[PurpleSwamper]

I can't believe a company would treat a customer so poorly...

I booked a flight online at Avianca.com to fly from NYC to South America. Although the website gave me a Reservation number it also popped up a somewhat confusing message about my credit card. So I called Avianca in Canada to confirm that the reservation was in place. They said the reservation was in place but they didn't have access to the credit card info. But since I had a reservation that I needn't worry. But I was worried because I'd received that message. So I called Avianca in NYC. They also confirmed the reservation and said that they were able to see the payment processing and that everything was OK. So based on their reassurance I booked a connecting flight with another airline.

On the day of travel, I drove from Canada to Buffalo NY, and flew to NYC. when I arrived in NYC Avianca refused to let me on the plane. They said they had cancelled my reservation. I had not been notified that the reservation was cancelled even though Aviance had my telephone number and email contact info when booking the flight. The reason they cancelled was due to a payment processing issue.

The ticketing agent called a supervisor. They insisted the only way I could get on the flight was to purchase a new ticket - at 3 times what I had paid for the reservation they'd cancelled. For the better part of an hour the ticket agent and supervisor argued over this. Finally 10 minutes before the flight left, the supervisor agreed to honor the original reservation. Then became a mad panic to get me on the flight. The ticket agent rushed to get the ticket ready but the Avianca gate staff refused to let me on.

The supervisor then suggested that if I made my own way to Ft Lauderdale within the next 4 hours that he *might* be able to get me on a later flight from there. I wasn't about to purchase a ticket from another airline for NYC/FLL on the speculation that he *might* be able to get me on the next flight.

Instead I bought a ticket from NYC to BUF and went back to Canada. All-in-all a stressful waste of a day. I called my friend in Colombia. That day he had already travelled to another city to meet me at the airport and had already booked into the hotel where we were to stay. He too booked out and went home.

I wrote to the executives at Avianca asking that they reimburse me for my wasted flight BUF/NYC and to compensate me with a free ticket to Colombia. But they simply denied any responsibility.

How dare they cancel my reservation and not even inform me!!!
.....Victor K. Elms