Thread by @doctorow

I live in LA. My extended family lives in Toronto. Before the pandemic, I bought my 12 year old daughter an Air Canada plane ticket from LA to Toronto to visit her grandparents/uncles/aunts/cousins during the summer holiday.

1/

Yesterday, I decided it was time to cancel it. The CDC is projecting 3,000 US deaths/day by Jun 1, and my parents are in their 70s. There's no way I'm sending my kid to Toronto to see them this summer. That's basically attempted murder.

2/

I went through the AC form -- which had a ton of fine-print that I skimmed -- and cancelled the ticket, and then I did a double-take. At first it looked like my $520 ticket had a $55 nonrefundable portion. Then I realized that the refundable portion was only $55!

3/

I called up and a rep told me yes, because the ticket is nonrefundable and because AC hasn't cancelled flights that far into the summer yet, I was only eligible for taxes and fees. If I'd ticked a different box, i could get a credit to use the funds on AC in the next 2 years.

4/

What's more, it was too late. My only recourse if I wanted to get that credit was to fill in a webform that goes to a refunds department that warns that it takes at least 6 weeks to resolve issues...when there ISN'T a pandemic on.

5/

My family has a Monday night videoconference and I was complaining about this and my sister-in-law, @TDoctorow, suggested cancelling the charge with my credit card company, which is apparently what many Canadians are doing.

6/

I tweeted about it this morning and an AC customer service rep asked me to DM them. After some back and forth, they coughed up a few more of the fees (not, I note wryly, the money I paid Air Canada for ticket insurance!), but I'm still out more than $400.

7/

So I called @AskAmex, and while I'm no fan of giant financial services company, I'm here to tell you that the procedure was easy and entirely pleasant. They took all the details, decided I was in the right, and issued me a credit on the spot.

8/

Now, AC can still dispute this, but by the time they do, I'm confident that my daughter's flight - and the route it's on -- will have been cancelled. I suppose they might decide to stop doing business with me?

9/

I've got moderately high status with the airline, as it happens, and I've previously had the top tier frequent flier status (when I lived in Canada), so maybe not.

But who's to say?

10/

Bottom line, AC might not even exist when the pandemic is over. Rather than ask me to take a credit instead of a refund, they played a game of bureaucratic nickel-and-dime gotcha that is totally emblematic of their customer-hostile approach, even before the crisis.

11/

I've met many wonderful AC employees, but the company is a flaming pile of garbage. So I'm not all that worried about being blackballed by them.

If you're fighting with an airline, you might wanna try your credit card company too. No guarantees, but it worked for me.

12/

Image:
Alex SH Lin (modified)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Air_…

CC BY-SA
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa…

13/