VivaAerobus Reviews 

Short version:
Feeling like getting blindly robbed? Viva is for you! Watch out for the baggage overcharge scam on flights between Cancún and Havana.
Longer rant:
Not to be melodramatic, but a disproportionate amount of our holiday was spent dealing with this company, only to then get nearly mugged at the airport.
We booked flights through Gotogate.com — mistake number one — which didn’t allow baggage to be purchased. No problem, I thought; we travel light, carry-on is more than enough. I’ll just buy it later via the airline’s app. Oh, but problem it was.
First, there was no option to add baggage at all. Assuming it was a technical glitch, I contacted support. The official ticket was left hanging unanswered, the WhatsApp bot was useless (and only responded in Spanish with a collection of unhelpful messages), and the only actual response came via Facebook Messenger. Very 2025.
After some back and forth, I was informed this wasn’t a glitch at all — they simply don’t allow purchasing baggage via the app for flights to Havana, and you must do it at the airport. The website suggested a price of around $20. Support then casually mentioned it would be closer to $100 because “the website hasn’t been updated” and “prices aren’t set in stone”. What they really meant was: go to the airport and get rinsed.
At the counter, it felt like a full-on mafia operation. Two angry women in casual clothing shouting, waving their arms, and creating chaos. Unsurprisingly, we were magically not allowed to buy carry-on (despite the flight being half empty and there being TONS of overhead space) and were told we could only purchase checked baggage — for a bargain $200. That’s US dollars, to be clear.
Our bags fit perfectly into their personal item size box, but the woman was still unhappy because my coat pocket contained… items. Other travellers had it even worse: some had prepaid for everything, only to be charged $200 to bring a guitar on board, which was then almost taken off them during boarding.
The catch? This is the only flight to Havana, so you are entirely at their mercy — and they seem to charge whatever they feel like on the day. And maybe it’s just a coincidence, but the only people being picked out just happened to be of European complexion, if you catch my drift.
To add to the joy, the day before departure we received a notification from the booking platform saying the flight was delayed by 9 hours. Google Flights confirmed it. It wasn’t. Instead, the flight was randomly moved earlier (by 15 minutes) with no notice whatsoever. Bless our taxi service for being flexible and endlessly patient while we moved plans back and forth.

I recently flew with Viva Aerobus from Guadalajara (GDL) to Los Angeles (LAX), and unfortunately, the experience was far from satisfactory. From the moment I arrived at LAX, it became clear that the airline’s luggage handling system was a mess.

Upon arrival at the baggage claim, it was immediately obvious that things weren’t running smoothly. Instead of placing luggage on the conveyor belt like any normal airline, they had piles of bags stacked in different areas based on their final destinations. The lack of organization was confusing, and it felt like they were scrambling to manage the bags in an almost chaotic manner.

To make matters worse, over 15 bags, including mine, were missing. I had to wait for over an hour at the LAX airport just to get assistance from a representative. It was frustrating because I wasn’t getting any updates or communication, and it seemed like the staff was understaffed or unprepared for such a situation.

This incident has definitely made me rethink flying with Viva Aerobus in the future. A major airline function like baggage handling should be well-organized, and waiting over an hour for help is unacceptable. I hope they improve this aspect of their service, but for now, I can’t recommend flying with them based on this experience.

Very unhappy with our experience. Our flight was delayed both going to and coming back. We were supposed to arrive at 10:30 PM, but due to a 2-hour delay, we didn’t get there until 12:30 AM, which felt unsafe and scary being out so late at night.
On our return flight, we were delayed another 1.5 hours.
Completely unreliable and stressful. We will never use this airline again.

Mi experiencia con Viva Aerobus fue, sin exagerar, la peor que he tenido al volar.
Tenía un vuelo programado ayer a las 4:00 p.m. de Querétaro a Dallas. El vuelo fue retrasado más de dos horas y media sin información clara ni oportuna. Finalmente, el personal informó que el vuelo quedaba cancelado porque migración en EE. UU. ya no recibiría el vuelo a esa hora.
Hasta ahí, ya es una mala gestión operativa, pero lo peor vino después.
Al regresar al mostrador para buscar alternativas, las opciones que ofrecían eran totalmente poco razonables:
Escalas que pasaban de 2.5 horas a casi 14 horas,
O salidas desde otros estados, algo completamente impráctico y fuera de lógica para el pasajero.
Ante esto, opté por cancelar y comprar otro vuelo con otra aerolínea, perdiendo tiempo y dinero.
Al solicitar el reembolso vía telefónica, me informan que la cancelación fue “por mal clima”, lo cual no coincide con lo que su propio personal dijo en el aeropuerto. Primera gran alerta: información contradictoria.
Después, me dicen que no pueden hacer reembolso en efectivo, y que mi única opción es un boleto abierto válido solo por 180 días. Esto es inaceptable, considerando que la cancelación fue responsabilidad de la aerolínea, no del pasajero.
En resumen:
Mala comunicación
Cancelación mal justificada
Opciones de reacomodo absurdas
Política de reembolso abusiva
Cero enfoque en el cliente
Viva Aerobus demuestra que su modelo de bajo costo también aplica a la calidad del servicio y la responsabilidad.

