Airlines refuse to help me!! Please help!

You must call Luthansa and insist on speaking to a Supervisor. I suggest that you call late at night. I've always found that the night crew is more willing to help work out problems. Maybe they just arent as overworked. Make sure you take the name of every person you speak with. Ask their name first thing. Then use that name.....say, something like "Susan ...I really pray you have the ability to help me. I've had such a problem TWICE before with agents from your service." Tell your story quickly and to the point. Don't whine, cry or threaten...just beg for help, help and more help. If the person you speak to can't help, ask to speak with someone higher up. Ask politely....but be firm. Once they make a promise, make it personal. Say, "Susan I'm REALLY counting on YOU!"

Good luck!

Have you contacted Expedia? The airlines may be giving you the run-a-round because of the ticket that Expedia sold you.

Sorry, hit submit before I finished...

Expedia styles itself as an online travel agency. I know many people who have purchased travel products through Expedia and been very happy with the results, but I know others who weren't happy because of issues like yours. The follow-up on things like schedule changes messing up connections isn't their strong suit. But like any travel agency, it's worth pressing them to help in working this out.

That said, I do hope your flights are all on one tickets. If not, you may be out of luck.

Expedia is your travel agent, they are the ones to contact, not the airlines.

Mark

Expedia won't help me not either.. Apparently it is because LOT Polish doesn't have any other flights that day.... And they can't put me on another carrier?

They simply give me the excuse it says in the TOS "Flights schedules can change at anytime"...

Nice and informative blog

So you bought (I assume) the cheapest ticket possible, on an airline that only has one flight a day, knowing the TOS, and now you want to make this another airline's problem?

Suggestions

quickly insuremytrip.com if you have not done so

Your first aairline carrier is responible not expedia

but if you you call up and threaten kindly they might help

do a merchant reversal"dispute" on your credit card

tell them you will file a bbb.org complaint

and sue them in small claims court.

Always ask to speak to supervisor get as high up on

the ladder as you can get.

The sueaky wheel gets the grease cheap fares are non

changeable refundablebut you might get lucky...

Can you define....."I can not make it to the airport in time to catch my flight"? It does seem that this is YOUR problem.....not the airline's. If you have to go to the airport a day ahead in order to catch your flight......then that is what you will have to do.

Again.....good luck.

My flight was changed to 3 hours earlier, there are no trains out of Berlin that I can possibly make the flight in time. I also can't leave the day before due to an exam.

This is bull.

Once again, Expedia is your TA and thus responsible to make any changes, not the airlines. Airlines will not touch your ticket until after you check in for the first flight, but until then it's Expedia's responsibility to help you out.

Your beef is with Expedia, not the airline(s).

Expedia would have helped you if there were more flights to chose from, but apparently there is only 1 flight a day so there is not much they can do. They will not change airlines.

Airlines are allowed to change schedules as needed, it's in the Carriage Contract. Happens all the time.

Travel is not an exact science. You chose the best possible rate and it bit you back.

You'll have to live with it.

Sorry about the bad news.

Hope it works out for you.

You will probably have better luck getting your school to let you take the exam a day early, than you will getting the airline to change your ticket. Or....you may have to figure out a different mode of transportation if the train won't get you to the airport in time. Rent a car, have a friend drive you, take a taxi.....it really is your problem to solve.

Good luck....on your exam and your travels.

Or see if the ticket can be changed to the NEXT day?

Two thoughts. Yes, airlines are free to change their schedules. but when the change is material and makes your trip not possible, the must refund your money, even if they call it a nonrefundable ticket, because what they are now offering is not what you bought.

Also, it appears that this problem involves a flight originating in the EEU, and a few years ago the EEU set some draconian penalties on things like overbooking. Perhaps those penalties would also reach your case. Unfortunately, I don't think there are many experts around who know the ins and outs of the new rules.

I expect your best course of action is to call expedia, point out that the change has made your ticket unusable, and demand that they return your money, or find you a suitable flight. If it is a refund, just buy a new ticket with a bit of extra time to allow you to get to the flight. In my own travels, I always arrange to spend my last day near the airport, so I can make little adjustments if the flight schedule changes.

If you paid with a credit card, the fine print says you must dispute the charge within, I believe, 60 days of being billed. But in fact if you bought services which were to be delivered in the future, you can dispute the charge within, I believe, 60 days of when the service was not delivered. I would keep that arrow in my quiver and try first to get a refund or amended ticket.

I hope you are having some luck in resolving this, aminiar.

As clevelandbrown wrote, the EU does have some rather stringent (compared to the rest of the world) rules which endeavor to give some protection to airline passengers when things go wrong. I'm not sure, however, in the case of a 3-hour schedule change, that those rules will apply.

From what I understand, you are caught in a situation where Expedia or your airline can offer you an earlier flight but that won't work for you because you can't make an earlier flight. And they can offer you a later flight but you can't do that either because then you miss your connecting flight. And the airline operating your connecting flight won't do anything because it's nothing to do with them. Their contract with you is to transport you on the flight you bought through Expedia and they haven't changed that.

