Noreastern is miffed because his connecting US Air flight was canceled due to weather. Thing is, he was flying from Philly to Ohio, and it was snowing in neither of these two places.

Rather, it was snowing in Montreal, where the connecting flight was coming from. Delays due to weather or other acts of god usually don’t get much in the way of rebates or refunds.

Regardless, Noreastern remains unbowed; he has a stratagem for getting his hotel stay comped, encapsulated in the phrase, “Presumably the flight crew was in Montreal…”

(Photo: MicAttAck)

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noreastern: ahoy
benpopken: howdy
noreastern: how’s everything where you are today?
benpopken: cold!
noreastern: ah, yes. here as well.
noreastern: and that reminds me of the consumerist type question I had for you
noreastern: you see, I had the pleasure of spending a week in florida, away from the dreadful cold of ohio
noreastern: the trip was good, until the flight home when US Air decided to strand me in philly for the night
noreastern: they decided to cancel my connecting flight because of bad weather
noreastern: that’s all well and good, except there was no bad weather where I was (in philly) or where I was flying (ohio)
noreastern: turns out there was some snow in montreal that screwed them up
noreastern: to make a long story shorter, I spent the night in a crappy hotel and flew out the next day (after a 3 hour delay, of course)
noreastern: my gripe is that not only didn’t I get a free flight for my troubles, but I actually had to shell out $80 for the crappy hotel room
noreastern: they were kind enough to give me some airport food vouchers and cover about $30 of the hotel
noreastern: the csr people I talked to kept repeating the mantra – we don’t reimburse people for weather related cancellations/delays
noreastern: but the way I see it, they can point to any storm anywhere in the world and say it affected travel somewhere in their system
noreastern: I call that a logistical problem on their end, not a weather problem
noreastern: so, in addition to simply venting to you, I’m wondering if you’ve had any successes dealing with airlines for this type of situation
benpopken: interesting
benpopken: well one of your connecting flights was coming from Montreal, yes?
noreastern: I think the plane that was eventually going to bring me to ohio was coming from montreal. I don’t really know.
noreastern: I flew from orlando
benpopken: Sorry to say, but I don’t think you have much of a leg to stand on
benpopken: The connecting flight was adversely affected by the weather
benpopken: They didn’t point to a random weather somewhere and say it was responsible for the delay
benpopken: They made a monetary gesture with the coupons and vouchers
benpopken: It seems they covered their end of the bargain as best they could
noreastern: the best they could would be to get another plane, but I do see what you’re saying
benpopken: I was going to say that I wondered if there wasn’t another flight out to Ohio?
benpopken: Either with them or another carrier?
noreastern: the only other carrier was Southwest, who apparently doesn’t play well with other airlines
noreastern: I would have had to buy a new ticket from them
benpopken: it’s not the best of bargains, to be sure
noreastern: do you think its even worth writing a letter asking for some additional compensation?
benpopken: sure
benpopken: you could say that you found the compensation inadequate
benpopken: express how you feel it didn’t match the discomfort you experienced
benpopken: might be able to wring a few more vouchers out of them, or monies off your next flight
noreastern: I think I will. one csr suggested I say the cancellation was because of flight crew unavailability. given the latest mess with the us air/america west merger, they might not even know what’s going on
noreastern: thanks for the advice
benpopken: an intriguing stratagem, though dishonest
noreastern: maybe not completely dishonest – presumably the flight crew was in montreal

— BEN POPKEN

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