VivaColombia Reviews 38

Cheat of an airline. I paid a lot of money for 25kg check-in allowance for two passengers. Ours bags were just 1 kg overweight and they charged us for it, whereas any other airline in the world would have made this reasonable concession. Best to avoid beggar businesses like this.

Worst experience ever, don't use it even if you have to pay double for any other company. Only way to buy something while fliying is with cash, no CC acepted, and the refreshments are limited, meaning that if you are not at the beginning, you may not be able to get a coke. Right now you have to use a face mask inside the plane. High carry on costs and usually delayed. The check-in process in the airport took me 2 hours, I have to run to make it to the plane.

Never take this company of robber. They sell you a flight even if there is no places. And you arrive at the airport they charge you to make the checking…when you can’t even get in the plane. And they don’t even give you back the change and don t pay you back when you’re left on the side. You just loose you time and your money. And they found a solution for all other people but the whites. So take Latam airlines it will only cost you a few dollars much but you ll have the service you paid for

Force you to sit apart from your family even if plane is empty. Ridiculous charges for cary on luggage. I was traveling to Cusco and the charged me in Bogota and then again in Lima. In Sao Paulo they charged me 1029 reals for cary on for me and my wife but said they could not give me a receipt because I paid in cash. I will never fly this airline again.

Online checking website never worked during my 4 flights , When you get to the airport they want to charge you 20 bucks extra for not checking online which is not your fault. They always tell you that you have to pay extra for the carry on which is 120 dollars extra because it is not included which is BS. Employees get paid commissions by the company for these extra charges . It takes for ever for them to check you in at the counter . They use bad words , nasty colombian slangs on their marketing such as " No sea huevon mijo, vuele por viva"." Muevase pues que esto no es una pasarela " They try to be cool and They suck , Dont fly this airline please , They are really bad "

Bad booking system. Website did not allow me to check in beforehand and I was fined 60,000 cop at the airport.

I tried to explain the situation to customer service, but they refused to take any responsibility and said I should have taken a screenshot. Which I was not warned about. The flight was also delayed - I will never fly with this disgraceful company again
Mal sistema de reservas. El sitio web no me permitió registrarme de antemano y me multaron con 60,000 policías en el aeropuerto.

Traté de explicar la situación al servicio de atención al cliente, pero se negaron a asumir ninguna responsabilidad y dijeron que debería haber tomado una captura de pantalla. Cosa que no me advirtieron. El vuelo también se retrasó: nunca volveré a volar con esta vergonzosa compañía.

This was my first and last time with Viva Air - Their ethic SUCKS!
There is something really wrong with how this low budget airline thinks when it comes to UX design and their Ethics on how they make money. It is incredible that I had booked a ticket for a short trip - 3 days for $270,000 Colombian pesos and ended up paying $600,000 in extras I "somehow agreed".

Here is how unethical consumer psychology works - Instead of me activating all the additional expenses as a personal choice (Extra bag, Printing tickets, Express line, Insurance, etc) all those were by default activated for me. It was "my responsibility" to check in detail page after page and make sure all of those were unticked. Sneaky! So after going through a process of reading carefully each page making sure you did not add by accident any additional unwanted and unnecessary additions, oh! surprised you ended up with a bill that is double the original ticket price. How clever ha? and how dumb I feel...

I understand you need to be careful when booking a low budget Ticket, but this is another level. This website was designed for people to make mistakes and then hide behind the Terms and Conditions policy making sure you pay for every single mistake made. Having a smooth transaction with exactly what you desire to pay is like playing Mario - you might get to the next level after a few Game Overs - and that is not OK.

After my mistake I immediately called the call centre to try to rectify it... to my surprise I was received by a call centre agent prepared to shoot me with all their policies, procedures, terms and conditions as a learned script. Turns out they do not offer any customer refunds.
This airline receives hundreds of complaints of people experiencing similar issues on a daily basis. Calls like mine are their constant, as their tricks work and people end up confused and do not untick one, two, or all 6 extra unnecessary features... It is not ok to know you have a system that is designed this way and still have the guts to pick up the phone and blame it on the user. This is an unethical trap designed to drive people to make mistakes.

This makes me sad, angry and frustrated. I cannot believe there are organizations in this world so desperate for a cent that they build their websites, services and policies with the mentality of tricking people. Not that they care but I'm never buying from these people again - you can keep my $600,000 pesos.

I'm posting this today because many people out there have had the same unpleasant experience or will engage with Viva Air at one point. Businesses like Viva Air get away with this stuff and consumers are left responsible for a customer experience that was thought to make you lose in advance. If this review prevents you from making the same mistake of doing business with this sort of unethical business at least this frustration will have a purpose.

Extras should be unticked and people should decide what to add... I don't go to the supermarket with a cart full of stuff and on the counter start selecting what I don't want to take with me. That is not how business should work.

Shame on you Viva Air.

Horrible Poor Airlines Work like Spirit Frontier etc. Never recommended.

In September, my GF, a friend of ours were scheduled on a Viva Flight from Medellin to San Andres. At the last moment, we were not allowed to board even though we had checked in with no issues. The gate agents informed us we did not have a San Andreas tourist tax card. We were unaware we needed to purchase this tourist card as no one told us about it. We had been sitting in the gate area for an hour and a half and no announcement was ever made in English. We were told by the gate agents that it was announced twice in english, however, this was not true, in fact, non of them even spoke English. There was never any information on any of our documents or emails from Viva that it was required to have a tourist tax card prior to boarding. We were totally unaware that it was needed.

We were told by the gate agents that it was our fault, they will not sell us the card as it was too close to the plane leaving and we must buy a new ticket for the next day. The entire time the gate agent was holding these cards in her hand and could have sold them. When we asked to see a supervisor, they said one was coming. We waited 20 minutes and no one ever came to speak with us. As it turned out, the 'supervisor" was already there, at the gate, hiding behind the desk. She was hiding did not want to speak with us.

