I booked a cruise using Kayak and I need to change the second name on the ticket because my friend's plans changed. I need to take a different friend with me now, but I'm having some issues attempting to navigate the Kayak platform. With that in mind, I figured that I would just call the company and see what I needed to do. However, I discovered it's pretty hard to find a live person to help from Kayak. In fact, I went in circles a bit on their phone service and discovered that nearly every option is pre-recorded and not actually helpful.
Online it says that I can call Kayak to cancel my reservation by calling this number and then requesting the cancellation policy. I don't need to cancel anything, but I figured that if you can cancel something online you can also change the reservation if needed. However, after sitting through the messaging I wasn't so sure. There are probably a lot of people who call to get help with their reservations, so it would be nice if the company did a little more to support its customers.
When I called, an automated assistant introduced itself by saying, "Thank you for calling Kayak. I’m your automated assistant and can help you find the information you need. Would you like to continue to this call in English or Spanish? For faster service, please visit Kayak.com. Kayak cannot help you with changing or canceling any reservations."
After getting through that, it said, "Please tell me why you are calling today." I stated, "Talk to someone," and nothing happened until it repeated the demand. I again said "Talk to someone" and the same thing happened again. So then I attempted to say "customer service," which worked a lot better. This time it said, "One minute while I look up your reservation." I wasn't sure how it was going to do this since I hadn't given any personal information but it sounded good.
However, it led me nowhere because then it said, "You have reached Kayak's voicemail. If you need help with a reservation, we cannot help you as we are a booking company and not an operator or provider. For anything else, please leave a message. Thank you." I question how often they actually return messages since there are probably a lot of people who need assistance that end up leaving voicemails, but I didn't have any choice so I gave it a shot. For a travel company that deals with timely issues, they should offer a bit more support to consumers.