I flew back to California on American Airlines last week. There is a flight from Greenville, South Carolina to Dallas to Palm Springs. I bought the legs separately in order to avoid having to make an extra stop at Charlotte and run to get the flight to Greenville. I thought I was being really clever.
Earlier in the week, when I was preparing for the flight back to California, I called American Airlines to confirm that the bags would transfer from the first leg of the trip to the second. Customer service at American Airlines assured me that this was not a problem. I had to just talk with the American Airlines clerk at the check-in counter.
Well, this turns out not to be true. The clerk at check-in said that the bags would be left on the baggage claim in Dallas, even if I went on the flight to Palm Springs. If I went to get the bags at the baggage claim, I would miss the flight (nonrefundable), so I would have to buy another ticket, get a hotel for the night and come back the next day for the next available flight.
So, since they had already taken my bags, my choices were to go to Palm Springs and lose my bags or get my bags and spend perhaps $500 on a new ticket, hotel, Excedrin and Xanax . . not necessarily in that order.
So I bought a new ticket from Greenville to Palm Springs, both legs having the same record locator number. I made the flight and the bags made it too . . somehow they were now able to find the bags and put a new tag on it.
Fortunately, they refunded the money for the flights I had to abandon. Of course, they charged me a $200 fee for abandoning the ticket which was more than the ticket was worth, so theoretically I still owe them $8.
I did try to contact customer service who told me that I shouldn’t have bought a non-refundable ticket and gave me documentation on the risks of buying non-refundable tickets. I tried to explain the issues to them, but . . . well, hope springs eternal . . but I don’t think I got through to them.
Can they really send me to collections for $8?