When should travel companies waive their change fees during bad weather? Survey says …

August 2008. Villas at Grand Cypress in Orlando. 4 Day reservation. Day we were supposed to arrive the Florida Guv issues a state of emergency for a Hurricane. It remained in the area for 2 of the 4 days. The warning included a request for tourists NOT to come to Orlando. The hotel REFUSED to either refund my deposit or to credit me the amount toward a rescheduled trip. I left them a negative review on TripAdvisor – but they did not seem to care. It was not worth the effort at the time to go nuclear to get $100 back since my son ended up in the hospital shortly thereafter and there was other more important issues to attend to.

So – do NOT go to the Villas at Grand Cypress – hurricane coming – and it actually came – not just a forecast- and the refused to credit me. When we can back to Orlando – we did not go there so they lost all of the business – not just the one day.

On September 25, 2004, I had reservations for 2 nights in Orlando. For those who are not Florida residents, that was the weekend that Hurricane Jeanne was making landfall in Florida.

The business meeting was cancelled and the hotel I was staying at was quite proactive. They had contacted me and strongly recommended that I cancel my trip. They would waive all cancellation fees if I choose to cancel. The airline was a different story. I had a flight into Orlando on Saturday morning and was to fly back on Monday. MCO airport was to be closed effective Saturday at 12PM due to the arriving storm. Much to my surprise, my 8AM flight was listed as on-time and scheduled to depart. I called US Airways, and much to my surprise, the agent and supervisor said that because my flight was not cancelled, there was nothing I could do. The best was that they would allow the flight to be moved within a 30 day window. What irked me, was that my schedule was fully booked for that time frame (and it included 2 flight reservations on US Airways).

I pleaded with the supervisor with the facts at the time. The airport was to be closed at 12PM that day, and that it was foolish for me to fly into MCO at 9AM. There was virtual certainty that my return flight would be impacted to no avail. Ultimately, I ate the cost of the ticket, but was a little more forgiving to US Airways than many readers here would be. BTW, I was Gold Preferred at that time too!

I wrote the above incident off as the cost of doing business rather than pitching a fit. After all, it was only one customer service breakdown when considering the numerous times that US Airways saved me (and yes, there are countless stories where US Airways bailed me out of tough situations). However, if you aren’t a frequent traveler, a situation like the one above may make you quite upset.

I have not flown on a Continental plane since September of 2005. I was in school in Florida and had to make a trip home to TX to visit family (family member was terminal with cancer). This was a Wednesday *before* Hurricane Rita was to hit (expected on Saturday). I arrived at MCO in plenty of time, 3 hours early. They were advising people to not travel to Houston (but not disallowing), which I heard and immediately went to speak with a ticket agent. I said, I am on this flight, with a connection in Houston, I know there is a flight (which had seats on it) that has a connection in Dallas instead of Houston, could I possibly get on that plane. Well, the lovely Continental employee said they could not help, the flight was leaving in an hour and at the time I am not certain what security measures were in place, since I could not purchase the ticket on-line (I tried that too). I even offered to pay a change fee, and said, here is the name of the hospice nurse if you need to call and verify my story. I am sure that agents hear about emergencies all the time, so I was trying to be realistic at this point. The agent tells me that since my connecting flight has not been cancelled yet (none of Continental’s flights were ever officially cancelled until at least an hour after departure) The employee says go ahead and go to Houston since my flight was early in the am and no flights had been cancelled yet (not that I had much of a choice due to family member) and I make it to Houston. I kept checking with the gate agents about the status of flights to my hometown out of Houston and the computers kept showing that they were all going out, none had been cancelled. Again, this is 3 days prior to when Rita is going to hit. I arrive in Houston, and he Houston airport was all but deserted. And apparantly all the flights to my hometown had been cancelled, it just was not being input into the computer system. While I was at MCO, 3 flights were to have left for my hometown. Before I even got on my plane. I would have made alternate arrangements or not gotten on the plane had I known flights were already cancelled. Also, family and friends were checking on-line for me as well.
I did end up making it to my home town, after flying to Dallas and then renting a car to drive an additional 5 hours home. No thanks to Continental. They had cancelled all outgoing flights to my hometown eventually (which was not in danger of getting hit by the hurricane), and would not put you on a plane that overshot your destination, i.e. if you were scheduled to go to Phoenix, they would not put you on a plane to LA, nor would they put you on another airline, since it was “weather” preventing them from flying. Southwest was flying out all day. Too bad I could not get to Hobby from HIC (now Bush). Continental said that due to “weather” they could not put you on another airline or do anything very helpful. Well, the “weather” they were speakinig about was actually a lack of employees. The weather outside was great, but the employees were evacuating instead of coming into work (I would think that an airline would have a contingency plan about this, since they can, oh yeah, fly). Around 5pm pilots of many planes refused to fly without a full plane because they saw many of us standing in lines waiting to see what 1 agent could do. I will say, other than this agent being completely inable to do anything, she maintained her patience. The agent tried to argue with the pilot, but the pilot basically said, you are stranding all these people, get them on planes out of here and we will figure it out. While standing in a line 100 people plus deep with one agent helping, many of us missed multiple flights out that were not full. I managed to get on a flight to Dallas around 8pm, but there were no more flights to my hometown that night out of DFW. Hence, the rental car. The next morning I go to the local airport to get a claim form for luggage and a clothing allowance, only to find that my luggage made it. How you ask, all the flights were cancelled. It appears that Continental flew multiple planes to my hometown the very evening they cancelled all of them in order to protect the planes from the hurricane. The planes were mostly empty, except for the luggage. Generally, except for Southwest, the other airlines fly the smaller planes to my hometown, so only like 50 people can even fit onto a plane at a time. I think all of the flights were cancelled and only those who were on the last flight that made it to the airport were on it. Therefore, I choose not to fly Continental ever again.
I did write in and was given the cost of my rental car as well as a full refund of my ticket (not a voucher) for my troubles. Just because they compensated me at the end of the trip does not excuse the behavior or inflexibility of multiple agents.

“The electrical storm knocked out my power and I couldn’t get my garage door open and I missed my flight? Is that a weather problem?”

Here’s where I would draw the line: once I make it to the airport or other point of departure, I shouldn’t have to pay extra for some airline’s weather-related inability to get me to a connection point. Airlines and hotels should cooperate in humane treatment of passengers who encounter bad weather en route. If they do that, guess what: the customers will come back!

Here’s what I think:

No one should expect a refund or special accommodation should the weather be bad but not prevent the trip from occurring. If your beach vacation is ruined because you get hit with the remnants of a tropical storm (but you’re able to arrive in town and stay at your hotel), sorry, but it’s nobody’s fault. This seems like it should be common sense, but to some people it isn’t.

Beyond that, I think that if you cannot physically make it to your destination, you deserve something but not necessarily a full refund. Depending on how you booked (nonrefundable rate, etc), it could be acceptable for the business to offer you credit towards a future stay.

hey – when it comes to airlines . . . . I repped a guy – had reservations the infamous year of the 4 hurricanes in one month in Florida – he was going to FLL. He tried in vain for 3hours – at the airport and after – to get USAir to allow him to change his flights – they refused. He took the hit – then – discovered that the actual flight he was on was diverted from FLL back to CLT and never actually operated to completion..

USAir actually sent an employee to argue in small claims court that since he was no-show he should forfeit his ticket even though they never operated the flight to completion and refunded literally EVERYONE who was on the flight – as well as paid them compensation. That was a laugher.