Avianca

Not Verified | This airline is absolutely horrible. The website doesn’t work. The customer service is nonexistent. They don’t refund your money even when they say that your tickets are refundable. Don't bother trying to make a change in your itinerary. Is next to impossible to do so. They “lose“ your receipt of payment and supposedly don’t have them in the computer system. You can just an airline by how long the customer service line is at the airport. Avoid them at all cost. They don’t serve alcohol on their airplanes.

✅ Trip Verified | San Jose to Toronto. After purchasing 5 business class tickets for my family I am trying to change the an existing reservation online through the Avianca website, it doesn't work. Then picked up the phone to call their 'support center' and press the English - 2 option. Spoke with 2 different customers agents and while they tried to help, they can not change the existing reservation, which requires a transfer to the 'Expert'. The Expert doesn't speak English and transfer me back to the beginning of the call. This is Avianca customer services, when you need help, they don't deliver. I am 2 million mile road warrior and have status on major airlines, visited and worked in 42 countries. This is the worst support that I have ever experience. Why can you buy the air route on Kayak but the Avianca's customer service representatives don't have access to change your flight and "the Expert" refuses to find anyone that can help. Wasted 30 mins of my life with this airline. Suggest anyone to stay away from this airline. If I can give a rate below 0, I would.

✅ Trip Verified | We flew to San Jose via El Salvador. Since the flight got delayed from San Francisco to El Salvador, we have to stay at the airport for the whole day at El Salvador. We got lounge access at El Salvador until the evening 6:00 p.m. The connecting flight was at 9:00 pm. We got the flight from El Salvador to San Jose. The flight landed at midnight. Since the delay in flights, our car rental was closed for the night so we have to stay at the airport for 7 hours. All hotel reservations were closed at that time. Since we have to stay at the airport. We got so tired. It was a bad experience due to delay in flight and there was no connecting flight available soon and no accommodation was offered at San Jose when it landed in the midnight.

✅ Trip Verified | I had a connecting flight in Bogota to Washington D.C with an hour and 15 minutes layover. However, immigration line extremely long and painfully slow at 7 am. There was no airport employee to be found and I ended up cutting the line myself because I knew I was going to cut it very close to my 7:50 am flight. I ran to my gate to find out they plane had already departed (30 mins before departure time) and there were a dozen other passengers who were in my exact same shoes. After running around the airport for an hour trying to speak to someone, they finally directed us back out to the counter where they had told us the next flight out was the following day, exact time. They gave us hotel, lunch, & dinner. Okay, no biggie it was Saturday I was very frustrated but at least it was accommodated. Waited 3 hours at the hotel to finally be ready and crashed. The following day I get up nice and early and board my plane and flew home to D.C to find my checked bag never made it. Looked like I wasn't the only one with the issue because there were 3 other individuals barking at the employee at the same time. They said IF they find it they would ship it to my address (3 hours away). 5 days later I get a suitcase that does not belong to me. It does not describe anything that was handwritten on the report (color, size, locks, etc.) and it even had another name on the handle tag. I am beyond myself at this point that my luggage is still lost and they sent me what is not mine. Honestly, this as been the worst customer service/flying experience of my life. I will never fly with Avianca again. When you call, you get transferred 10 times no one answers your question. They make you file claims online that most likely will never get resolved. All my keepsakes from the wedding are irreplaceable. All the new pieces of clothing and items I had purchased are probably lost gone as well if someone didn't steal them yet. I have no updated via email, text, phone call - utterly irresponsible of the airline.

✅ Trip Verified | Heartless, money-grabbing policies and poor customer service. I understand you can put things in writing where people purchasing economy airfare relinquish their ability to reschedule their flight without fees, but you’d think that a $422 one-way 6-hour flight pre-purchased 1.5 months ahead of time, made by someone who’s flown with you before, who has had a family emergency where their father had a heart attack and is undergoing life-saving surgery, you would morally think charging them $962 dollars in penalties to reschedule their flight to same day is a little heartless and unethical, when there were open economy seats available on 3 flights leaving that same day. But no, I have to pay almost $1,000 in fees and penalties to upgrade myself to first class just to be able to change my flight since you treat S and XS ticket holders like trash. Icing on the cake is that you can clearly see on Google flights that it would only cost $600 for a one-way ticket if I’d wait 2 days to fly out. Their website is not user friendly, the customer hotline was very unhelpful, and I was told the supervisor didn’t have time to talk to me or there wasn't one available. My experience was similar when talking to the customer service department at the Managua Airport in Nicaragua and that a manager was unavailable. I was obviously pretty stressed and as a non-native Spanish speaker it was difficult to try and explain my situation in Spanish, but even when a bilingual American tried to help me they still weren’t willing to budge. Lastly their staff seems to be completely incompetent telling me I need to pay them $1200, when I can clearly do it online and get a result of $962 (still ridiculous). I highly recommend you choose another airline instead who would understand an emergency situation like this and not make it about squeezing you for over 300% of your original ticket price for a same-day flight.

