Airlines refuse to help me!! Please help!
 

Ok not sure where to start. I booked a round trip ticket about 3 months ago to and from europe for my study abroad. Long story short my departure time of my flight was moved up and I cannot make it to the airport in time to catch my flight. I got my ticket off Expedia, and LOT Polish is the ticket holder. LOT is telling me to contact Luthansa since it is their flight (The first leg of the flight) who changed the time. I contacted them and they agreed to reschedule my flight, and they did. The next day they backed out and called me and said management didn't approve the change. I called back and the guy refused to help me and said call LOT. I called lot and they said they have to help me. So I called Lufthansa back, and spoke to a woman who said that she promises me one way or another they will reissue a new ticket. However now they BACKED OUT AGAIN! and are telling me to simply call LOT back again..... I don't know where to go from here.
Can a company do this? What kind of companies says they will do something and then can just back out? They already changed my flight online as well (my reservation), but now refuse to actually issue the ticket.

Is there a corporate number I can call for Lufthansa to complain?

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

<i> 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.</i>

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.