[Paul Coleman]

Booked a ticket for my wife and I to fly from Santiago Chile on Lan Chile to Saoi Paulo, Brazil with connecting flight to Cape Town on South African Air (SAA). Waited six hours in Brazil Terminal and were told could not board SAA flight to South Africa because we had no Yellow Fever Vaccination Certificate. No one at any time told us of this requirement. Lan Chile actually booked our bags all the way to Cape Town. SAA were less than helpful. Super visor would not help, just walked off after saying its the law of the country. Said he"d be back, did not return, before plane left I went back to boarding desk, the attendant said "You can fly. Just got to wait for a man from lan Chile to fill our forms. He came, led us away. Thinking we"re going to an office to fill forms and then retrun to plane we did. At the Brazilian immigration discovered that we had a twenty four pass to enter the country, but no flight to South Africa on SAA. The SAA attendant had blatantly lied and the plane and staff had gone.
Stuck in Brazil
That was only the beginning of our ordeal. Lan took responsibility, and told us that this had never happened before. I can well imagine. We were checked into a hotel and then spent all next day at airport trying to get SAA to fly us. Lan Chile advised us to go to a clinic to get a Yellow Fever shot. I've not had an injection for years and didn't like the idea, but we did not really have much choice - we were stuck in Brazil. Got the shot returned to aiport Lan Chile took us to SAA who were not at ll i nterested and just said, you have to wait ten days after the shot before you can fly.
40 Hour ordeal and back to the airport where we began the journey with Yellow Fever shot we did not want.
Lan Chile did not know what to do. Fortunately it was their baggage handlers who were taking care of us and they were very nice - they actually listened to what we had to say about being only in transit, not leaving airconditioned building, having no prior knowledge of needing shot etc. Supervisers were happy to leave this matter to the baggage handlers. I insisted on Lan Chile taking care of us for the ten day period - eventually they contacted Santiago. Santiago office said put them up for ten days in Brazilian Hotel. Everything seemed OK until they realised that we had no visa and only a 24 hour pass. Had to dash out of Sao Paulo on return flight to Santiago in case of being arrested by Immigration.

Got back to Santiago had to explain whole process again to several supervisors of Lan Chile. Eventually I managed to convince them to check us into a hotel with all meals and transportation covered. Grateful to Lan Chile for taking care of us, but thoroughly dismayed at the cold, unprofessional nature of SAA and in particular being told a bare faced lie. In the same boat as us was a young Chilean couple with a toddler and baby. The man and wife had actually made several trips this way together and though the husabnd alreayd had a Yellow Fever shot, she never had one or had even been told to get one. Like us they were not allowed to board. SAA superviser told the man to stop complaining because he could fly and should leave us family to get a shot. The wife was so upset by this she burst into tears.
[U]This ten delay has cost us ten days of our vacation and hundreds of dollars in incidentaly costs in Brazil.[/U] Plus we now have to wait to see if we get ill fom the shot. Our friend was going to drive ten hours to pick us up at Cape Town, and now because he can"t we have to take another flight - costing us at least four hundred dollars more.
I presume someone has done something and it would appear to be Lan Chile seeing as they are footing the bill, which must be around $4000 US to pout us up in a very nice hotel for twelve days. But truthfully I feel it is SAA responsible. They allow flights to be sold to and from Santiago and apparently this Yellow Fever Law is applicable to Buenos Aires too - which is another route that we could have taken. At no time did anyone tell or provided us with written information on the fact that even transit passengers have to have a Yellow Fever certificate. If they had we most certainly would have taken a different route. This whole thing is absolutely ludicrous. So what can we do to ensure that we get fully compensated.