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Lost Ticket in Plane Crash
The Travel Troubleshooter · August 30, 2002

Q: I recently ordered a ticket through Travelocity from Atlanta to Bangkok on Korean Air and had the ticket sent by Federal Express.

The ticket never showed up. After several calls to Travelocity and Federal Express, I was told that the ticket had been destroyed in a plane crash. Travelocity didn't believe me at first, but they finally called Federal Express and confirmed that the tickets had been destroyed. That's when I started to get the runaround from Travelocity.

I stayed on hold with Travelocity for about an hour, and then was told to call back in a few days. I called later and asked to speak with a supervisor. The supervisor told me that Travelocity had submitted a lost ticket application, but that it won't be able to mail the ticket and that I would have to pick it up on the day of departure from the airport.

This really makes me angry. I need some assurance that I can get on the plane. If I miss the flight for some reason it will ruin my trip. I didn't pay that much money to have uncertainty. But the supervisor told me I had no other option.

I called her back today and learned that Travelocity hadn't submitted a lost ticket application yet. Now Travelocity won't even let me speak with a supervisor anymore, nor will anyone transfer me to customer relations.

What should I do? I'm afraid of not having a ticket and am considering buying another ticket and disputing the current ticket charge with my credit card company.

-- C. Scott Sheffield

A: I contacted the both Federal Express and Travelocity to find out what went wrong. A FedEx representative told me that your loss was highly unusual. "Our planes don't crash very often," says Shane O'Connor, a company spokesman, who noted that its delivery success rate is better than 99 percent. In the last five years, in fact, only two planes have been involved in accidents in which packages were destroyed, and neither resulted in a loss of life.

Travelocity proved a tougher nut to crack. I sent an e-mail to my contact and got no response. You'll appreciate the irony in this: apparently the note got lost. After a second e-mail, Travelocity set its wheels in motion and looked into your ticket. As I write this, the agency is sending you a new ticket in time for your departure.

Should you have bought another ticket? No. At worst, Korean Air could have issued you a new ticket for a $50 charge at the airport. If you had explained your situation, I'm confident the airline would have waived that fee. But buying a new ticket isn't worth the trouble. Travelocity probably would have fought the disputed charge, and unless your credit card runs an excellent dispute resolution department, it might have refused to take up your case.

Your concerns about not being allowed on the plane are understandable, but unfounded. We now have something called electronic tickets which allow you to travel without having to worry about carrying - or losing - a paper ticket. Some U.S. carriers have even gone so far as to charge you extra if you want a paper ticket.

Is a paper ticket "insurance" against being denied boarding? Absolutely not. E-ticket or paper ticket, it doesn't matter. If the flight is oversold and your number's up, your number's up. You'll get bumped off the flight. In other words, you're better off asking for an e-ticket and letting it ride. Your odds are about the same.

Christopher Elliott is National Geographic Traveler's ombudsman. The Travel Troubleshooter appears weekly on this site.