Thursday, 8/20

 And now, the clean up begins.

As I mentioned yesterday, our trip to France has now been officially axed, which means that we get to deal with canceling stuff and getting refunds and/or credit, and generally just extricating ourselves from what we had hoped would've been a fun getaway.

Bummer.

And it's off to a great start, too. This all started when American canceled our flight over to Paris and then on the way back from London to Chicago. While on the phone with the nice lady who was handling it, she told me—repeatedly--that because they had axed our flights, that we'd be eligible for a full refund, as long as I filled out all the forms online. I did what she said, and 24 hours later was sent an e-mail telling me that we weren't eligible for a refund.

Even though I was told so. And even though it's all because American will no longer fly three out of the six legs of our trip.

Sigh.

I have the sneaking suspicion that this may turn into just as much of a fiasco as trying to get reimbursed after they lost our luggage flying to Germany five years ago. Those of you who were reading this back then may remember that it took over six months to get the $150 we were told should just take a few weeks, and that was after submitting paper work, receipts, copies of paper work, and copies of receipts.

But we eventually did get the money back.

Now, I know that airlines are hemorrhaging cash, and they're putting up as many roadblocks as possible to frustrate people into accepting credits instead of refunds. It's not right, but that's business in this era. And when our flight to Germany was canceled back in April, we received the refund right away. Apparently, things have changed in the four months since then.

However, they canceled the flight. We'd still be going if we had our choice. They told us we'd get a full refund. So if they think that we'll go quietly into that goodnight, if they think that I don't have unlimited patience when trying to right a wrong, they have a few things to learn, at least about us.

I just hope it doesn't take another six months again. Keep your fingers crossed.

(jim@wmqt.com)