They are just horrible and I just make a claim with the better business bureau. I don’t even want their stupid voucher at this point.

Needless to say I made one call to Southwest Airlines and they hooked me up! I freaking love those people. I’m voting with my $$$ and spending it on an airlines that doesn’t screw the people that are nice and help them out.

I book a lot of travel for my company and US Air just made our “do not book” list. Thanks guys!

Passenger Bill of Rights have to be legislated into law to put the screws to these bastards.

Regards, Robert L.

The gate agent told me that my voucher was good for any round-trip flight in the continental US and that I had to complete travel within one year. It wasn’t until I had booked a flight for the same trip the following Christmas that had a returning flight one week after the voucher’s one-year deadline was up that I discovered that I only had to begin travel within a year, contrary to what the gate agent had told me. This information was not available anywhere except from a Northwest agent I talked to on the phone and happened to mention my voucher dilemma to.

Then, I ran into the lack of voucher seats problem. For airports within 350 miles of where I was, the earliest open voucher seat was one day after my voucher expired. I wrote two letters to Northwest’s customer service address (which has a non-toll-free phone number with a phone menu that never leads to either a human being or a voicemail box, but continually promises that it will before eventually looping back to the main menu). The first one got a response the content of which translates directly to “we did not read your letter.”

The second one I sent, explaining in yet clearer language what had gone wrong (which far exceeds the scope of this comment, but in short did involve at one point being scheduled for a flight that left over 3 hours before my inbound flight landed, and took me to the wrong state altogether, after my original flight was stricken from the airline’s route database just two months before the actual flight) never did receive a reply from Northwest.

Since then, I have refused to take bumps and have refused any voucher for anything that includes language of the form “if you accept this voucher, you give up any claim you have against us arising from your botched flight.” I would rather waste my time in small claims court where I stand a chance of getting some value for my overpriced ticket than with an airline’s customer service and worthless vouchers where the chances of getting anything are much closer to zero.

(Note that my introduction to Mr. Elliott’s travel advice and troubleshooting expertise arose from my attempting to find some help in remedying this exact voucher issue. In retrospect, I should have taken the advice he e-mailed back to me and saved myself the two stamps I bought to write Northwest’s customer service office.)

When dealing with US Airways or ANY airline one needs to expand Caveat Emptor to “I’m about to be screwed I just don’t know how” then work backwards from that assumption. You will NEVER be surprised that way. Expect the best, prepare for the worst.

Just as an FYI the vouchers are good for either a R/T ticket domestic flight on US (No code share partners) OR a $200 flight credit. This is good for the customer.

The problem is that unless you’re persistant, you may not find this out from front line staff as US Airways can’t effectively communicate with it’s own employees much less customers.

As an even further Caveat I’m hearing rumors that in the future or currently the vouchers will become even more worthless as they will be “Zone Based” So if you’re flight was say from PHL to BUF that would be Zone 1 so your voucher would only be good for Zone 1, plus all other restrictions. Zone 1 might entail the the NE part of the US.

Despite being a 7 year top elite traveler with US Airways I have been unable to verify this or get any clear indications as to particulars.

Your remedies as a consumer are folks like Chris. The DOT and your States Attorney General. You can interact with ANY or all of these avenues via the web. Also sending your compliant to your local newspaper can be helpful. Unless of course you live in the middle of nowhere.

With your States Attorney General you can easliy file a consumer compliant alledging fraud as the terms of the tranaction were not fully explained. It’s not going beyond a phone call from the AG to your carrier, but who do you think carries more weight you or the states AG Office? get the picture? If you use them the complaint becomes a matter of public record which may be important as others press for redress.

It’s YOUR MONEY and you need to remind the arrogant Airlines of that fact from time to time. It helps keep them semi honest.