Northwest Airlines
 

This is a story of my son trying to come home for Thanksgiving



He is a college student in Michigan and was coming home for the Thanksgiving holiday. He had a flight from Grand Rapids, Mi to Minneapolis on 11/25 arriving at about 8:30PM. He then had a connecting flight to Eau Claire, WI to end the day. He paid for this ticket himself and made the reservations way back in July to be sure of a seat.

He became violently ill while on the first flight and as a result, missed the second leg as he could not fly. The next morning he felt better and was driven to Eau Claire. When checking on the return flights he was told that as a result of missing the second leg his reservation was cancelled!! But the ever gracious Northwest said he could reconfirm for $150! I do not see why they would care if he was on the plane – he paid for the ticket in advance and was physically unable to make the flight.

Supervisor Wayne Taylor graciously gave me the “just following the rules” speech when I know he could have made and exception for a sick and poor college kid! His Thanksgiving spirit was in full bloom. This could have been a moment to give some good publicity to an airline that routinely has issues with customer satisfaction. Instead, they continue the policy of alienating the flying public.

The reservation computer automatically cancels a ticket if a leg is missed. It is systematic. The airline, upon notification before the next flight should be able to accommodate your son. In other words, let the airline know that the passenger is sick before the next flight departs and they ought to be able to hold the ticket for the at least the next day. The agent has no authorization to reopen a canceled ticket and rebook additional flight segments especially if the original fares are sold out. Sometimes, however, if the same fare is open, then the airline might be able to rebook it. I am sorry to hear about this. I think many of the rules are ridiculous but they are there for a good reason. People would take advantage of the system otherwise.

It sounds like Wayne Taylor was actually cutting you a break since it was well within NW's rules to not only charge the $150 fee to re-instate the return portion of the trip but also charge you the difference in fare to re-book the return at the going fares for a new O/W ticket. Unfortunately illness during travel happens. Had your son become ill after traveling the entire outbound trip would you expect to be able to change the return portion of the ticket without any fee whatsoever?

How utterly compasionate!

How so? I have re-scheduled trips for many reasons including personal illness and other factors which were completely out of my control and no fault of the airlines. I was aware of and agreed to the fees involved with changing the tickets when I purchased them.

Is it unfortunate when "stuff happens?" No doubt. Do I expect special treatment when situations arise that I can't fly as scheduled and have to pay a fee to re-schedule? Absolutely not.

Bottom lne, why do YOU feel that your son's situation is any different from the thousands of people who miss flights every day and have to pay a fee and sometimes additional fare to get where they want or need to go? My suggestion to you is next time spend more for a ticket with no change fees, fly Southwest which doesn't assess a change fee but will re-fare the ticket and possibly charge more anyway, or go Greyhound. AFAIK they don't charge a fee to change a bus ticket.

How so? well, I am a 1,000,000 miler on Northwest and Delta - I have had similar occasions and have never been charged a fee - the reservation was intact - missing a leg did not change the return - I am well aware of the regulations - I am also well aware of the latitude that supervisors have - I maintain that there could have been other considerations taken - rules are in place to keep order - common sense is still a factor in the decision making process - I can appricate your clinging to the "that's the rules" mantra but unless you could prove that each and every rule is applied the same in each and every instance by every airline employee every day the bucket dosen't hold water.

If, as you say, you are a 1 milion miler on Northwest and Delta (is that one million miles on each or a cobined one million miles on both?) then you certainly are contradictory:

Perhaps fees have been waived for YOU based on YOUR status, but we are talking about your son here. Unless you are traveling with him you should know that YOUR status does not transfer to HIS ticket.*

As a million-miler you should be well aware that missing one segment in an itinerary causes the remaning segments to be cancelled. Your son's itinerary was GRR-MSP-EAU outbound and EAU-MSP-GRR return. Let's say an unscrupulous person discovered that the total fare for a GRR-EAU round-trip was less than that of a GRR-MSP ticket and decided to buy the ticket to Eau Claire but just walk away in Minneapolis and call Northwest and say "I became too ill to fly the second leg, could you just drop the MSP-EAU part of the ticket..." If such a person was able to do so without paying any additional fees/fare they have just "beat the system" and robbed the airline of revenue.

Please don't take this the wrong way. I am not saying you tried this, I am just pointing out why these rules exist and that arbitrary enforcement allows persons like the one in my example to get away with fraud.

You are well aware of the regulations yet you still feel the rules shouldn't apply to you or your son because of the "unique situation" here. Your situation is far from unique. People become ill all the time. Be it before their travel even begins, during, or when they have reached their destination if changes have to be made as a result of the illness one should expect to pay any fees applicable to the fare purchased.

Were you also aware that for a few dollars travel insurance could have been purchased to protect you from paying these fees? Of course you would probably have to provide medical documatation of the illness. By the time you add up the cost of the insurance plus the visit to the doctor in order to get the change fee re-imbursed by the insurance company it would probably have been nearly the $150 you paid to have the itinerary re-instated.

Arline agents and even supervisors have less and less and sometimes no latitude when it comes to the application of fees and collection of additional fare. Some airline's systems will not even allow a ticket to be re-issued unless the fee and/or additional fare has been collected. Front line employees are micro-managed to the point of recording every phone conversation and keystroke. Can you blame an employee for enforcing the rules when not doing so could mean disciplinary action against them?

Sure common sense should be factor in any decision making process, but the higher-ups at the airlines have factored that out of the equation.

*Had you parted with some of your "millions of miles" for your son to travel on an award ticket, you probably could have avoided this whole mess. Are you aware that your status WOULD transfer to your son's ticket due to the fact that the miles for that ticket were from the account of a frequent traveler with status? Often, fees for changes to award tickets are waived, especially if the origin and destination of the ticket remains the same. Since a domestic round-trip is the same number of miles regardless if it's from Los Angeles to New York or Grand Rapids to Eau Claire missing the connecting flight was certainly not an indication of any attempt to circumvent the fare structure.