Approaching her, she just brushed us off and told us that there is nothing anyone can do...and that is the way it is! We were told the ticket was useless now and we cannot have a new one unless we rebook and buy a new one. Needless to say, we were stunned. (3 of us in our group) totally stunned with this kind of treatment.

In over 40 years of US and international business and pleasure travel on countless flights. (100,000’s of thousands of FF miles on other airlines) I have never experienced airline personnel that were so uncaring, so flat out rude, disrespectful and so unhelpful.

Ok..so we rushed to Latam Airlines, they helped us to board a Latam flight two hours later with no issues.

I have since tried contacting Viva. No one is home :-). The website contact does not work properly and nor does the chat.

IMPORTANT: read the reviews on this airline on Trustpilot, Tripadvisor and other social media. It tells you what you need to know. The prices may seem attractive, but in reality they are not. There are so many hidden issues as explained by a lot of people. I am truly amazed that this airline even exists! I am also truly amazed that the management of this company can actually be proud of what they are doing.

Avoid this airline at all costs. It's not worth the so-called savings. You get charged extra FOR EVERYTHING. If you didn't do a web check-in, if they determine that your carry on is too large (not standard measurement). There are no automated processes everything is on pen and paper causing them to ask for the same information over and over. The ground staff is rude and not customer friendly. God, forbid you ask a question; you don't get answers but attitude and lectures. Please avoid this airline like a plague.

We booked a flight from Santa Marta to Bogota for the afternoon to get our connecting flight in Bogota. Five days before the flight was combined with the evening flight 5 hours later...so far so good. We were informed by email and could chose the option to get reimbursed for the tickets. Two days later we received voucher with the flight value to be used within the next year. We contacted the customer service and were told they are not in the power to reimburse the money due to some article related to the emerency state due to Covid-19.
No customer orientation - if there is any other way never chose VivaAir to travel in Colombia!

It has been over 30 business days, I sent 3 emails, 2 messages on Facebook, and still no response.

This company doesn't care whatsoever.

Don't be fooled by the low price. You end up paying more your baggage and other things than the price of the ticket. I experienced this before and forgot the lesson. Today I was reminded once again. The ticket was 50 dollars and even after paying an extra fee for my checked in bag they charged another 60 dollars at the gate because I didn't do my web check in and for my acoustic guitar ( which most airlines count as a carry on for no extra charge). Getting charged extra fees at the gate totaling more than the ticket price is another reason why I'll never fly with them again. Plus, if you need to change your ticket or cancel. Just say goodbye to what you spent and move on. Avianca is a much better option.

Had the misfortune of booking flights with Viva Air. Their business policy is clearly designed to catch out people and sting them with extra large unreasonable fees. I bought tickets, and couldn't web check in in advance and got stung by fees over half the cost of the ticket just to get access to my tickets. How the hell you sell tickets but then charge extra to access them is pathetic! And at 715000 cop or 350 au, it is a massive fee! And if that's not enough, the staff started yelling at our group and then simply walked off leaving us at an unattended service desk. These guys are seriously bad! I hope their reputation and service (lack of) is their downfall, they don't deserve to be in business!

Absolutely useless company - website seems to be user friendly, but after multiple attempts of payments not going through, their 'chat' system told me that the payments were 'under review' and that I would have to wait up to hours to find out whether it would go through or not. Really not acceptable - please avoid yourself the hassle and pay a little bit more for a better, reputable airline.

We had a similar situation, we booked with Expedia, Flight and Hotel, and got connected to these scammers. It has been 9 moths, and they still have not sent me the $ for the cancellation. They give Colombia, a very bad name, stay away from them. They prey on the 120 day rule, that they know, since Visa only accepts during that time frame. They should have their rights to the US revoked.

Hidden charges and rude staff. South American scammers who will never succeed with international clients.

Do not use this airline, ridiculous charges, awful custoner service, rude personal... it is not worth it and at the end thier published airfare will cost you more. Do Colombia a favor, please chage your name to Viva something else... Colombia's reputation of a country of kind, courteous and well mannered people does not deserve this....

Horrible experience. I booked a flight Bogota - Santa Marta and the flight was cancelled a couple of weeks in advance. They give us several options after that, from booking another flight that day to refund the money. We decided to book the flight with another company and try to get the money back.
The process to get the money back was dreadful. Costumer emails that they don't longer use but still advert in their web page, claim the money using different excel documents until I completed the specific type for payments to foreign countries, several days to get a response every time I sent an email with the excel forms... Finally, the payment back was apparently accepted and they told me that it'd take around 30d to arrive at my account, 3 months later I'm still waiting and every time I contact them they simply tell me that I need to be patient (Apparently around 5 months from the beginning of the process it's not too much yet).
Avoid the company!

Charged me $11 for printing a boarding pass!!!

1) You have to PRINT your boarding pass in 2019.
2) If you don't want to/can't print it yourself, you have an option on their website to have it printed at check in, for $1.
3) I chose that option. I was prepared for it, my friends who flew with them before told me about this printing lunacy.
4) At check in, they told me "it's not in the system" and that I have to pay an additional $11 or I can't board the plane.
5) So I already paid $1 to have it printed and got charged an extra $11 for a piece of paper. The staff were incredibly rude and not helpful. "It's not in the system" and end of story. They were even pushing to close check in, pressuring me into paying.
6) Ultimately, the costs of printing the boarding pass were almost as high as the ticket price basically. 2019. Printing. $12. Flabbergasted.

I'd rather walk cross country then fly with this excuse for a company ever again. Disgrace!