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Help, my honeymoon flight’s been canceled!

July 15, 2010

Question: About a month ago, I took advantage of a Travelocity e-mail fare alert for a flight from Minneapolis to Costa Rica. The deal seemed too good to be true: $230 roundtrip on US Airways.

I booked the flight for my September honeymoon and then went to a Web site and bid on our accommodations, which I also booked.

A few days ago, US Airways notified me that it had dropped a connecting flight to Costa Rica, and that our only option was a full refund.

I checked the ticket prices to Costa Rica and found that they had tripled. I felt like I was a victim of a bait-and-switch.

I called US Airways, which offered to fly us to Costa Rica a day after we were supposed to leave. But it would involve an overnight stay in Charlotte, which the airline was unwilling to pay for.

I understand that airlines have flight schedule changes, but I also feel that it is their choice and that if they choose to do so, they should be responsible for the consequences. Is there anything you can do? — Doug Miller, Shorewood, Minn.

Answer: US Airways shouldn’t have canceled your flight. But if it did, it should have offered an alternative flight that suited your schedule, rather than leaving you high and dry for the most important vacation of your life.


Did the carrier and its online travel agent, Travelocity, engage in a bait-and-switch? I can see how you would think so. But flight schedules change constantly, and your rights are outlined under US Airways’ contract of carriage, the legal agreement between you and the airline.

Section 8.2 of the contract describes your rights in the event US Airways is unable to accommodate you. Basically, you have the right to a refund, or a flight of the airline’s choosing — but nothing more.

While Travelocity and US Airways did all of this by the book, I can understand why you would be disappointed. I mean, it’s your honeymoon.

About your reservations … you booked a too-good-to-be-true special and bid on your accommodations for your honeymoon. Don’t you think that’s a little risky? I always recommend working with a qualified travel agent who specializes in honeymoons, because you don’t want anything to go wrong on this vacation. This is no time to cut corners.

But let’s take the honeymoon out of the equation, and just assume it was a late summer vacation. Between US Airways, with its “customer commitment” and Travelocity, with its “guarantee,” I just think this could have been handled better.

A brief, politely written appeal to US Airways would have been my first choice to get this resolved. Phoning the airline probably wasn’t the most effective way to fix this. I’m surprised Travelocity just passed along the airline’s decision without trying to do more, but in the end I think this was a case for US Airways to resolve.

I contacted the airline on your behalf, and it offered you a $75 voucher to cover your hotel bill during your layover in Charlotte.

(Photo: Caribb/Flickr Creative Commons)

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.

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25 comments

  • http://www.gottogovacationrentals.com Tom

    I can hardly express how angry I would be if I were in Their shoes. Having your honeymoon plans being shoot to hell by a canceled flight probably wasn’t in Their plans. However I assume they will work it out in the end. I was disappointed to hear that neither US Air nor Travelocity did much to assist a customer that had booked their services. I guess it just falls into the broad category of life’s lessons where you live and learn. Good luck the them both in their marriage and in resolving the honeymoon issue.

  • Bill

    I hope this situation is resolved, but I wouldn’t hold out a lot of hope. They gave a refund and lots of notice – which is what one would reasonbly expect.

  • Elisa

    With something is as special as a honeymoon surely it was worth having travel insurance?

  • SirWired

    I don’t think that a travel agent would have made a lick of difference here when it came to the schedule change. The travel agent would have spotted the great deal just as the OP did. Now, the travel agent may have been slightly more useful in figuring out Plan B, but Plan A still would have gone awry.

  • Maureen

    As a travel agent I would have advised my clients to ask to have their tickets endorsed over to another airline that could accommodate their needs. Another reason to us a travel agent and not a computer.

  • Carver

    I certainly feel sorry for Doug that his flight got cancelled, but in fairness to the airline, it shouldn’t have to act as the insurer for his honeymoon. The airline gave him plenty of notice so that he could make alternative arrangements.

    I assume that his hotel reservations are non-refundable. If so, the real story is that you should be very wary about booking non-refundable rooms. The $75 voucher was a great gesture.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    @ Tom – “However I assume they will work it out in the end. I was disappointed to hear that neither US Air nor Travelocity did much to assist a customer that had booked their services.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
    Travelocity was\is the travel agent for this transaction. Travelocity should have contacted US and work something out like paying for the hotel room in CLT…that is what you expect from a traditional brick & mortar travel agent.

