Sunita Gupta’s husband makes a detour to the ER shortly before his Virgin Atlantic flight. She cancels their tickets but must pay an $850 ticket change fee to reschedule a future flight to a random date. What are the chances of a refund?
Question
My husband and I had tickets from Philadelphia to New Delhi on Virgin Atlantic this fall. We bought the tickets through CheapOair and paid $1,911. About 12 hours before the flight, my husband was admitted to the emergency room with severe stomach pains. Doctors diagnosed him with a small bowel obstruction and said he may need surgery the next morning. He had to stay in the hospital for another two days.
While my husband was in the emergency room, I called Virgin Atlantic to inform them we wouldn’t make the flight. A representative cut me off and directed me to call CheapOair. I called CheapOair, which gave me the choice of canceling and losing all the money or changing the reservation to a future date. I picked a date 2 1/2 months later, not knowing if my husband needed surgery or how long the recovery period would take.
CheapOair told me I had to pay $850 at that very moment and then take up the matter with Virgin Atlantic for a refund due to the medical emergency.
I have contacted both Virgin Atlantic and CheapOair verbally and by email. I’ve provided the hospital and physician reports to both of them. Both of them tell me that the other company has the money. I feel I am getting a runaround. Can you help me? — Sunita Gupta, Voorhees, N.J.
Answer
I’m so sorry to hear about your husband’s medical condition. In a situation like this, your airline and travel agent should work together to either rebook you on a future flight with little, if any, additional expense, or a full refund. No, they don’t have to, but it’s the right thing to do. (Related: Why is Virgin dragging its feet on my ticket refund?)
It doesn’t really matter who has the money. CheapOair, as your travel agent, should have tried to help you. I’m surprised that someone tried to charge you an $850 ticket change fee to reschedule your flight to a random date. Normally, when you make it clear that you have to cancel a flight for circumstances beyond your control, like an emergency hospitalization, an online agency will work with a special “waivers and favors” department to secure a compassionate refund. (Related: American Airlines charges sailor a fee for flight change.)
Who should pay the ticket change fee?
Bottom line: No one should force you to pay an extra $850 when your husband is in the ER. I’m certain that if CheapOair had fully understood your situation, it wouldn’t have charged a ticket change fee. (Related: Are airlines unjustly profiting from ticket change fees?)
You kept an excellent paper trail on your complaint. It shows your agent and airline shifting the blame on each other. First Virgin told you it couldn’t change your reservation and asked if you had travel insurance (you didn’t, but that would have been a great idea) and then CheapOair told you the change fees were nonrefundable. This is similar to another case in which Cheapoair brought one of our readers to tears.
In this situation, an appeal to someone higher up might have helped. I list the executives at CheapOair and Virgin Atlantic on my consumer advocacy site Elliott.org.
Problem solved? Kind of
My advocacy team and I checked with your online agency, and it turns out they had no intention of sticking you with $850 in change fees. (Here is our guide about airline credits.) CheapOair offered you either a full refund or use of your original ticket value plus the value of the change fees as a future credit, valid for one year. You went with the full refund and Virgin Atlantic charged you a less painful $400 cancellation fee.
