[ldevar1]

Hi all,
I am not sure if this will help but I can vent my vexations. Being in a long distance relationship I travel almost every 2 weeks to Boston....In spite of paying high ticket prices for the airline...I was always disappointed with their services......Let me give you an account of my woes with Midwest airlines most recently....
Long back(like 3 months in advance...) I booked a ticket on Midwest airlines from Madison, WI to Boston, MA. My literary was Madison-Milwaukee-Boston. I had about one and a half hour layover in Milwaukee. Milwaukee is about one and half hour drive from Madison.

Just few days before my travel, I came to know that I will have to visit Milwaukee for some unforeseeable and important reason. This would mean that I will have to go to Milwaukee and drive back to Madison to take a fight to Milwaukee. In this situation, I thought that It would be best to board the Milwaukee-Boston flight directly instead of driving back to Madison.

So I called the airlines(I had to wait about 1/2 hr to get a customer service agent) to request them to allow to board the flight to Boston from Milwaukee. I explained to them that I would miss my flight if I drive back to Madison and its logical to board at Milwaukee

They agreed with that and told me that they will charge 100$ change fee for me to be able to do that. I told them that I will miss my flight if I had to drive back to Madison. But they would not help. They told me that once I got a ticket, its like signing a contract. Till not I did not understand how can boarding the fight from a layover destination technically called 'breaking their contract'. I did not ask them for a refund or a an upgrade. I was also ready to pay the change fee if it was less. But found 100$ exchange fee totally unfair and irrelevant.

The airlines is not losing anything if I don’t take that half an hour fight from Madison -Milwaukee. In fact they can probably accommodate one more angry customer on that flight. Now they expect me board the flight from Madison no matter what. And in case I miss my flight at Madison, I will be charge that 100$ change fee for not making it time. How can that be fair?

Can anyone please help how to resolve complaint this to some once higher authority

Lalitha

[ChrisH]

Unfortunately, there really isn't anything that can be done here. The airlines (most all of them) charge a $100 change fee, when you make any kind of changes to your itinerary. When you purchase a ticket, from point A, to point B, and onto your destination, point C, but decide to board at point B, instead of point A, it is considered a breaking of the contract, because the fare calculation was based on Point A-B-C, not B-C. I know it may not make sense, it doesn't to me, either, but since it is policy, there probably isn't much that can be done. You may try calling their customer service, again, and getting another agent that may be more helpful.

[Leatherboy2006]

Lalitha,
Unfortunity what you ran into is a thing that travel agents use to abuse caused hidden cities. They would have a passengar traveling just (say in your case) Milwaukee to Boston say at that fare was $400 round trip, but the fare Madison-Milwaukee to Boston is $300 round trip. They would book the fare out of Madison and have their client try to board out of Milwaukee, thus robbing the airline and defrauding the airline. Many airline computer systems will cancel your connecting flight (and down line flights) if you don't board the first flight cause in its logic you can't make the connection since you didn't board the first flight.
Hope that helps