Travel Troubleshooter: A missed connection to Hawaii
On her way from Dallas, Texas, to Kauai, Marlene Kelley lands in Phoenix, Arizona, to find that her connecting flight to Hawaii has already left. But no one notified her about the schedule change, and now she and her husband are sent to Los Angeles to catch another flight to the islands. What do her airline and travel agent owe her for the runaround -- specifically for the night she had to spend at an LAX hotel? Marlene Kelley, Lake Kiowa, Texas the extra night at the hotel at LAX, the missed night in Hawaii and your incidentals. But you could have easily prevented this from happening by phoning your airline and agency to confirm your flight. Flight schedules can change, and the systems used to notify passengers are unreliable. In your particular case, you were dealing with an airline that had just completed a merger with America West and was going through an ordeal in trying to merge its computer reservations systems. The news reports should have prompted you to make a precautionary call just to be sure your flight was still running on schedule. It is highly unusual for an airline to reschedule your flights without trying to rebook a missing connection, and at the very least informing your travel agent about the change. Something obviously went terribly wrong. When you found out about the flight schedule change in Phoenix, you should have spoken with a supervisor, who could have authorized a hotel voucher and given you permission to buy incidentals, such as toothpaste and shampoo, at US Airways' expense. Although a connection problem such as this one isn't specifically addressed in the airline's contract of carriage -- the legal agreement between you and the airline -- it's clear that the airline was responsible for creating this situation, and should have covered your costs. You shouldn't have paid for a hotel and assumed that either US Airways or Cheaptickets.com would pay for it. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Travel companies go to considerable lengths to make sure that requests like yours are met with a polite but firm "no" -- no matter how legitimate. (Although I think US Airways' answer that you "got what you deserved" might need some work.) I contacted both your agency and airline on your behalf. After months of stonewalling you, US Airways agreed to send you $500 worth of flight coupons and Cheaptickets.com issued two $200 vouchers, which more than covers your expenses. |
