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A no-show nightmare

July 25, 2006

Q: Last year I bought a ticket on American Airlines to visit my mother in Panama. Several weeks before I was supposed to leave, she fell ill and I asked my travel agent to put me on an earlier flight.

My agent came up with the following solution: I would buy a new one-way ticket to Panama and use the return portion of the old ticket to get back to Miami.

I paid $278 for a one-way ticket and flew to Panama. Thank goodness my mother made a full recovery.

When I tried to check in for my return flight, however, American Airlines told me that, since I had not used the first portion of the ticket, my return ticket was invalid. They wanted $800 to get me back to Miami. I went online and bought a new roundtrip ticket for $551, with the idea that I would just use one half of the ticket.

So here’s my problem: I’m trying to get credit for the first ticket that I booked through my agency, and American won’t let me. They say that I was a “no show” and that the ticket was canceled. My agent says I should be able to use the ticket with a $100 change fee.

Can you help me?

–Dante Viggiano, Miami

A: Your travel agent got a little creative when she booked your flight. Maybe a little bit too creative.

An airline will cancel your ticket if you don’t show up for the first leg of a flight and, apparently, American was never notified that you had a family emergency and intended to use the return portion of your ticket.

Using only one half of your ticket (because it’s cheaper than buying a one-way ticket) is a favorite trick of frequent travelers. But technically, it’s a violation of the terms of your ticket, which is why air carriers take such a hard line on “no shows.” Simply put: The practice costs them money.

From the airline’s point of view, it also doesn’t make any sense to hold your reservation on a return flight if you didn’t show up for your outbound flight. Why should a plane fly with what is likely to be an empty seat?

I don’t think the ticket terms make a lot of sense, from a traveler’s point of view. I mean, how can you force anyone to use the entire portion of your ticket? What if your plans change, as yours did?

When I asked American to look into your case, I was relieved to learn that its conditions are somewhat flexible. Which is to say, if you or your travel agent had notified the airline that you had a family emergency and that you intended to use only the return portion of your ticket, it could have made an exception.

An American representative contacted you and apologized for the misunderstanding. You’ve been issued a voucher for the full amount of the unused ticket.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

8 comments

  • David

    My daughter had a return AA flight LHR-LAX-PSP. Before her return flight departure from California we were in Los Angeles and it would have been convenient to join the flight at LAX. Despite a load of phone calls to AA they would not permit her to do so, meaning that we had to drive back to Palm Springs in the morning so that she could get on the afternoon flight back to LAX for onwards travel to LHR.
    That has to be the height of stupidity. Flights from PSP to LAX are often oversold and I even offered to fax AA with approal for them to resell the ‘vacant’ seat. No dice. They kept quoting the “contract” thing.
    And I don’t agree with your hypothesis of “why should an airline fly with a vacant seat?” It doesn’t matter! It has been paid for already. It wouldn’t matter if 50 passengers didn’t show up as long as they paid for the seat already. In fact it might even be to the airline’s advantage as they could quite possibly resell some of those seats and be on double revenue.
    Keep up the good work

  • Jeff

    David, you are SOOOO right! My horror story as follows:
    I had booked a flight IND-LAX-OKC-IND. Well, my client in OKC cancelled our meeting, leaving me with no reason to go to OKC. I asked AA, at a bunch of levels, if it would be ok for me to stay in DFW after returning from LAX and then catch my flight to IND. Obviously, I didn’t want to fly back and forth to OKC from DFW. Well, needless to say, AA said no and made me fly the DFW-OKC R/T. The OKC-DFW segment was oversold and they left customers in OKC. Even though I told them I wanted no refund or credit, I still had to fly those 2 segments. Just another indication of the geniuses running our airlines!

  • Chris in Alaska

    Chris, why did you make AA issue this person a refund? As you said in your reply, these rules are spelled out in the airline’s contract of carriage and are fairly well-known (at least I knew of this particular rule). If anything, it’s the travel agent’s fault, and the agent should cough up any amount required to get a seat. It’s certainly not AA’s fault.

    I’m all for righting injustices and seeing airlines have good customer service, but when you entice an airline to give away vouchers or money for stuff that isn’t their fault, you’re just playing the system.

  • Beth

    Chris, I enjoy your newsletter, but enough is enough
    Many times I have wanted to write you regarding problems people have encountered.

    I am a travel agent, a good one, and have been for 35 years, while making a salary lower then a school teacher, and expected to know the whole world, and every question relating to it.

    Since I have a work ethic background, I stay late after we close to finish a clients booking, at no extra pay, I research a lot on my own time, and I am certainly NOT doing it for tips.

    Unlike a hotel concierge, I don’t get them, even though as a courtesy, I make clients restaurant reservations, spa appointments, suggest sightseeing activities, museums to visit, etc.

    When there is a hurricane brewing in the Caribbean I stay connected to my office, so if American calls, which they do quite often, at midnight on Saturday to tell me they are closing San Juan on Sunday, do I wish them to rebook my clients as protection on Monday or Tuesday, I can do this.

    When I had clients stranded all over the world after President Bush grounded all planes in and out of the USA on 9/11, I stayed at the office for 4 days till 2am in the morning, working to get my clients back, even begging other airlines to accept another carriers tickets or to put them in first class to bring them home at no extra cost.

    My clients who were waiting in long lines at airline counters, could not even get the airlines on the phone or get up to the ticket counters, but they got me.

