A man and his family of nine were set to take a vacation on the island of St. Vincent when he checked his phone app on July 4th and noticed a problem: American Airlines had not only rebooked his flight home to Denver, but had changed the departure location as well. The plane would now be leaving from another country – the island of St. Lucia.
When he told American Airlines this was unacceptable, customer service told him he was in "an overbooked situation," according to Yahoo!, and that the airlines had informed him of this change in April (by burying it in an email). Re-ticketing the trip would cost him nearly $30,000 and would delay the departure by one week.
From Yahoo!:
Sam Taussig told the broadcaster [Denver7] he was checking the seating arrangements on the airline's app on July 4 when he realized the flight had been changed from what he booked in January.
"We were flying out of St. Lucia instead of St. Vincent, and I thought that was really strange. It must have been a mistake. The customer service agent said, 'Yes, I'm sorry, sir. You're in an overbooked situation, and we have moved your flight from St. Vincent to St. Lucia,' which is about 100 miles away as the crow flies and five islands north. And I said, 'Well that's insane. We have to change this back. This is not acceptable.'"
He added: "Then, they're going to charge us exorbitant change fees and reticketing fees and split reservation fees totaling almost $30,000 to bring us home a week later."
After eventually rebooking a flight home from Barbados and filing a 19-page complaint, American Airlines decided last night to fork over $2,000 to pay for the Barbados leg of the trip, which started today. A trip that this family needs more now than ever, I'm sure.