If the two flights were ticketed together on the same itinerary, that changes things and you can keep pressing Expedia to do something for you. If not, then it's up to you to figure out how to make this situation work for you, I'm sorry to say. Unless you can find a sympathetic Expedia representative and throw yourself on his/her mercy. And even then, the rep may want to help but is prevented from doing so by various rules or policies.

Otherwise this may turn out to be one of those expensive lessons life sometimes throws at us.

Don't count on winning a "dispute" through your credit card company, either --- they are just intermediaries, that is, if neither Expedia nor the airlines did anything wrong (contractually or legally), you'll still be out of luck at the end of the day. The cc companies' job as intermediaries is to get/give back moneys you should not have had to pay (like when you cancel an order and the money is not refunded) -- not to convince vendors that they should change the rules for you.

Expedia tried calling both LOT & Austrian, they refused to help. The most they offered me was a partial refund for the unused portion, which will not be enough to even remotely come close to buying a return ticket...

Looks like Im screwed

Two thoughts. Yes, airlines are free to change their schedules. but when the change is material and makes your trip not possible, the must refund your money, even if they call it a nonrefundable ticket, because what they are now offering is not what you bought.

Very true, but here are 2 other thoughts.

#1 It wasn't the airline(s) that sold the ticket, it was Expedia, which owns the ticket until the OP checks in.

#2 Yes, the OP can get a refund and re-book, but if the flight is needed within couple of weeks then what? I'm sure the new ticket would be much more expensive.

and finally, as the previous poster stated, forget challenging the charge. What would that solve? and it won't work. Expedia sold the ticket and the airline is still willing to transport the OP, just +/- few hours. In case you don't know, your credit score goes down every time you challenge a charge and it goes against you, just like a challenge in the NFL. Bad advice.

a couple of things

1) always a problem with there's a schedule change and one airline has the ticket but some flights are on another carrier. Add the fact that there's only one flight a day, and add expedia and it's even worse.


2) If you can give the actual airports you are flying from it might be easier to give advice. For ex., how far is Berlin from the airport? Would it be cheaper to hire a car to get there then buy a new ticket?

3) If they airline changes a time and you can't make the flight you are entitled to a refund, but it sounds like you took the flight over and now the refund is much less than it would be for a new one way ticket.
That's bad. However it does free you up to explore leaving from different airports if you have to buy a new ticket, or even try price line
3) Expedia customer service is pretty useless IMHO. U call their corporate office and ask for Corporate Customer Service. (425)679-7200 NOT the regular customer service office which has no authority to do anything.Use skype or something if it's expensive to call.

4) If worst comes to worst (and I really mean worst) show up at the airport for the next day's flight and beg. This worked for us last Xmas but it was that awful storm and airlines were doing whatever they could to get passengers out. AT THE AIRPORT it's the airline who is operating the FLIGHT not the airline who has the ticket.



3)

You mention three different airlines here, and I'm confused. What is the relationship here regarding your flights and LOT, Lufthansa, and Austrian Air (the latter was added in your last post)? What is your flight? Is it connecting, and where does it originate? We need airlines and flight numbers and actual times to understand. This story is ever more confusing and strangely very vague. You've asked for and gotten a lot of opinions, but none of this seems to be going anywhere because everyone is firing off in the dark. I can't imagine why you'd be flying to or from Poland when you are studying in Berlin, so I want to understand what's going on.

It sounds as if your exams are finishing soon but that you still have a week or two or at least some days to resolve this. If so, this might be a matter for an ombudsman like Chris Elliott. But before you go that route (and Chris has helped people under the gun before in terms of time), I'd like to understand what's going on. I've read through this thread and really don't at all.

Another thought: In addition to calling, you should be e-mailing the airlines and expedia so you have a paper trail.

Expedia was trying to help, by calling Austrian. So, it's not that they're not doing anything. Just there doesn't seem to be a flight with space that will satisfy the OP's need.

If anything, it seems to me that the OP needs to be looking into the possibility of a flight from Berlin to the originating airport where this flight seems to originate. There are cheap airlines that fly from Berlin, possibly to the originating airport if a train isn't available.

But I'm just not getting the issue here. My assumption is that the flight originates somewhere other than Berlin. But where? How can anyone offer useful advice without this crucial piece of information?

AA, I just asked a banker I know and he said lowering your credit score as a result of a challenge would be a violation of the equal credit opportunity act.

Also, aren't there "number of hours" rules, maybe even laws, re whether the airline is obligated to refund or reschedule the ticket? Since the change is only 3 hours, maybe they're under no obligation?

my guess is that the itin is: BER-WAW/KRK-NYC/ORD and that LO moved up the second leg so that the first leg on LH (probably TXL-WAW) misconnects.

Yes, I agree that the first flight doesn't leave from Berlin, as the poster mentions taking a train from Berlin to somewhere to take this first flight, which got moved.

If that's the case, why not fly directly from Berlin to Poland? However would that cause problems with not taking the first flight, which could result in the rest being canceled?

I guess car rental could also be possible? The exam takes place the day before, so there's still a lot of time between when the exam finishes and when the first flight is due to take off.