[lizag1mom]

We purchased tickets from Tijuana to Guadalajara for our Christmas vacation. It was 9 of us coming down from Northern California. We crossed the border into Tijuana at 4:30am to arrive at the airport at 5:15am. After having to pay over $220 US dollars at the airport for permits to enter the country we proceeded to go check in our luggage and get boarding passes for the children. Volaris failed to notify us of this extra fee and spent 15 or so minutes filling out permit forms for each of us and paying the fee.

We approached the counter at around 5:45am and still well within the 30 minutes required to check in as our boarding passes stated. We asked a Volaris employee to point us out to where to check in. She very rudely stated we were late and could no longer board. We plead with her for over 20 minutes and the whole time she didn't even offer any help as to boarding. She was so rude and refused to allow us any help to board or get us on another flight.

Her answer to our begging was that there was nothing she could do and anything else was not her problem. She said we had lost our tickets and that was that. This was at 6:05am and boarding had started at 5:55am and departure was to be at 6:25am.

My mom was able to board without a problem but the rest of us had to stay behind because she refused to print the children's passes (you cannot do web check-in for minors online). We stood there in Tijuana stunned and shocked at the lack of help from this Volaris employee and proceeded to take a taxi back to the border and walk ourselves back across into the US with nothing to show for this Christmas morning of 2011. We had just spent over $300 (in taxi fare and permit fees) into this quick Tijuana trip and out over $1200 in airfaire and no one seemed to care.

Upon arriving in San Diego we went to Volaris at the airport and let them know what had happened. They were extremely helpful by letting us know that we were correct in the arrival time since it was a national flight and 30 minutes was right and even if it wasn't, they could have helped us to get on our flight. They also said this was a typical occurrence in the Volaris counter in Tijuana.

We contacted Volaris to complain, but just like the Tijuana woman told us, we should have arrived 2 hours prior to departure. I'm in agreement but NOWHERE did Volaris state in any way that we needed to be there 2 hours before. The only directions we saw was the ones on the boarding passes that said to arrive atleast 30 minutes before departure.

I disagree with their lack of compassion and disregard for our situation when we were NOT late and didn't merit being taken advantage of like this. We have known people who get there as the airplane door is being shut and they still get to get on. How could this employee not want to help?

My children and us were so shocked and couldn't believe what was happening. Please consider this experience as you book with Volaris. Cheap isn't always best in situations where customer sevice suffers.