✅ Trip Verified | This is one of the worst airline experiences ever, on the way to Bogotá and on the way back home to Chicago. I thought TAP Air Portugal was terrible, never fly with them either if you can help it, but Avianca definitely takes the crown for the most asinine airline I’ve ever had to fly with, and I fly at least 12+ times per year. We booked our tickets directly with Avianca over the phone with a voucher that we had from a trip that was cancelled due to the pandemic. Without making it clear over the phone or notifying us, they made our return flight from Bogota to Washington Dulles airport and had us go 1 hour away to Washington Reagan airport to connect to our flight back home to Chicago O’Hare. We had to run all the way to get to customs in time - did I mention I’m disabled? Then, we had to take a $50 Lyft all the way to Reagan airport, I’m writing this review in the Lyft as we speak. After being given the run-around by United (who our connecting flight is with) & Avianca ticketing agents at the counters, we only have 1.5 hours to make it to Reagan, check-in &, drop off our luggage, make it through security, and get to our gate. This is the most stressed I’ve ever been for a flight. Keeping my fingers crossed we make it to the gate in time. Next time, I will spend the extra money to fly with Delta or another slightly more reliable airline.

✅ Trip Verified | I have flown numerous times with Avianca for business between Chile and Ecuador and the service continues to get worse with each flight - I have only been flying with Avianca because they are a Star Alliance partner. This was my 1st flight with them for a family vacation,2 adults & 3 teenagers - what a disaster. Great check in at the Santiago Airport and then just downhill from there. I am sure glad we were flying business class, terrible in flight service and lost luggage to top it all off. Filed a lost baggage claim and then Avianca seems to think that its ok that they do not have to reply or do anything of any sort to resolve the issues with the lost baggage for 15 days after the date the claim was filed. Absolute worst airline service I have experienced to date and do not recommend anyone travels with Avianca ever - terrible airline from top to bottom, last flight with these guys.

Not Verified | Business class is a joke. You get a box with a bottle of water, peanuts and a stale, bagged sandwich, same as the regular cabin. No blankets or any other type of drunks. No entertainment services at all. The old planes do not have charging ports so you can’t even play your own movies for long. We were forced to take Avianca due to Covid problems in Nicaragua. Avianca refused to refund the money paid for the business upgrade. It is a nightmare to call them and wait four minutes for everything. They refuse to let you speak with a supervisor.

✅ Trip Verified | I've been flying this route before Avianca merged with TACA for the past 15 years. I used to enjoy flying Avianca compared to any American airline. Sadly this airline started going downhill in 2019 when they announced they were bankrupt, the service started to get reduced but was still good compared to what they offer today. After covid, this airline has taken the low cost approach. What they pass as "business" class is a complete joke. The same food they give to economy is the same meal they give to business. They no longer give you alcohol at all, nothing during the boarding process either. No blankets, pillows or kit. All of that is gone. You have to ask the FAs for any other drink which is boxed juice or coffee, some cans of coca cola or small bottles of water. The Flight Attendants were still nice like they always have been but they are noticeably not as visible as they used to. Not once did they check up on me during the flight like the used to, the lead FA did not introduce themselves to us either. Before covid they would greet us by name and ask if we wanted anything to drink or anything else. It looks like they are getting rid of business class altogether soon so I guess they don't care about business class customers at this point. It looks like they returned all their newer planes and only kept the older TACA fleet probably since they have already been paid off at this point. The first leg of my trip was on a newer A319 from 2014. But I got stuck with the same old A320 on the rest of my legs and this plane was from 2004. On one of the flights, the FA made an announcement that due to covid they were not going to have any in flight service so no movie being played on the overhead screens on this older plane allegedly because of covid. Seems like Avianca is using covid as an easy scapegoat for reducing any type of service and reducing costs. At the end of the day, I'm not a fan of the low cost approach. They are providing low cost service and product yet the airfares are not low cost fares. I paid more for my flight now than I did precovid. If they're going to switch to low cost it should also reflect on the airfare cost as well not just in the product they are offering. I don't understand how this supposed low cost airline is still part of Star Alliance. I'm sure they're going to get kicked out once they get rid of business class altogether. This airline went from a Skytrax award winning airline to a disgrace in a span of 3 years. If you flew this airline precovid and haven't flown it since then, please prepare yourself since it is not the same airline. If you can, fly a different airline that does not charge you legacy airline prices for a low cost product. One of the few positive things I can say about Avianca is that all my flights were on time or arrived earlier than originally estimated even despite leaving late from SAL It doesn't look like they are having any of the issues the american airlines are having with flights getting cancelled, labor shortages etc.

✅ Trip Verified | We had a return flight between Los Angeles and Bogota. The most unfriendly crew. Instead of serving the passengers they were resting in the back seats. They don’t speak English even though the aviation industry language is in English all around the world. They have only a small sandwich and coffee for a 7.5 h flight. No soda. No juice. No alcohol. I had never seen such a cheap international flight.