Airline Problems

The Elliott Advocacy team mediates hundreds of cases between passengers and airlines every year. These are the tales of those troubled consumers who contact us with their airline problems.

Passport and ticket

A 20 percent credit for my American Airlines tickets? That’s insane!

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What if you cancel your American Airlines tickets and your travel agent hands you a voucher that only covers 20 percent of the cost of a new ticket?

That’s the strange situation in which Michelle Crespo found herself after her ticket credits booked through MilitaryFares.com during the pandemic suddenly got massively devalued. And she wants answers.

Crespo paid her travel agency $2,254 — but now, bizarrely, a representative has told her that her new voucher will only cover 20 percent of the cost of a new fare.

Is that fair?

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Aegean Airlines only sent one refund. Where is the other?

Aegean Airlines refunds one ticket but not the other. What’s going on here?

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Benn Karne and his wife, Marilyn, had tickets from Athens to Bologna, Italy, on May 14, 2020. Not that it did them much good. Like almost every other flight operating at the start of the pandemic, Aegean Airlines canceled it and eventually offered them a refund.

But then Aegean Airlines did something very odd: It refunded only one of the tickets.

Now the Karnes are trying to find out what went wrong with their second refund and how they can fix it. But their odyssey tells a much bigger story about the patently irresponsible behavior of airlines during the pandemic. You’re probably familiar with stories like this. The additional context will infuriate you.

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Will Frontier Airlines refund all these fees for this grieving passenger?

Can Frontier Airlines keep my nonrefundable fees after my sister died?

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When Christine Schaefer booked a nonrefundable roundtrip ticket from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach, Fla., on Frontier Airlines, she had every intention of being on that plane. After all, she was flying to South Florida to spend Christmas with her sister, Madeline.

Sadly, it didn’t happen. Just before the flight, Schaefer’s sister died.

Schaefer canceled her reservation and requested a refund from Hopper, her online travel agency. She also asked Frontier to return her fees for luggage and early boarding.

You’ll never guess who said yes and who refused. Then again, if you read this site frequently, maybe you can guess.

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Can Lufthansa really charge for this change?

Lufthansa can’t charge me $1,360 for this change! Can it?

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All Gabriele Stahl wanted was to modify her Lufthansa flight to Germany. And all the airline wanted from her was $1,360 — an unreasonable amount to fix the flight, she says.

But who’s right? Stahl’s case is a teachable moment about flight cancellations, airline logic, and the power of persistence.

Also, it’s a fun opportunity to extract a response from an airline that hates, hates, hates appearing in this column.

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Will United Airlines refund this voucher?

Will United Airlines refund your voucher if it stops flying from your hometown?

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Here’s a flight cancellation dilemma for the ages. It comes to us by way of Debbra Brouillette, who postponed her recent flight on United Airlines from Evansville, Ind., to Fort Myers, Fla. But before she could reschedule her trip, the airline discontinued service to her hometown.

Should you get your money back when an airline stops serving your city? Brouillette thinks so. But United Airlines refused her refund request.

So who is right?

I’ll have the correct answer in just a moment.

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Singapore Airlines owes this passenger a refund. So where is it?

Singapore Airlines owes me a refund. How do I get it?

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Singapore Airlines promises Rebecca Engelmann a refund for the flights she canceled during the pandemic. She decides to file a credit card dispute. Then things get complicated. Is there a way out?

Question

My family and I canceled our airline tickets last year because of COVID-19. Singapore Airlines promised to refund the tickets but said it would take 16 weeks. I filed a credit card dispute with Citibank.

Citibank issued a temporary credit for the tickets. A month later Singapore Airlines refunded one of the five tickets. But then, in October, Citibank closed the claim and charged us again for all the tickets.

Our credit card company said Singapore Airlines initiated a chargeback in September, and we lost the claim. Singapore said they “allowed the chargeback back” for the other four tickets in summer and therefore they won’t refund the money again, but the credit card company said it’s Singapore Airlines who we need to deal with. Can you help us? — Rebecca Engelmann, White Plains, NY

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