    I don’t know when Mr. Miller is going to Costa Rica in September but I don’t understand why he needs to stay a night in CLT. Unless the US website is wrong, they can take several flights with their first flight being MSP to CLT or MSP to PHX that won’t require an overnight stay. If he was leaving on the weekend, there flights that didn’t require an overnight stay:

    Departing from MSP on 9/4
    Flight 1059 7:00 AM MSP 10:30 AM CLT
    Flight 1707 11:28 AM CLT 1:35 PM SJO

    Flight 939 7:35 AM MSP 9:03 AM PHX
    Flight 356 12:08 PM PHX 6:30 PM SJO

    Departing from MSP on 9/11; 9/12; 9/18; 9/19; 9/25; 9/26
    Flight # 909 7:00 AM MSP 10:38 AM CLT
    Flight # 1707 11:20 AM CLT 1:30 PM SJO

    Yes, it is a short connection of 42 minutes but is listed on their website.

    @ Chris – “US Airways shouldn’t have canceled your flight.”
    - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – - – -
    September 4th is the last day that US Airways is having direct flights between PHX and SJO. It is my guess that the route wasn’t profitable for US so they decided to stop flying that route. A person in PHX can fly through CLT on US metal to SJO or fly to LAX on US metal then do a US code share on metal operated by UA.

    It is my guess that Mr. Miller was scheduled to fly on flights # 939 and # 356. Instead of flying him to LAX and putting him on the US code-share flight on metal operated by UA (where the fare is $ 500 to $ 800 for PHX-LAX-SJO versus $ 274 PHX-CLT-SJO for that flight segment), they decided to offer a refund.

    I am disappointed that US is dropping the direct flights between PHX and SJO but the market can’t support it. LH used to have direct flights between PHX and FRA but they pulled out since the PHX market couldn’t support these flights. Outside of its flights to various Mexico cities from PHX, I don’t think that US Airways will add any international flights to Asia or Europe from PHX in the next 10 years.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    “About your reservations … you booked a too-good-to-be-true special and bid on your accommodations for your honeymoon. Don’t you think that’s a little risky? I always recommend working with a qualified travel agent who specializes in honeymoons, because you don’t want anything to go wrong on this vacation. This is no time to cut corners”
    - – - – - – - — – - – - –
    This is good advice. A travel agent will probably recommend flying Delta…they could leave at 5:20 AM in MSP and be in SJO at 11:50 AM and be out by the pool by 3:00 PM. Also, they could take flights from CO and AA that won’t require an overnight stay. Yes, these flights will cost more but who want to spend your vacation or honeymoon waiting at a hotel airport, waiting for flights at the airport or spending time in-flight on several connections.

  • Arizona Road Warrior

    How about travel insurance? What if flights are cancelled due to weather. it will still be hurricane season. It is rare that a hurricane will strike Costa Rica but Hurricane Cesár came ashore on July 27, 1996. Also, it is rare that CLT is hit by hurricanes…only Hurricane Hugo is the only recorded Hurricane to hit Charlotte. However, CLT do get the remnants from the hurricanes usually (storms with rain) which could affect air travel.

  • Monica

    I don’t think the reason for the trip has anything to do with the decisions that needed to be made. The bottom line is they booked a flight and the airline changed the flight schedule. They were given ample warning to make alternative plans. Personally, I would have liked to have seen Travelocity try to find them an alternative route close to their original schedule, even if it’s on a different airline. It is reasonable to assume that the customer still wanted to reach their destination.

  • Hannah

    This happened to us but not with a hundred dollar flight but thousands. Our honeymoon was to South Africa and after having tickets for 5 months we received notification that one of our legs was canceled so we could receive a full refund or nothing. Through a lot of tears we manned up and bought new flights that were a lot more expensive. I absolutely hate this policy and do not see the difference between canceling it months in advance or the same day – just get me to my final destination!

  • http://ckbtvl@ma.rr.com Geoff

    This happens all of the time. Airlines cancel flight that produce a poor load factor. It may only be Sundays or Tuesdays, but why run a loser. They ARE supposed to protect the client. Just yesterday USair cancelled their PIT PHL flight. My clients call the office and we got USair to change the flights to Brithish. An experienced travel agent beats the online agencies every time. I’ve lost few battles with the airlines. 2 buy cancellation and interuption insurance, so they can change airlines under the clauses covering cancelled flights. For goodness sake, you have always said, when it comes to a vacation, use a specialist.

