What do you do if your airline cancels your trip, not the flight just you, inadvertently? And it took so long, an hour to resolve the issue that you miss your flight? They did reroute you to a nearby airport to arrive roughly at the same time. So you got there in time but not happy at all.
You get over it. Not uncommon, and typically there is no reimbursement, at least in the US. In Europe you have more recourse. If you got to your target near the same time in the past day or two given the weather tangle on the east coast (which can affect flights nationwide due to plane placement), you are lucky. You could complain to customer if you have a confirm # and they “cancelled” it, you might get a voucher. But I wouldn’t count on it.
No weather issue. The trip was a week ago. I do have a confirm # and they did “cancel” it. The counter agent explained that when my D flew back home, for some reason they made it one way although she got confirmation email for a round trip and also the check-in reminder email for her return trip. There was no way knowing that her trip was cancelled until she got to the airport. Why would they send a checkin reminder for a trip they cancelled. It’s oxymoron. Why would it take an hour to resolve the issue at the airport? The counter agent was on hold on the phone for an hour!
Well, you can call customer service at the airline. You can ask for a voucher in compensation. They may or may not give it to you. Have the confirm info for the original round trip when you call.
Not sure what I’d do with a voucher. My new definition of heaven is a place where American Airlines is banned.
I am in NoVA with almost 3 feet of snow and am scheduled to fly to Sarasota on Wednesday morning. It will be ugly if they cancel me! 
@Iglooo, you can send them an e-mail. Attach the info. you have to confirm the situation. If she had to pay to get from the new city to original destination, include that. I suggest being matter of fact and not nasty, at least in first message. If you have an idea what you’d like, include that (maybe a voucher to cover trip back home?) Good luck. Let us know what happens.
Post a polite, succinct message on their Facebook page. It will get the attention of their social media group.
The counter agent suggested I call and complain. So I did. I called and they said I had to send an email not call. I dutifully followed. I sent an email about a week ago. Only got an auto-reply so far. Auto-reply said if I sent another email it will be automatically deleted to reduce “clutter”. That fuels my resentment. Not sure what I want other than obvious reimbursements.
To post it on Facebook, how short should it be?
A sentence at most about your disappointment at the cancelled flight and problematic customer service. They will respond to take it to a private conversation and off their page. They will ask for details. Or they should. If not, then wait a few days and post again that you are more disappointed at the lack of response.
With all due respect, you sound like what they call a “kettle” -someone who doesn’t fly a lot and who gets a lot more bothered and upset by cancellations than people who are more experienced and take them in stride.
If you got re-routed and got to your destination at approximately the same time, you don’t really have much to complain about or much recourse. And there’s nothing to reimburse you for. They screwed up - and then they fixed it.
What reimbursement do you think you are owed?
I mean, I might pull frequent flyer status and try to get a voucher out of it, but if you’re not a bigwig to the airline, honestly, they’re not going to do much especially because they solved the problem and you got to your destination on time.
I had success with another airline by leaving a message on their twitter page
If you get anything. It would be a voucher. Are you expecting cold hard cash? Good luck on that one.
Again, you’re going to have a really hard time if they got her to her original destination at roughly the same time. It’s going to be hard arguing that she is due anything. Paging @gmtplus7
although she got confirmation email for a round trip and also the check-in reminder email for her return trip. There was no way knowing that her trip was cancelled until she got to the airport. Why would they send a checkin reminder for a trip they cancelled. "
Did she actually check in using the check-in reminder link? Did she have an e-boarding pass on hand? Or are you saying she just received the reminder, but didn’t actually check in til at the airport?
^I wondered this, also. @Igloo, truly I’m not blaming the victim - your D. The airlines may well have totally messed up, and no matter what the circumstances, these disruptions are frustrating at the absolute best. But I did wonder if D checked-in on-line; this is generally available 24 hours before a flight and can be done with or without checked baggage. A few times, we’ve been unable to do the on-line check-in and we know that is a signal to get to the airport early as there is some kind of problem. Was D at the airport timely - or maybe a bit late to check in for a full plane?
I have heard of people having very good luck getting the airline’s attention with Twitter or Facebook as suggested above.
I try to check my reservations frequently and check-in on-line as soon as I can. Following this habit, I learned that Air Berlin had changed their flight days into ORD and rescheduled me for a return a day later than I had booked. If I hadn’t been checking the reservation, I wouldn’t have known until I got the check-in reminder a day or so before my flights and I’d have really had to scramble.
She tried to check in using the reminder email. It gave her an error message and said to go to the ticket counter. It happens not infrequently and she didn’t think too much about it. She had to go the counter to check in a bag anyway. Usually, it’s a simple glitch that gets resolved without much delay. She was at the airport in time, she was talking to the agent at 5:30 am. Her flight was for 6:45am.
I don’t know why people expect anyone should take this in a stride and not get upset. You bought a ticket and you did everything at your end as you are supposed to. You should expected to be served as promised. If anything goes wrong, they should apologize and reimburse you if there’s an expense due to the change. I don’t believe I should be slighted, Novice traveler making an insignificant complaint? That’s absurd.
Don’t they send you an email noting the change? I respond to the change email but I don’t check the reservation randomly. If they change without notifying you, in my book you have every right to get upset.
My children, and my husband and I fly frequently. We always check the flight status, at least two hours before going to the airport. We pack light just in case.
My dd recently went on a business trip with a work group.
They had a man in their group who was checking their cab/van appointment at 3am, and he decided to confirm the flight status out of DC to LA and SD, and found out that the flight had been canceled. He called several of the group and they all packed immediately and got on their cell phones checking other options. Several of the group had to reroute through 2 airports. Two people hired a van to drive anyone to Baltimore. My dd was lucky; she got to the airport and rerouted on another airline through Cleveland. Everything was full.
The company reimbursed my dd and the rest of the group for the added costs of the new trip. The airlines did nothing until her corporate business people submitted receipts from other airlines for a group of 10 and threatened to cancel their airline cards.
If your dd arrived at her destination, at the same time and day, the airlines won’t compensate you. They may give you a discount voucher, but she didn’t have to pay additional costs on another airline, or did she?
Additional expense was not huge, about $100. But it’s not too much to expect a courteous apology, is it? Call me clueless but I expected a phone call from American Airlines apologizing about the incident and offering to reimburse me expediently. To get to her original destination, she had to take a shuttle from the airport she was rerouted to. I had also paid for preferred seats in the original flight. She carries a musical instrument and needs to board early. I am a bit shocked to see how willing people are to “forgive” unnecessary mistakes.