The worst airline, possibly in the world. They overbook all of their flights and make you wait at the gate in the hope that others don’t turn up. When you ultimately don’t have a seat, they refuse to do anything to help. Literally, a scam. Book anywhere but here.

It is absurd that the airline assigns 5 separated seats for a booking of 5 when checking in.

Habe einen Flug von NUL nach CUN gebucht um 17:50. War dann aber schon um 11 a.m. am NUL und wollte umbuchen. Die sind so unflexibel und haben ihn mir nicht umgebracht obwohl um 3a.m. no h Plätze frei waren.

Do not book with this airline. The reason why they have so-called low flight costs is because they take part of the money from unaware people to book the flights. They made an unauthorized payment from my card for 200 something dollars. That's how they cover the cost to give you "cheap flights." It's very inconvenient because I have to wait until Monday to get the transaction disputed. And I have to pay rent coming up.

Inclui en mi compra de vuelos, pases para cocobongo, la empresa Vivaaerobus nunca entregó ningún acceso o pase o código, ellos simplemente se mantuvieron al margen indicando que son intermediarios y que no podrían darme una respuesta, hable con 10 personas distintas incluyendo un tipo nefasto supuesto supervisor de nombre DIEGO MORENO, con una pésima atención de servicio, indicando que efectivamente vivaaerobus tima a los clientes pero que ese NO ES SU PROBLEMA, es problema de clientes estúpidos que compran ahí .

My family and I had booked our tickets about 6 months ago for December 5th 2025 from LAX to Mexico City, about 2 weeks before December 5th we started getting notifications from Viva for offers to change our flight from a direct flight to a flight with a transfer from LAX to Monterrey then to Mexico City. The same would be for the flight back for December 15th. Basically with what they were offering we would have gotten our flight for free.... That sounded really good at the time however when we initially arrived to Monterey from LAX, our transfer flight was delayed 2 hours. Not the end of the world however it was inconvenient nonetheless. And then when we were to fly back on the 15th, our flight was delayed another 2 hours leaving Mexico City which then made us miss our transfer flight from Monterrey to LAX. There was no direct flight from Monterrey to LAX until 2 days later.... Fortunately we were able to find a flight from Monterrey to Guadalajara and then from there to LAX the next day. Unfortunately we had to spend the night in the airport with basically no reimbursements or any amenities for our inconvenience. This also in turn caused us to miss very important appointments that we had the next day.

Son la peor basura que ha existido, fue un error no informarme bien antes de comprar ahi, pero tenia un viaje en el cual me rompi el lomo 6 meses para pasar mis vacaciones alla, compré el vuelo con antelacion (4 meses), me lo han cancelado mas de 5 veces y nunca me avisaron, son una estafa total, los del servicio al cliente solo te ven la cara de tonto. Dicen respuestas incoherentes de acuerdo a lo que tu solicitas, y al final del dia, te terminan diciendo que tu dinero se perdió, y todo a ultimo momento, perdi mi vuelo, mi dinero, mi ilusion, absolutamente todo

Be very careful when booking. Viva Aerobus automatically added a $528.16 MXN charge for "Protección por imprevistos" (Unforeseen Protection) to my reservation without my explicit consent.
When I contacted support via WhatsApp to request a refund, they admitted the service is pre-selected by default and claimed it was my fault for not "unchecking" it. This is a "Dark Pattern" and a violation of the Federal Consumer Protection Law (Article 86 Ter), which states additional services must be explicitly requested, not imposed.
I am proceeding with a chargeback and a formal PROFECO complaint. Check your breakdown carefully before paying!

VivaAerobus es la peor aerolínea que he conocido y eso que he utilizado bastantes aerolíneas de muchísimos países. La última experiencia negativa fue este sábado, día 29 de noviembre cundo tuvimos que volar de Cancún a la Ciudad de México y el vuelo se retrasó más de 3 horas y para el colmo, el personal de embarque nos trató muy, muy mal. Haré todo lo posible para que en mi vida utilice esta aerolínea.

Scam!
At the Cancun airport check-ins a lady, while you are in line, asks you what your luggage is, and with the excuse that the flight is a charter (it is not written anywhere) the luggage must be checked in. They force you to buy a duffle bag for 35 usd, that they sell right there, and to pay 200 usd or 200€ to ship it. They don't accept credit cards, only cash obviously, and leave you a note (without value) that for them is an invoice. It's obviously a scam and you're obliged to do it because she in business with the guys at check-in.
Absurd.

