Threatening my airline
I recently had a victory over my airline. That's right: I threatened my airline with switching to another and came out ahead.
Recently, I flew to Europe for a vacation with my family on Air Canada on tickets that cost about $5,000. Unfortunately, we were forced to return early due to a death in the family. Naturally, no flights were available on Air Canada, so we were forced to take Virgin Atlantic. The Virgin Atlantic flight beat the pants off any other trans-Atlantic flight I've ever taken, by the way.
Anyway, after a few hours on the phone with Air Canada, I got the news: they insisted that I would simply have to forfeit my return tickets, amounting to $2,500 in value. They had a long song-and-dance about how I had somehow agreed to all this when I bought the tickets.
Let me tell you, I was pretty steamed. I fly to Europe a lot and have given Air Canada a lot of money. I feel that it amounts to actual fraud to have a refund policy that is so restricted as to ensure that no siginificant refund ever actually occurs. So I'm sitting on the phone with these people thinking, What can I do about this? Answer: I threatened to Churn. I asked to speak to a supervisor and told them that I had thoroughly enjoyed my Virgin Atlantic flight and I'd be taking all my business to VA unless they could give me some satisfaction.
To my amazement, Air Canada caved. Completely. They simply refunded the full value of my return tickets, amounting to almost $2,500. I was astonished. I don't know if it was the mention of possibly switching or use of the word fraud, but they suddenly caved in and did the right thing.
Sometimes it is right to get cheesed off and pull out a threat.
Link: Churn
Recently, I flew to Europe for a vacation with my family on Air Canada on tickets that cost about $5,000. Unfortunately, we were forced to return early due to a death in the family. Naturally, no flights were available on Air Canada, so we were forced to take Virgin Atlantic. The Virgin Atlantic flight beat the pants off any other trans-Atlantic flight I've ever taken, by the way.
Anyway, after a few hours on the phone with Air Canada, I got the news: they insisted that I would simply have to forfeit my return tickets, amounting to $2,500 in value. They had a long song-and-dance about how I had somehow agreed to all this when I bought the tickets.
Let me tell you, I was pretty steamed. I fly to Europe a lot and have given Air Canada a lot of money. I feel that it amounts to actual fraud to have a refund policy that is so restricted as to ensure that no siginificant refund ever actually occurs. So I'm sitting on the phone with these people thinking, What can I do about this? Answer: I threatened to Churn. I asked to speak to a supervisor and told them that I had thoroughly enjoyed my Virgin Atlantic flight and I'd be taking all my business to VA unless they could give me some satisfaction.
To my amazement, Air Canada caved. Completely. They simply refunded the full value of my return tickets, amounting to almost $2,500. I was astonished. I don't know if it was the mention of possibly switching or use of the word fraud, but they suddenly caved in and did the right thing.
Sometimes it is right to get cheesed off and pull out a threat.
Link: Churn
posted by jerry at 12:05 AM
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