Without even considering the unrelated refund, etc. this passenger received, she presumably found everything other than the bed arrangement satisfactory, and did get to take her cruise.

And she wanted a *full refund*???

That’s akin to this. Were I to have a confirmed first- or business-class ticket and a confirmed aisle seat — I don’t care for middle or window seats — then got aboard only to discover through overbooking (or for whatever reason) I was about to be downgraded one class, I wouldn’t exactly be thrilled, true. BUT let’s also a friend of mine had bought two adjoining seats only to have the other person fail to show up, so he offered me the other seat (in my originally booked class).

Now I demand a full refund — even after the airline promised to reimburse me some portion of my ticket and granted me a credit of some sort on a future flight. I would be being quite unreasonable.

In other words, I f,eel this complaint borders on bogus, as far as the cruise line’s role is concerned. (The travel agent may be a different matter, true, but that’s well-addressed already in the article.)

My purpose in writing this comment isn’t to pick a fight with the passenger, but to point out that no, the customer — passenger, in this instance — *isn’t* always right. And when a passenger with a dubious claim is accommodated, that (1.) makes travel more expensive for everyone *else* and (2.) gives people within the industry yet one more reason to be wary of their clientele — and, therefore, wary of us *all.*

I’ve had exactly one major hiccup traveling. Nearly 20 years ago, I was living in Macau and took a flight Hong Kong-Dallas.Fort Worth International-Hong Kong, departing Hong Kong before Chinese New Year then returning after, with a stopover in Los Angeles each direction. On the return flight, almost as soon as we departed LAX we blew an engine and were forced to return to LAX. Of course, practically every Asian person in the Western Hemisphere was on the move, and flights were packed. My airline made a heroic effort to get me out — but it wasn’t until SIX DAYS later they succeeded.

This was not their fault. One major factor was that I had a dirt-cheap economy ticket. A second was, as I said, that the flights were solidly booked. A third was that because I had flexibility, within limits, on my date I had to be back to work, I stayed flexible with the airlines, giving way to other passengers on tighter timetables (meaning I was at least partly responsible for having to twiddle my thumbs in Los Angeles for nearly a week).

The airline not only put me up in a hotel, but in a beautiful boutique one. I didn’t have a room — I had a suite, complete with sitting room, kitchenette, a very nice rest room, and an extremely comfortable bedroom. The suite was even generously appointed with high-quality imitation art objects.

The airline also gave me a voucher each day for $35 for food and drink in the hotel restaurant, coffee shop, and bar.

I happened to become friendly with one of the check-in clerks, and after two or three days, I was chatting with him when I idly asked him how much my suite would cost me on a walk-in basis. My jaw hit the floor when he told me the heart-stopping amount of $1,200. That’s not a typo: One thousand, two hundred dollars per *might.* Seeing my shocked reaction, he hastily added my airline had a deep discount, so was paying “only” $550 per night.

As I said, it took until the sixth day for me to get on a flight back to Hong Kong, and that flight left in the evening, so my airline had to pay for six full days at the hotel, i.e., $3,300 for the suite plus $210 in voucers, for a total of $3,510.

My round-trip ticket had set me back only right at $800. In other words, my airline paid nearly 4-1/2 times my ticket cost — paid it JUST for my accommodation. Plus, of course, the cost of hauling me across the Pacific and back (and to and fro between Texas and the West Coast).

Which brings me back to this case. No, I wasn’t complaining. I was just darned glad we made it back safely. (The return was very iffy, and it was not at all clear we would make the airport until our tires were on the tarmac, but that’s another story.)

But once I learned how much it was setting my airline back to house me during The Long Wait, I reflected on the expense to which it was going to accommodate me, and the fact that it somehow had to recover that expense. I have no idea if the airline had insurance that reimbursed it for putting me up and feeding me — but even if it did, it was paying an insurance premium, another cost to be recovered.

All associated costs with taking care of me and the other passengers — most were delayed at least one day, though I think I was the only one to sit for six — had to be recovered somehow.

And that’s built into ticket prices, running the costs up for everyone else.

As did this passenger’s case.

If I feel my airline went much further than necessary — which I did, and do, though I appreciate it to this day — then I for *sure* feel this lady has been well and truly compensated above and beyond any reasonable expectation. And, to repeat myself, 100% reimbursement is, simply, a ridiculous, over-the-top demand.