Reclamación – Cancelación Indebida de Reserva, Fallas de Comunicación y Responsabilidad de la Compañía

El día 26 de noviembre, por la noche, realicé una reserva CEF6VG de vuelo a través de VIVA. La reserva fue confirmada y pagada de inmediato, y el monto fue debitado de mi cuenta en ese mismo momento. Posteriormente, realicé el check-in en línea, obtuve las tarjetas de embarque y no se me informó de ninguna irregularidad.

Sin embargo, en la madrugada siguiente, alrededor de las 03:00 horas del día del vuelo, recibí un correo electrónico indicando que la reserva había sido reembolsada debido a un supuesto problema con la tarjeta. Esta comunicación fue enviada únicamente por correo electrónico, a pesar de que proporcioné también mi número de teléfono celular. Debido a un problema temporal de acceso a mi correo, solo tuve conocimiento de esta situación cuando ya me encontraba en el aeropuerto, horas más tarde.

Para empeorar la situación, VIVA indicó en el mensaje que debía llamar a un número de atención para solucionar el pago. Sin embargo, dicho número no permite hablar con ningún operador, ni ofrece opciones relacionadas con este tipo de situación. Es decir, aun si hubiera visto el correo a tiempo, no habría tenido forma de resolver el problema.

Cuando llegó el momento del embarque, la operadora de bordo nos informó que no podíamos abordar debido a un supuesto problema con mi cuenta bancaria. Inmediatamente me comuniqué con mi banco, el cual confirmó que no existía ningún problema con mi tarjeta ni con la transacción, y que del lado del banco todo estaba en orden. Esto demuestra que VIVA atribuyó falsamente la responsabilidad al banco, cuando en realidad el problema se originó en la propia compañía aérea.

Como consecuencia exclusiva de esta falla por parte de VIVA, se nos impidió abordar, perdiendo el valor pagado inicialmente y viéndonos obligados a comprar una nueva reserva para el día siguiente, lo que además generó la pérdida de las actividades y reservaciones que ya teníamos programadas en nuestro destino. Hasta la fecha, no hemos recibido el reembolso de los 5 boletos cancelados, lo que agrava aún más el perjuicio sufrido.

Para completar, cuando finalmente logramos viajar al día siguiente y llegamos al destino, hablamos con un operador de VIVA en el aeropuerto, quien nos informó que este tipo de problema es frecuente en esta aerolínea. Es decir, se trata de una situación habitual, conocida internamente, y que lamentablemente nos causó un enorme trastorno, gastos adicionales y pérdida de tiempo.

La experiencia más horrible, la primera y última vez que viajo, ya que abrieron mi maleta y me robaron mis oertencias de valor y nunca se quisieron hacer responsables, lo peor que puedes hacer es volar con ellos y aparte de todo salen con retraso los vuelos

we was early in the book in line , 2 couples travelling , first couple went straight through, second couple were told the plane is full, the flight was around 1pm to Mexico city, we had a connecting flight to Heathrow at 9pm, viva offered the 2nd couple a 10pm flight , which obviously meant missing the Heathrow flight, this was explained to the incompetent staff, they just shrugged their shoulders and suggested trying another airline, the couple managed to get tickets on another airline with no help whatsoever from viva staff, this cost over £500, since returning home viva have refused any compensation , there should be a world wide governing body overseeing thieving airline companies who overbooked their planes , they should lose their licence.
the tickets were booked in march , we were early in the check in queue , we think its because they never paid extra for suitcases, so the tickets were sold to someone else who did.

This is my reservation at FIVLJH. The Viva Aerobus people can't find it.
Check your calls to +15618089850.
I can't change my flight.
What should I do? Go to the American Embassy.
Who do I report the #vivaaerobus agents to?
This isn't how you treat people.
Alessio Sundas
I'm asking journalists for help.

La peor aerolínea con la que he viajado en mi vida. Los vuelos nunca salen a tiempo y tienen una desorganización general con la que es muy difícil de lidiar.
Cuando reservé pedí asistencia de silla de ruedas para mi padre, que tiene una discapacidad y se le dificulta caminar. Al pedir asistencia no se puede hacer check in online, y cuando llegamos al aeropuerto lo hicieron hacer una fila de 30 minutos (un señor mayor con un bastón y una visible discapacidad) y luego le dijeron que no había sillas y que tenía que caminar igual, a la respuesta de que NO PODÍA CAMINAR, la maleducada del mostrador le dijo que tendría que caminar igual. No tienen respeto ni por la gente con discapacidad, unos maleducados irrespetuosos.

Pésimo dejaron mis maletas abajo del avión pésimo servicio pésima atención de los trabajadores, como le pueden arruinar un viaje a una persona. Uno paga maleta asiento para evitar estos percances y ni así te libras, 0 recomendada, ahórrense corajes.