My daughter and niece wanted to come home for Christmas. Because of various schedule hassles we booked for the 17th of December, the week before. I put the two round trip tickets on my credit card and all was well...until the morning they were due to depart. They live about an hour and a half from Logan Airport and while it wasnt snowing at Logan, it was snowing everywhere around it.
Because of the snow, even though they left several hours early, it became clear that they just weren't going to make it to the airport in time.
The busses seemed to be on schedule so they had their ride leave them at the greyhound station and prepared to board a bus to the airport rather than try to drive. Because the bus was going to get them there closer to their flight time than the required two hours, my daughter called the airport to find out if it would be ok if they got there half an hour before their flight time without losing their seats. She was told no, and that she needed to call the airline. confused, she called the airline and stated her case.
They told her it was at the discretion of the airport and to call them. Please remember this is a woman and a young child, stranded at a bus stop in a blizzard, trying to get home and being given a serious runaround. She called back and was told again that she had to call the airline. She asked for a supervisor and was told there wasn't one available. Soooo she called the airline back again, explained the situation again, and was told that she would NOT be allowed to board the plane that close to her flight time.
She asked them if they could put her on the next available flight and they told her no, that the ONLY WAY she was going to get on a plane if she didnt arrive within two hours of her flight was if she reserved two more seats
She said to go ahead and do that, on the next available flight.
They wouldnt do it without a credit card. She explained that she already had tickets and would exchange them when she got to the airport. They told her that no, those tickets would not be honored, she would not be allowed on her flight or on any other flight and that the only way she was going to get onto a plane was to reserve two more seats with a credit card. Period. She asked for a supervisor and was told no, she could not speak to one.
She called me..this is at 4am, to get my credit card number to hold the seats. I told her to find out if they were going to charge the card, or honor her tickets she already had, since I know that is their policy....to put people on the next available flight.
She called them and they told her that they would only charge the card if the airport wouldn't honor her tickets. she clarified with them and they confirmed..they would use the credit card to hold the seats and would only charge it if the airport did not honor her existing tickets. They added in that they did not think the tickets would be honored and that the card would in fact have to be charged.
Because she was hysterical in the snow with an 8 year old, i told her to go ahead and just use the card and hope for the best.
When she got to the airport, half an hour before her original flight, she asked if she could still board that flight. They told her that yes she could! She then asked them about the tickets for the new flight she'd booked. They had no idea what she was talking about or why she would have bought new tickets, when their policy was to just put her on the next available flight!! They checked and the tickets had been purchased and paid for, so even though the airport was going to not only honor her original tickets and put her on her original flight, the additional tickets had been charged to my card.
They had charged her for two one way tickets from Logan to New Orleans, which should have been $91 a ticket. Instead they charged her $105 a ticket..calling the overcharge a "rebooking fee" even though they told her she had no choice but to buy new tickets and told her the new tickets would only be charged if the airport didn't honor her original ones.
So:
Tickets are purchased for flight A
Snow puts arrival for flight A on tenuous ground
Airline claims no information on what to do and redirects to airport.
Airport insists flight A is not going to be possible due to late arrival and seems to have no information about honoring original tickets or next available flights and redirects to airline.
Airline redirects to airport.
Airport redirects to airline, who insists new tickets must be purchased and original tickets will not be honored. and tells her if she wants to see her mother at Christmas she'll have to reserve two new tickets.
Airline changes story and says original tickets MIGHT be honored but new tickets should still be reserved
Airline assures us that the new purchase will only be completed should the original tickets not be honored.
Airport changes tune and says they will put her on her original flight, or honor her original tickets for the later flight.
Airline charges two new tickets anyway at an exorbitant price.
And then refuses to refund us for the two new tickets even though they admit they violated their own policy, because we did it over the phone and that implies agreement on our part.
After countless emails and phone calls I finally went to my bank and told them that those charges were not supposed to have been made. After 90 days they found in favor of the airline, who got to keep my $310 for two tickets we did not need that they told a hysterical woman stranded in a snowstorm that she HAD to buy if she wanted to get to see her mother for christmas.