The situation is that my wife booked a ticket for a conference months in advance. Today, US Airways informed us that her return flight (over a month from now) has been canceled and since they don’t have another flight to the same destination, our only option is to accept a refund. I was told explicitly that they have no obligation to book my wife on another airline and their terms of transportation says that they “may,” not WILL attempt to accommodate you on another airline.

What this means is that we now have to purchase an expensive one-way fare from another airline.

Incidentally, this ticket was purchased through Orbitz and they have washed their hands of any responsibility for satisfactorily resolving the problem. Once they have your money, its between you and the airline.

For the flight back to LAX, AW had cancelled the flight; they tried to put on an AW flight that would get us to LAX 15 minutes before the Air New Zealand flight took off. When we complained the counter agent took offense – I know how to be rude and had certainly not been rude at that point – called her manager and was told to reticket us onto a Ted flight. She did it – but she didn’t mark the flight in correctly so all our future flight segments were cancelled because she cancelled the AW segment. We got to LAX and found that Air New Zealand has us listed as cancelled and had passed the priority reserved upstairs seats on to other travellers; I was impressed that they were able to re-instate all our other segments (Auckland to Christchurch and back and then home) in count it, 2 minutes. But I’ll never fly America West ever again.

Now, FIM’s. A FIM is really, REALLY rare. Something absolutely crazy has to be going on with your inten (maybe multiple conx on different OAL’s to get you there, international hijinks, and a few other extra-extraordinary circumstances). In a given year, I might do 6-10 of those. They are truly a collectors item if you get one, make a copy!

Anyways, hope that helped shine some light on it from the other side of the counter!

H

So, Mark, what’s the “long story” with your rebooking on a free Delta ticket?

Well…

I was scheduled to fly Anchorage-LAX-Chicago on Delta, which was the return trip on a freebie SkyMiles ticket. But I wasn’t in Anchorage yet. I was starting the day in Sitka, Alaska.

I held a cash-fare on Alaska Airlines Sitka-Juneau-Anchorage. Juneau was fogged in. We attempted the approach twice, but aborted. The pilot announced that we would be flying to Ketchikan instead.

From there, we were given a choice: Disembark, and wait out the fog to fly to Juneau, or stay on the plane and continue to Seattle.

There was no way we’d be catching the Anchorage-Los Angeles flight at that point, so we took our chances and flew to Seattle. Upon arrival, we showed up at the Delta counter and explained what happened. Delta was confused, to say the least. At first they said our claim was with Alaska, not them. But after I pleaded sympathy, they put me on an American Airlines flight to O’Hare, with no charge. (In retrospect, I’m assuming that was a 240′ing.)

It worked out great. In fact, I arrived nearly 12 hours earlier than my scheduled itinerary.

(This was 1997. Something tells me this wouldn’t work today.)

My luggage, unsurprisingly, was left on the tarmac in Ketchikan. But one day later, it was delivered (intact!) to my Chicago apartment, by American Airlines, the final carrier on my itinerary.

Delta and American both earned a ton of good will. Especially Delta. I was super-appreciative of the Delta agent who helped me out that day. Nearly eleven years later, I still am.

1. I was supposed to fly United SEA-DEN-AUS, and the SEA-DEN leg was delayed several hours. They put me on American with no fuss at all.

2. Flying United from DFW-DEN-SEA, the DFW-DEN flight was delayed, so they put me on a direct flight home on Alaska.

3. Flying United (sense a theme here?) from BNA-ORD-SEA, there were ATC issues, so they put me on Delta through Atlanta.

4. Flying United from Omaha-DEN-SEA, the Omaha-DEN flight was canceled, so they put me on NWA through MSP.

5. Flying Alaska from LAS-SEA, my flight was delayed, so they put me on United.

I only had to raise a stink for one of those–every other time, they did it without me even asking. It might help that I’m Premier Exec on United, but I don’t really know.

Also, it’s the same airlines that keep coming up. United, Continental, American, Frontier, Northwest, US Airways. AirTran and Alaska are also get a mention.

So, Mark, what’s the “long story” with your rebooking on a free Delta ticket?

Interestingly, only 4 people (so far) have indicated that they were DENIED an attempt at Rule 240. Yet no one told their tale in the comments.

So far, Greenberg defeats Brancatelli in the Rule 240 wars!