It might not be $11,000, but Delta Air Lines is trying to make up for massive delays and cancellations stemming from serious storms last week by offering some displaced passengers 20,000 miles or $200 vouchers. [More]
vouchers
Frontier Passengers Stuck On Tarmac For 3 Hours Rip Airline For “Worthless” Vouchers
By 2.17.16
Under federal laws, airlines are prohibited from forcing passengers to sit on a plane for more than three hours. Frontier Airlines barely missed that deadline in Philadelphia this week, where passengers say they were stranded on a plane for just under three hours after enduring a series of delays. [More]
Watch Out For Groupons With “Reservation Required”
By 6.20.14
Reader Aaron is annoyed at Groupon. He bought a voucher for a local restaurant: a sushi place, to be exact, but the type of business doesn’t matter all that much. What does matter is that he paid for a voucher, which required that he make a reservation at the restaurant through Groupon’s app. This wouldn’t be a problem if he could get a reservation. [More]
Toll-Free Number On Walmart Black Friday TV Voucher Forwarded To Wisconsin Spa
By 12.4.13
There might have been thousands of people who received vouchers from Walmart during Thanksgiving weekend that entitled them to order a television online at a certain price. For many of them, the voucher didn’t work, so they called the toll-free number on the voucher. For some reason that isn’t clear to anyone yet, this number was forwarded to a spa in Wisconsin. [More]
LivingSocial Won’t Give Me Refund Or Credit After Incompetent House Cleaners Don’t Even Show Up
By 4.29.13
Greg bought some vouchers from LivingSocial for a cleaning company that appears to have gone out of business. It’s not 100% clear that they’re out of business, but it is clear that they were terrible. He can’t get through to the company on the phone, and has $150 worth of vouchers left. [More]
Toys ‘R’ Us Popup Store Pushed Rewards Program I Can’t Possibly Use
By 1.9.13
If you spend a lot of money at Toys ‘R’ Us, the chain’s rewards program may appeal to you. You earn rewards vouchers through in-store or online purchases, which you can exchange for even more toys after the holiday season. Why would anyone have a problem with that? Well, because you can only use them in-store. Employees recruited customers for the program in the chain’s holiday season pop-up stores, in areas that don’t have a year-round Toys R Us store. Now that the pop-up stores are gone, they just have some useless pieces of paper. [More]
Why Has United Airlines Taken A Month To Not Process My Ticket Vouchers?
By 4.30.12
Back in July 2011, Consumerist reader Mary and her husband were awarded a total of $800 worth of ticket vouchers from United after they were bumped from a flight. Problem is, now that she’s trying to actually use those vouchers, no one at United seems to have any idea what to do with them. [More]
Handy Guide To Major Airlines' Voucher Policies
By 12.1.10
Airlines might give you a travel voucher when if you’re bumped from a flight or there was a fare reduction, but not all vouchers are created equal. The fine print can vary from airline to airline, with different expiration dates and fees. Airfarewatchdog has a got a cheat-sheet table for you breaking down all the vouchers so you can save your eyes from bleeding. [More]
Regret Buying That Groupon? Here's How To Sell It
By 10.21.10
This month saw a momentous occasion for me: group-discount site Groupon finally set up shop in the metro area where I live. What happens, though, when you buy a voucher from Groupon or a similar site that you later regret, and you’d rather have the cash? What if you move away before doing all of the amazing things you’ve bought vouchers for? Well, there are sites that can help you take care of that. [More]
JetBlue Takes 2 Hours And Charges $15 To Redeem Customer's Gift Card
By 3.17.10
Angela won a “Wish List” contest from American Express, which let her buy a $100 JetBlue gift card for $70. JetBlue managed to wipe out that $30 savings and any good will Angela might have felt by making her waste 129 minutes trying to redeem the card–and then charging her $15 for the service. At the end of her letter to AmEx and JetBlue, Angela writes, “I don’t know about other AmEx cardholders, but spending almost two hours on hold in order to be able to use something you’ve already paid for is not on my Wish List.” [More]
American Airlines Threatens To Move You Down On The Stand-By List If You Complain
By 2.1.10
Reader Kelsea’s flight was delayed getting to O’Hare and when she got there for her connection to LA she encountered rudeness and general crappy service from American Airlines. One of the employees even went so far as to suggest she not request to be moved up the stand-by list because they would probably move her down “out of frustration.” Hey, that may be true but you probably shouldn’t tell the customers you’re going to try to spite them. Don’t worry though, the story has a happy ending. [More]
Paypal Rewards Dollars: Use 'Em In One Go Or Lose 'Em
By 1.20.10
The PayPal plus rewards card earns points which can be traded for vouchers which can be used like cash to buy stuff. You have to be careful, though, and make sure that the price is the same or greater than the voucher amount. Any unused dollars on the voucher get forfeited after the purchase. Tricky! Reads those terms and conditions close, folks. [More]
"Cash 4 Clunkers" Will Reach Vanishing Point Sometime In September
By 8.20.09
If you’re planning on taking advantage of the Cash 4 Clunkers program you’d better do it sooner rather than later, says Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. The program is running out of money and the administration says that in the next two days they will outline a plan to gracefully wind it down.
This Apology Letter From Southwest Is Refreshingly Honest And Informative
By 8.31.08
A fluid leak forced Deepak’s Southwest flight from Oakland to Seattle back to the airport. Southwest shifted passengers to a waiting plane, and everyone made it to Seattle about two hours late. Within a week, Southwest sent passengers an extraordinarily honest and informative letter detailing exactly what went wrong, and by way of apology, tossed in a $175 voucher.
U.S. Airways: Abandoning Passengers "Is Not A Compensation Issue"
By 8.31.08
“In order to ensure that all carriers remain focused on safety, aviation regulations do not require airlines to pay compensation for consequential expenses because of delayed or canceled flights.”
EECB Scores $100 Direct Hit On United Airlines
By 8.26.08
It took a little negotiating but reader Noah was able to get United Airlines to honor the agreement that their CSR made, despite the fact that it was a violation of some kind of deeply sacred policy.
Airlines Have Bumped 343,000 Passengers This Year
By 8.23.08
Over a quarter-million passengers were bumped from flights in the past eight months, a number that is set to grow as airlines try to boost anemic profits by slashing fleets. The Department of Transportation requires airlines to compensate bumped passengers with cash or vouchers, but savvy passengers can leverage their situation to negotiate heftier payments…
TSA Martinet Claims Her Unpublished Rules Trump Real Ones
By 8.20.08
TSA, can you at least train your agents to do their jobs properly? We’d appreciate it even more if you’d discipline (read: fire) those who go all stupidly power-mad and think they have to “win” every encounter, even when it means making up new rules on the spot. Here’s a story of a soldier who lost a day of leave because one of your agents caused so much trouble. In the end, the soldier says he’s happy with the outcome—”Using standard Consumerist customer service doctrine (polite, patient, proper channels and then EECB), I won”—but we’re still floored by how difficult you made his trip home. Oh, and NWA, you were no help either.
