[jguedes]

I booked a return flight from JFK to Chengdu, China with Asiana airlines and while the outbound flight was uneventful, a day prior to my departure I called the airline office in Shanghai(where I was at the the time for a meeting) and discovered that my flight had been pushed to a day earlier. No-one from Asiana had informed either me or my travel agent of this change. This meant that I would be missing two important meetings in both Shanghai and Chengdu. I got this news at roughly 10:30 in the morning. It also meant that my connecting flight from Shanghai to Chengdu now missed my returning flight by several hours which meant that I had to purchase another ticket and that I would have to spend two days and one night in Seoul on my stopover as opposed to the original few hours on the ticket I had purchased. My call was returned at 1:00 PM and I was first informed that I would only be provided with a hotel but that I would have to purchase another ticket myself. I the
n cancelled my ticket but asked to speak to the manager who I was only able to contact around 2pm and who said they would help me purchase a new ticket. A while later Asiana contacting me again asking for the details of my old Shanghai-Chengdu ticket as they wanted to try change it instead of purchasing a new one. After re-habilitating my ticket with the company, cancelling it again and requiring a freind to purchase my new connecting ticket was finally purchased although intitially the girl working in the office tried to get away with not refunding me the 30 percent charge I had incurred for cancelling this ticket.
Upon arrival in Chengdu, the manager of the Chengdu branch who was dealing with several customers who had the same problem graciously upgraded us to first class, however I cannot say the same for Incheon, Seoul. After I explaining my losses in terms of lost meetings(which were part of my reason for going to China) a call from airport staff worker was sent to my hotel room to say that they would not give me an ugrade or even partial refund for the losses they had caused me to incur in terms of lost time.
I have never not been contacted in the case of a changed flight, and while pushing this later may have been easier to deal with, pushing it a day earlier is unacceptable. Compensation should have been provided to me from the outset with apologies from the airline, but rather I had to waste hours fighting with Asiana representatives to ensure I was treated properly.
Damage Resulting = Missed two important meetings I had scheduled on the 16th and 17th of July in China the importance of which is incalculable in monetary value. Endured huge amounts of stress during the day of the 15th spending from 10:30 AM until 7pm at night trying to assure a refund for the new connecting flight which cost me a fortune in phone calls.