  • Shari

    Chris, I have to wonder if you have a travel agent in the family. The way you push them, it almost seems like it. And chastising the guy here… isn’t that a bit like kicking him when he’s down?

    I have to disagree with the necessity of a travel agent. A travel agent isn’t always perfect, nor would s/he have necessarily been able to do much in this situation. I’ve used agents in the past, and didn’t get much more out of it than when I’ve take a few moments to do some homework and book things myself. There have been times when I’ve talked to travel agents and then looked around myself, and I’ve been able to get myself better itineraries and better prices than what the agents came up with. Going alone requires some time, and not everyone may want to invest that. But agents aren’t a foolproof way of getting the best itinerary or the lowest price. They can’t stop flights from getting canceled.

    By the by, I booked my own honeymoon. It worked out perfectly.

  • Sean

    @Shari – I’m typically on board with the “don’t always need a TA” but in the case of a Honeymoon, I do agree you should employ one. Imagine this scenario that happened to a friend. He was scheduled to go to St. Thomas on his honeymoon, 3 days before the wedding, a hurricane formed and was heading in that direction. The day of his wedding, the hurricane hit St. Thomas. Now, the few days prior to your wedding, the last thing you want to have to be doing is trying to arrange new plans with all of the other items you’ve got to handle, so being able to place a call to a TA and having them find some alternatives and getting the arrangements changed, as what my friend was able to do, made the wedding much more enjoyable and relieved some stress.
    I usually don’t involve a TA, but there are some particular situations, which Chris has specified in the past, I agree they are necessary.

  • Steve

    First off, booking through a travel agent would not have resolved the primary problem: that US Airways ended up cancelling the flight they booked. A good travel agent might have been able to come up with better alternatives for them, but it wouldn’t change the root cause.

    Second, I don’t see where travel insurance fits in to this discussion. US Airways cancelled the flight and offered them a full refund. I don’t think any type of insurance would provide them with another flight at the original price they paid, now that prices have tripled…or am I wrong about that?

    Third, calling the original fare a “too-good-to-be-true special” is a bit misleading, as there’s no indication it was a fat-finger fare that was never meant to be published. Maybe I’m giving US Airways too much credit here, but I assume they didn’t cancel the flight because they realized they’d sold tickets too cheaply: they cancelled that route because it wasn’t profitable. I see no indication here that if this couple had booked their tickets for $500, the same thing wouldn’t have happened. Thus I think calling attention to the cheap fare is a bit of a red herring.

    Lastly, I’m confused by the resolution: does “a $75 voucher to cover the hotel bill” mean that US Airways is actually paying for the hotel, or does it mean that they offered a $75 voucher toward a future flight, which could be worth as little as $0 to these people? If it’s the former, I think it’s a reasonable resolution.

  • Jason

    If the flight was booked on travelocity.com, what happened to Travelocity Guarantee: “We look out for you all trip long with the best service guarantee in the industry. Everything about your booking will be right, or we’ll work with our partners to make it right, right away”?
    It probably would be good idea to book flight + hotel package on travelocity.com. It is common to get big discount on hotel booked with a flight. In my past experience, when I booked flight and hotel on travelocity, expedia or orbitz, savings sometimes are equal to a price of a plane ticket compare to booking separately.

  • Brian

    I hear Chris saying one should get a travel agent for a special trip, such as a honeymoon, but how does one go about finding a reputable travel agent to make such important travel arrangements?

  • Chicky

    Except that it was an international flight, I don’t necessarily think this should have involved a travel agent. It wasn’t a complicated itinerary, and involved only one airline.
    The good thing is that US Airways notified the OP pretty early on that the flight was canceled and offered a full refund, as well as the hotel voucher. O.K. Good enough. However, Travelocity completely dropped the ball, IMHO. They could have actually helped the couple reschedule a flight that worked for them. If they REALLY wanted to be the good guys, they could have issued a hotel voucher themselves, which would have cost them very little, but would have created a ton of goodwill. They might have written Chris saying, “You wouldn’t believe how great the Travelocity people were to us!” Or, they could have nudged US Airways for the voucher. In either scenario, Travelocity comes out looking like the hero on the white stallion, riding in to save the honeymoon.
    I’m just glad their honeymoon is still on schedule. Spending the night in Charlotte isn’t so bad, either. They get an extra day to get organized and get over the morning-after headaches in case they party a little hardy at the reception. I hear that flying with hangovers is no fun.

