Re the reimbursement for unused ticket - I have unused tickets on occasion for various reasons. The fare class that you purchased on the original ticket will determine the amount (if any) of reimbursement you are entitled to. The fare class and rules regarding reimbursement (as well upgradability option, FF miles calculation, ticket change options, etc which are also determined by fare class) may not be obvious when you purchase a ticket. I have had cases when I have received the full value of a return ticket which I’ve had to cancel and other times when I wasn’t paying attention as I booked and my fare class entitled me only to a refund of the tax on the unused ticket.
Agree with others - you got him home! Without elite status, airline rules make for a lot of frustration and still no good resolution. Good you did it yourself under terms you set.
This may have already been suggested, but in these situations, when there’s a long line of passengers needing assistance, I get in line but also call the airline. I think I’ve always gotten thru on the phone first.
I missed a flight in February due to horrid Lisbon customs—we were supposed to stay in Sevilla, Spain, but because we missed, the airline gave us vouchers for snacks/meals in the airport, a hotel room, as well as meals at restaurants, and a rebooked flight the next day.
Last Thursday my 7:15 pm flight got cancelled (GSO). United automatically rebooked me on the same flight Friday evening. That wasn’t going to work for me so I looked up other United flights and at a different airport (RDU) and called United directly. United got me booked on a 9:15 pm flight that Thursday with no extra fees, but at a different airport than the original departure. Eventually that flight was delayed three times and didn’t take off until 12:30 am.
My 81 year old mom had her 3 pm flight canceled last Thursday. She was connecting through Philadelphia to Cleveland. American wanted her to fly to Charlotte and connect to Cleveland. The first flight wasn’t until 7:30 and she wouldn’t get to Cleveland until 1am Friday.
My D lives in the area and we were trying to figure out how mom could get her bags off the plane so D could pick her up and drive her to Cleveland (D was driving to a family function so taking grandma was fine) thankfully when mom went to the agent again they got her on a direct flight leaving at 9:50 pm Thursday.
My mom can’t get around very well so asked for assistance. They dumped her off in a terminal that wasn’t open at that time (opened later that evening as I guess it was near the international flight, I am unsure of this). So my not very mobile mother sat from 4pm to 9:30 in a near empty terminal with one option for prepackaged food.
Wow, I guess we really lucked out when our flight was canceled due to weather last week. Were flying United from Cleveland to Portland Maine with a stop in Newark. As soon as we checked in in Cleveland, The agent told us that our flight was significantly delayed due to weather and that we would miss our connection in Newark. I asked what our options were, and she rescheduled us on flights the next day, gave us meal vouchers for 3 meals, and booked us into 2 free rooms (we were flying back from our son’s graduation) at the Sheraton at the airport.
I normally dislike United, but the free food and free hotel rooms were great.
I think the lesson is that you need to self-advocate and, especially if lacking elite FF status, it helps to be reasonably apprised of possible options to suggest to the airlines.
I hate domestic travel. Although an elite flyer on an Asian carrier, I avoid domestic airline travel whenever possible. Of course, that is not always possible. My last experience of a 3 hour delay (undoubtedly known to the airline in advance but not announced until 30 minutes before scheduled take-off) was much less of an inconvenience than many of the stories here!
Stinks, has happened a couple times to me. But, one of the things I have learned in my years of business travel is while waiting in line at the airport to rebook is to call the Airline to try to rebook and get online and try to rebook. Both those ways are usually faster than waiting in line. I usually find something before I reach the counter. Call the airline as soon as you find your flight is cancelled.
I was on a spring break trip with nine 18yo young ladies returning to Boston from the Bahamas. It was a connecting flight and we got stuck in Charlotte for two days due to a blizzard that shut down Logan. What kills me is the FA’s let everyone traveling to Boston know the connecting flight was cancelled after the doors were closed plane and pulled away from the gate. I would have not gotten on the plane in the Bahamas if I knew I would not get home for another 2 days. hmmmm Charlotte or Bahamas? But they just wanted to move as many people out of the Bahamas as possible before all Northeast airports were shut down. Not fun.
When our AA flight was cancelled, HNL to LAX, we were given the option of travel vouchers or at our request round trip cab fare back to our home & back to airport. We took the latter (H prefers sleeping in our bed over Waikiki hotel room).
Had to talk with customer service about why we should be flying out the following day rather than several days later. Eventually, they did find us two seats for next day flight.
Oh, we live in Boston, D goes to college near LA. Actually the airport in Ontario CA is just a few miles from her school. But, there are no nonstop flights. So we have had her fly in and out of LAX. I tried flying into the Ontario airport 2X to try it out. First time was a charm. Second time, I got delayed at DFW, and actually would not have even landed at DFW because it was shut down due to a fire, but we had a medical emergency on board. But, just being able to land was not helpful, none of the other planes were landing and were being diverted. Meant my connecting flight was 3 hours late. So much to think about when flying.
MamOM, ya, I use to book to LA too. Sometimes , when flying Jet Blue, Long Beach airport. the fee for a driver was more, but the airport smaller. Going thru DFW was a headache. Burbank was better for other routes
Since we are sharing stories about missed/canceled flights, S21 had a whopper recently. S21 went on a high school trip to Vietnam over spring break. They were flying Air China (made me cringe a little) with a connection in Beijing both ways. I noticed on the return, they only had an hour and 15 mins between flights which I thought was tight. Their group and about 7-8 others missed the flight by minutes after being delayed in customs. Their connecting flight, however, was still sitting at the gate but the doors were closed and would not allow them to board. And it sat there for a long time (hours) as planes ended up being grounded due to some sort of political dignitary who was in town. It killed them to see their flight there and no way to get on. I’ll spare the sordid details but it was at least 24 hours from when they left Vietnam before the airline put them up in a fleabag hotel after spending at least 12hrs in airport trying to rebook.
They ended up having to split the group in two, but the earliest flight that had seats was 3 days later and not enough for all of them so they split in two, with half flying home three days late and the other half the following day. S21 was in the second group - they were supposed to get home Sunday but he got back Thursday - missed an entire week of school. On top of that half the group, including S21, got food poisoning while in Beijing. He had it coming out both ends all night long, had to leave for airport at 5:45am and was still puking in taxi on way to airport. Thankfully by the time they boarded, he felt better. However, the group that left first had it hit them in flight!! I can’t even imagine. At least S21was in a hotel room and not on a 14hr flight when he got sick.
On the bright side, since the tour group screwed up by booking a tight connection, they were moved to a really nice hotel and the tour organizer paid for them to do a tour of the Great Wall of China while they were stuck in Beijing. When I picked S21up at the airport, he proclaimed he was never leaving the country again ? Then to top it off, a severe thunderstorm hit as we left the airport, in rush hour, so it took us three hours to get home (normally about an hour and 15mins). He slept nearly 24 hrs after getting home.