay was not due to a Cathay Pacific flight. I was at my wits end and checked for seats on the next flight to San Francisco. To my shock, every single flight from Hong Kong to SF is fully booked for next 2 days due to Comic Con. I called up the Via.com help desk and told them of my dilemma.

I was not expecting any help really, my thought was at least they will be able to book me a flight back to Delhi. To my surprise, the call center supervisor, Mr. Hari, got me a seat on the next Delta Airlines to SF by paying just 25% of the full fare. I have booked flights from several sites over the years and the experiences have ranged from good to outright horrible. But this is was the first time I was totally blown away by the amazing customer support by a travel portal.

I saw several Via.com reviews and found it hard to believe that so many people had a bad experiences with the site. My guess is that we tend to vent out only when things go bad and rarely appreciate a great customer experience. This review about Via.com is my attempt at trying to reverse the trend and giving credit where it's due.