[mandlcifone]

My family was on vacation in North Carolina the week that Hurricane Irene was due to hit NC shore. We called the airline to change our flights so we would not put ourselves in harms way. Of course, we were told until the hurricane travel advisory was put up we would be charged $150 per ticket. We waited and waited. They had put up the advosiry for Florida 4 days in advance of the impending storm. Finally, we booked our flights because we were afraid we would not get out and we did get charged $450 for three changed tickets. We travelled on Thursday night and the storm began impacting there on Friday and the advisory was still not put up. Finally, it was put up on Friday and when it was we looked and the there were only one or two flights left to secure and the prices had mysteriously jumped higher. When I called and emailed about this asking for a refund - I was told because we purchased before the advisory there was no refund. So travelers that do them a favor and plan ahead to be out of harms way are penalized. US Airways clearly does not care about customer safety or security if they would rather have us stay in the area that is impacted by a major natural disaster than make an adjustment in a flight. I have written twice now and have not even gotten the decency of a response the second time.

[jimworcs]

I would try the DOT on ths one, but they are utterly outrageous... They will probably get away with it.

[DazedNadConfused]

Interesting policy they have - customers that wisely choose to mitigate crisis/disaster get nailed with fees.

In a normal business continuity plan one facet is to save money via crisis planning.

[mandlcifone]

I have to update my thread on my experience as I finally did get a resolution to my requests from US Airways. My second correspondence with them was reviewed and they said based on the information given and after checking the facts they felt we were correct in our assessment and were giving us a refund of the change fees which totalled $450. Sure enough, the refunds have come through. We are very appreciative that someone actually listened to our complaint and gave it serious consideration.

[jimworcs]

This is not as positive at it appears. Many airlines, particularly Delta and US Airways, but perhaps others have adopted a policy of attempting to keep money they are not entitled to by simply rejecting every first claim, regardless of whether it has merit or not. This is based on the simple assumption that many customers will not perservere and it is therefore cheaper.

This is cynical and bordering on the fraudulent and frankly outrageous. Only re-regulation of these cynical parasites will stop this abusive practice.