A client of mine was supposed to travel on US Airways today but suffered a medical setback a few days and ago and was ordered by his doctor not to travel.
I had booked him a non-refundable revenue ticket on US Airways and called the airline this evening to see what could be done about his ticket. The first agent, though kind, was not the least bit sympathetic. She quickly cut me off and told me there was absolutely nothing she could do and that I needed to write US Airways Customers Relations with medical documentation and they would examine the case and make a decision on how to proceed. Again, she wasn’t rude or nasty, just disinterested. I thanked her, hung up, and called again.
The second call, I got a friendly agent with a deep Southern drawl who listened to my story, quickly cancelled the ticket, and added a note on the reservation that she had waved the change fee. She told me that when I was ready to rebook, I could simply call US Airways, cite the record locator number, and I would have the full value of the ticket to be applied toward a new purchase.
Both calls took less than five minutes and were handled by agents that spoke very authoritatively. But based on the divergent outcomes, only one must have been right. All’s well that ends well, but it would be nice to have received a consistent answer, one way or the other. Maybe if I call back a third time I can get a refund on the ticket…
My experience, after working for a large travel agency for a while, is that most domestic carriers can and will waive change fees for medical emergencies for the passenger or their immediate family (parents, siblings, children and spouse), but the agents have the authority to decide what constitutes an emergency. They are also very strict about the family members being immediate, grandparents/grandchildren, aunts/uncles, cousins, etc. aren’t considered immediate from the airlines perspective. There have been a few instances where some agents, like the one you first got connected to, don’t know the policy, or maybe its a spoken courtesy, and are too lazy to investigate it (shocking, right? haha).
Maybe it’s an American thing (country, not the airline) that we’re so poor in being consistent? I haven’t had repeated experiences with the same foreign airline, so this is purely speculation. I watched a show in Australia (similar to Southwest’s “Airline”) where they seemed to follow the written policies to the letter, and I thought at the time how consistent they were. Just a thought… and my generalization certainly doesn’t hold up in other industries.
I would suspect the person who told you know was the one following policy.
I don’t no about that, Andrew. 😉
The person making the decision usually has more leeway than they may be will ingto admit. They dynamics of the interaction may have more to do with it than anything else. So it probably pays to call back, as you did, to get a better outcome.
Sort of reminds me of a friend of mine who drove a very hot Camaro very fast back in the day and never got a single ticket. Seems she looked really good in hot pants….