    Yet, time and time again, I hear car rental companies when they oversold on cars at turnback time, blame the fact on travel agents, hotels that are oversold, blame the travel agents, airlines that don’t have a seat assignment, blame the travel agent.

    Yes, at age 60 I am finally getting defenisve about this. I have been doing this for over 35 years and I double check and triple check, which a lot of agents do NOT do in this day and age.

    Every single client we have arriving at a hotel around the world, we email 2 days before directly to the hotel, reconfirming their arrival, any special requests, honeymoon, Anniversary, bedding, pillows, etc.

    And I have over 7000 thank you letters in my office.
    Yet I still still hear airlines, car companies, hotels, whenever there is a problem on their end, blame the travel agent.

    Sometimes clients lie, and say, oh my travel agent told me this, when it never was said. You don’t know what type of travel agent this man to Panama went through.

    People call the online companies like Expedia, travel agents, they are NOT the same as my travel agency.

    We get a cry for help from a client, we follow it through, sometimes begging the airlines, since the old days of having a special agents desk at the airline or service reps that we could call are pretty well phased out, along with service and meals on the airplane.

    Sometimes our clients insist on doing something dicey, like short connection times. I am beginning to make passengers sign a waiver when they insist on doing certain things!

    Not all travel agents are like me, so some may mistakes, but it burns me up to hear as a matter of course, it is the travel agents fault.

    There are two sides to every story.

    IT also upsets me, that you get results when we try many times on behalf of the client, if they encounter a situation, such as the client and Panama. The airlines won’t do anything.

    Yet you contact them, and all of a sudden they do.
    IT is your background in the MEDIA.

    Think about it, many of your clients claims are valid, and if they were really doing their job correctly, the traveler should NOT have to contact you in the first place!

    So before you or your readers use the phrase “blame the travel agent” think twice about really checking out the facts to the utmost!

    I know a lot of agents my age that are very good, and we have always gone the extra mile.
    Not because we get paid extra, we don’t, but because that is our work ethic.

  • Jennifer

    Right on Beth! I’ve been a travel agent for years and I’ve worked for the airlines, small agencys and currently for a very large well known travel leader and the story is always the same blame the travel agent! When I was working for the airlines travel agents were 80 % of the airlines business (9yrs ago) we were told. It’s funny because when airlines paid commisions to agents, I don’t recall hearing so many complaints? Now they are at their peak and growing. Reticketing could have been anything, what did this traveler do with his coupons, did he he use them out of order if so did the travel agent know he would do that? Did he book his original ticket with the travel agent? Travel agents are fined they could lose their plates to issue airline tickets if they were to book back to back tickets! There are way too many senarios that could have happened here that could have caused this. I know well over 500 travel agents who strive for excellence even in this very low paying industry. And Beth I’m sure you know that its’ all in who you know and how much business you give certain venders to have problems resolved so I wouldn’t take Chris’s results personally. Not saying he doesn’t do a great job either but these days it depends where the travel agent works and who they represent as a client and how much money they generate for the the venders and what they already have in place in their contracts to have problems over turned. A small corner agency (if there are any left) wouldn’t have the resources or the contacts to get results even if they did what they were supposed to and the airline duped the passenger. They’d have to eat the ticket for the client and refund the money if they wanted to keep them as a customer.

  • Ronda

    okay, I applaud Beth for being such a good ethical travel agent. But I must disagree with you when you say that Mr. Elliot automatically blames the travel agent. I have read maybe 3 articles written by him blaming the travel agent, (by travel agent I mean real life took courses travel agent and not the online ones) . He also mostly gets problems when someone is dealing on they’re own or with an online agency. You’ll notice that there are very few issues from people who are working with a real live agent, thats because a majority of you guys are ethical people who sincerely care about your client enjoying they’re trip more then hte commission. And unfortunatly the few that he gets are from the agents that care more about the check then the client.

  • Sophie Lallemand

    I have the same problem and don’t know what to do : I thought that as long as I was paying for the entire trip, I could use outbound and/or inbound flight(s), when you pay a menu in restaurant, they don’t cancel your dessert in you don’t finish your starter?
    I feel really stupid! It’s my first trip out of Europe and I just wanted to be sure I would not be alone in the plane so I pay a bit more to have the same return ticket as my friend, even if I was just going to use half of it …

    Today, I just checked with AA that paying the return ticket, I could just use part of it. NO! If I don’t board on the NYC>Guate flight, my Guate>NYC will be cancelled!
    I am so upset I didn’t know! We’re stupid! But I don’t understand why they care?! If I pay for the whole trip, why do they care that I use just a part of it?

    * I asked if I could change the name to sell it, no.
    * Can I just cancel the NYC>Guatemala part? No
    * Can I cancel this ticket and rebuy a Guate>NYC with the refund? No
    * Can I change it to a return ticket from Guate to NYC so I don’t mind if I don’t show up for the return? No

    The only option I have is to rebook (the price is double now) and I’ll get a voucher of the value of my flight less 150$… That I can use only on flight going from US… That means not usable for me.

    What I would like is that at least, they just accept my way back, cancelling the NYC>Guatemala, they could sell a seat to someone else! I don’t even ask for a refund or what, so I don’t understand why they don’t want…

    I am really stucked there, if someone has better knowledge of travel than me, please give me a shout!!

  • Sophie

    And if you miss your outbound flight?

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