  • Joe Farrell

    Here is how I solve the problem . . .
    1. Sue. For breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing
    2. In discovery – I ask for their fall 2010 schedule planning documents.
    3. USAir then offers to rebook me on a flight of my choosing,

    I would argue that if an airline is considering cancelling a flight at a certain time of year they have an obligation to inform you that this route [any route] is presently under review for cancellation, termination or similar action so that you can make an intelligent market driven choice about buying a ticket.

    I can hear the howling from the airline scheduling rooms – but – at the end of the day – you know that they know they are planning on cancelling flights -and they could care less about the passengers they inconvenience . . .

  • Bill

    It has been said that the airfare was ‘too good to be true” and it turned out that it was.

    It is going to take more money to fix this, and that is going to be a lot more effective than complaining about it on a travel forum. “too good to be true”…what’s that really mean? Unrealistically cheap!

    You have time to get a discounted ticket, they gave you enough notice…

  • Mike P

    This is a tough one, and I think the bottom line is that regardlesss of how the flight was booked (via a bricks and mortar travel agency or an online agency) the flight was going to be cancelled and the end result was going to be disappointment. Unfortunately the airlines are continually are modifying their contracts of carriage to be more restrictive in what they have to offer in these cases, and due to the fact that they are still hemoarging money they are consistently going to choose the cheapest option that meets those requirements; in this case a refund of her ticket.

    Seeing their minimal response to Chris stepping in and the potential publicity that comes with that, it is clear US Air doesn’t care. If this is their response to Chris, I can only assume any travel agent online or otherwise would have been shut down on the spot. So unless Travelocity was willing to pay out a bunch of money to get her on another flight, she was still going to be unhappy with the result. I firmly believe in customer service but to expect Travelocity to pay for US Air’s cancellation isn’t fair either. Some how I doubt she is happy with a $75 voucher either.

    Want to blame someone for this? Blame the American consumer for constantly voting with their wallet and picking the cheapest ticket and feeding these price wars — rather than being willing to pay a bit more for service. I just wish someone would start a full service airline, I’ll be standing in line to pay more for it.

  • David Z

    I firmly believe in customer service but to expect Travelocity to pay for US Air’s cancellation isn’t fair either.

    Indeed:

    that is what you expect from a traditional brick & mortar travel agent.

    Of course, one could also argue it’s unfair the passenger “should” eat the cost of booking a higher fare. What then?

    Already a so-called dilemma exists: people expect to book trips as cheaply as possible, yet they expect the travel vendor to come through for them no matter what happens. Are we essentially expecting too much nowadays?

  • Mike

    OMG….. This exact situation happened to me a couple years ago. I booked a flight on Orbitz with US Airways going from STL to Athens, Greece connecting in Philly, PA. The price was decent but hardly too good to be true, and they basically cancelled the return connecting flight in Philly and put me and my family on another connecting flight which only gave us a connection time of about 40 mins on an international flight, which went against US Airways recommendations. I called and got someone who offered me a connection going to Chicago first then STL on a code sharing flight with United. I got all the information and told the person I would call back once I confirmed that would work for my family. When I called back I got routed to another call center and they refused to do what the other lady had offered. I then got the same song and dance and this lady, they said I could stay in Philly for the night which they would not pay for or take a refund (which would require me to book a flight with 2 connections boths ways and $300 more per person). After multiple calls I ended up having to pay for the hotel in Philly on the return. If you ask me US Airways is one of the shadiest airlines in the business I have traveled a lot and booked on 3rd party sites a lot and never had this problem before.

  • http://tims-boot.blogspot.com Tim

    I think the airline’s approach is inappropriate but put me down as another commentator recommending that travellers always take out insurance for overseas trips – especially time critical ones

  • Amber

    The op is probably flying into LIR, not SJO. The majority of the hotels are located near LIR which is a 2-3 hour drive from SJO. Very few people actually fly into SJO unless they own property in Costa Rica or are taking a cruise. Unfortunately because SJO is the capital it has about 3 times as many flights. I deal with cancelations to LIR on a daily basis and most of them result in the passengers having to overnight somewhere. Generally speaking the only airline that will pay for the overnight hotel is Continental.

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