Question: I would like to request your help in resolving an issue with AirTran Airways. I recently flew from Atlanta to Savannah, Ga. When my return flight was canceled for mechanical reasons, a station supervisor offered me two options. I could either spend the night at a hotel, at AirTran’s expense, and then fly out the next afternoon, or I could rent a car and drive myself to Atlanta, again at AirTran’s expense.
I had a morning business meeting the following day, so I chose the second option. The following day I mailed my receipts for $124 to the station supervisor by certified mail. I also called the number on his card and left several messages. For two weeks I received no response from him or from AirTran. Then a credit for $39 — the cost of the return flight — showed up on my American Express card.
Every time I get through to someone at AirTran, I’m asked to fax the same information back to the airline. This has happened time and again. The station supervisor never returns the messages I leave. It’s been almost two months since I rented the car, and I am extremely disappointed. This is not what AirTran and I agreed on.
Any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
– Daniel Richards, Alpharetta, Ga.
Answer: If AirTran offered you a reimbursement for your rental car, it should pay it quickly. But the airline seems to be confused about what it should have refunded you, and that might be why it hesitated to pay your $124 rental bill.
Strictly speaking, AirTran’s responsibility was to get you from Savannah back to Atlanta. If AirTran reimbursed you for your rental car, thereby providing alternate transportation to Atlanta, the airline would have been entitled to keep the $39 you paid for that portion of the trip. But it didn’t. It refunded the fare. That suggests to me that someone at AirTran issued the wrong refund. Once your unused return ticket was credited back to your American Express card, the airline apparently considered its obligation to you to be settled. And it was, in a contractual sense. You can read the rule in the airline’s contract of carriage on the AirTran Web site (scroll down to Section K, part 2).
But the station manager you spoke with made an off-the-book agreement with you to cover the cost of alternate transportation. Here’s the thing about these kinds of deals. It’s commendable when a supervisor agrees to go above and beyond what’s required to offer good customer service. But talk, as they say, is cheap.
You should have asked the supervisor to put his offer in writing. That would have made it much more difficult for the airline to deny your reimbursement. Gate supervisors typically do not handle refunds – that’s a whole separate accounting and service department — so you may have sent your paperwork to the wrong person.
Generally, the fastest way to get a ticket refund or other reimbursement is to send a brief, polite e-mail to the airline describing your agreement and documenting your expenses. Airlines respond to e-mails twice as quickly as they do to letters, on average.
I contacted AirTran on your behalf, and it expedited a refund check to you.
✓ Get the latest travel news, tips and commentary from Elliott’s E-Mail, the subversive newsletter from industry gadfly Christopher Elliott. You’ll travel like a pro. Sign up here. It’s free.
Sign up for my 
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Chris –
I would like to make one speculative observation about this situation.
You mention a gate supervisor typically doesn’t have the authority to make an agreement that isn’t part of the airline’s rules. I didn’t know that, but since your info has always accorded with my own experiences, I take it for granted that’s the case.
Given that’s the case, then I’m not at all sure a court would give any more credence to a commitment made in writing by a person not authorized to commit to such an obligation than it would to, say, a voice recording of the same agreement made verbally. After all, if the person making a spoken promise isn’t authorized to do so, he also isn’t authorized to make the exact same promise in writing, is he?
I ran into a parallel situation here in Thailand, where relevant laws are rather similar to those in the U.S. While my experience wasn’t related to travel, it centered on precisely the same sort of situation as with a gate supervisor.
A now-defunct travel magazine had taken the text and photo of an article I had written and for which I had taken the picture, then used them in the magazine without even *notifying* me — never mind asking permission (which I would have happily granted). They didn’t even give credit to me as the source of the article and picture.
I made an appointment with the senior person here and went to see him. I wasn’t interested in compensation, but in establishing a working relationship whereby he could use my stuff (crediting me) at will in exchange for a few lines of text in an advertisement each week. I offered the alternative of three months’ advertising (also a few lines of text) as compensation for having used my materials should he not be interested in entering into a formal relationship.
He said he was glad of my offer, and, desperate for material, he happily agreed to the offer to use my material. I asked him to send me an e-mail formally accepting the offer with all the appropriate details, which he did in under 24 hours.
The magazine was one of several focusing on cities in different countries in this part of the world, all privately held by a Filipino based in Manila, which figures into the story.
After about two months with none of my stuff being used and no ad for my website appearing in the magazine, I called the editor with whom I had spoken. He was clearly uncomfortable, and he was evasive.
Determined to get to the bottom of the story, I went to his office, unannounced. He was extremely apologetic, and said his boss in Manila had dismissed the arrangement because the guy’s entire international operation was in severe financial straits and he was thinking about declaring bankruptcy, or simply closing up shop.
I e-mailed the owner, and offered use of my material with no compensation at all, not even an ad (which does, after all, cost money to print); I also included his editor’s e-mail accepting my earlier offer.
For my trouble, all I got was an abusive reply that basically said the editor had not authority to commit to any arrangement involving advertising — the same as a gate manager can’t enter into out-of-rules one — and challenging me to take it to court.
I was, of course, quite startled. And incensed. Though I had no intention to pursue the matter — good move on my part, since the operation indeed *did* fold within a few weeks — I did call my attorney here in Bangkok.
I focused on the e-mail I had received from the editor here, but my attorney told me there was no wriggle room: if the company’s internal rules didn’t allow him to enter into such an agreement, even a written commitment carried no weight. He added that would hold even were the agreement written by hand in the presence of witnesses, signed by those witnesses as well as by the editor, and even if the entire affair was witnessed by a notary public then signed and stamped by him.
Because of that experience, I would guess — while emphasizing I’m NOT an attorney and this is NOT the U.S. — the airline might well have a bullet-proof case not to go outside its own rules.
But, given the unpredictable nature of our legal system (I’m American) . . . who knows??? :-)
The question is whether it was reasonable for the passenger to believe that the offer was made within the authority of the employee. So for example, if the cleaning lady offers to comp your week at a resort, you’re SOL. The question is “is it reasonable to think a gate agent can make such a commitment?” Whether or not the agent is actually so empowered is not relevant.