lrock5,
Just a suggestion for future travel. We were in Paris this summer and, although we had WiFi, we didn't have a printer to get our boarding passes the night before our flight. we were resigned to checking in at the airport. We happened to be out for dinner and walked by a printing shop (like Kinkos). We were able to pay a small amount to print our boarding passes there. Another time I would scope out that kind of place in advance

Just got off of the phone with a person from Delta who handles Air France calls in the US and she gave me the number to fax everything for a refund. She told me I was definitely owed compensation but could not tell me how much. I told her that there was a EU rule about how much and that I would put it in the letter. She told me to ask for what I felt like I deserved as she understood my frustration. I am going to ask for compensation for all 3 tickets and for some sort of FF miles since I belong to flying blue. I definitely want the money though. She told me that very seldom has she had a downgrade that late as getting on the plane. I told her that the flight attendant told her that 2 people were moved from business to our seats. She told me that sounded odd since she did not believe business was usually that oversold. I'm beginning to think it was someone's fiend or something. Who knows. This is a pain. Oh well, Paris was still fantastic.

friend not fiend.

Jane,

We stayed in a fiends apartment and she does not have WIFI. We will probably rent from now on though. Her granddaughter is staying there while she goes to college in Paris and it was teenage girl stuff everywhere and we laughed and decided from now on we may rent. We always pay my friend 100 euro a night but not having WIFI sealed the deal.

Do you have a Twitter account? Besides any other way you contact them "Tweet" your story. You will get a response. They do not like the negative info being out there in the "Twitterverse"

Also they probably have a FB page as well.....Post there, too.

Yes we do have both a facebook and Twitter. I am going to write this up and FAX it also. The lady I spoke to told me I will get a much faster response by FAX.

I'd believe her about the FAX. A couple years ago, miles I'd flown on AF weren't showing up in my skymiles account. Email responses were not forthcoming. Within a day of sending the request (and backup documentation)the miles were deposited in my account.

On my recent Paris trip my hotel could not print out my pass so I located a print shop that had several computers dedicated for use. There were no internet cafes near my hotel. I had the experience in London of getting a middle seat on a BA flight because I waited until I got to the airport.

<< I am going to ask for compensation for all 3 tickets . . . >>

I'm just curious as to what grounds you have for seeking compensation for the person who occupied the premium economy seat. Isn't that the class they were booked in and ultimately flew in? To me, that one doesn't hold much water, but who knows.

I would definitely want the price difference per the EU rules and also ask for some sort of additional "inconvenienced passenger" thing -- could be vouchers for amenities on future flights, monetary voucher to be applied to future flight, extra miles or a pass to the airport lounge.

I've never been downgraded but have been moved out of bulkheads (not exit ones) to accommodate people with infants. A few times I've seen people throwing conniptions when they were being downgraded. There are many reasons for shuffling people around at the last minute: children have to be seated with their parent(s), to make room for the air marshal(s), change of aircraft/configuration, moving another flight crew to another place, VIP(s), broken seats that need repair, etc.

When someone I know tweeted directly to the airline Twitter account about a problem, they tweeted back within the hour asking for her email, so that they could address her issue!

This event happened on 17 March from what I can gather, and it is being discussed as though it is top urgent. Let me tell you, at my airline I had a very high pile of refund requests on my desk at all times and I generally informed anyone who called not to expect anything for 3 months. In the case of a downgrade, it was even longer because I did not have the authority to make the refund -- it had to go to the head office. It was only when I got to about 30 years seniority that I started refunding whatever I felt like refunding, proof or not, and not even consulting the head office. Now that I have left the company, I have heard that things have deteriorated considerably because the refund person only has one year's seniority -- so she will never take the risk of breaking the refund rules.

Bluestar,

We did not use the premium economy seat. The flight attendants after seeing our distress, found us 3 seats in economy and had us write a statement and the Chief Purser was going to write a report stating as such. I may not receive compensation for that seat, but I will definitely not get it if I don't ask. We were told we were downgraded to move 2 business passengers to premium economy.

Kerouac,

I do not expect an answer tomorrow. I appreciate all of the replies as this happened as we were getting on the plane and we were pretty upset. We had no time to react to anything. I never said this was extremely urgent, I was just frustrated and not sure what to do. It has been a big help to have people post and offer advice and sympathy and I appreciate that tremendously. If you don't mind my asking, did you work for AF? If so, I wish you were still there especially now when you were giving what you felt like giving. I may have come out ahead for this trip!! HAHA

No, I did not work for AF. The fact that the head office was elsewhere should have made that clear. I did not even work for an EU carrier, but since I handled the flights out of France, we were subject to EU rules anyway. I often had to fight with the sales department on certain cases (since every tiny bit of money given back decreases their revenue figures), but in the finance department, with my overview of money being squandered in so many other ways, it was not at all difficult for me to put things in perspective.

I didn't pick up on the head office being elsewhere bit. I am going to send it in tomorrow and wait and see. But, Paris was wonderful and I will wait patiently for my refund and go back next year.

Social Worker,

Mu husband tweeted Air France and they tweeted back asking for our reference number. Then they tweeted back asking to not lose us as a customer. He tweeeted that it was too complicated to tweet and that if they were interested they needed to get our contact info and call us. We will see.

Lisa

I'm a little confused, but since I have pre-booked bulkhead E+ seats for a flight in June, I wanted to ask a followup about the EU rules -- is the 75% compensation rule 75% of the ticket price, or 75% of the difference between the regular E and the E+ ticket price? If it's 75% of the full ticket price, meaning you end up paying 25% of the E+ price for an E seat, I'd say that a fair amount of compensation for inconvenience (although I'd still rather have been sitting in E+ bulkhead)

I found AirFrance an absolute PITA to deal with on my trip this past October. I had booked the delta code-share, even though I actually tried to book AirFrance directly, and though I thought I had seat assignments, when I showed up 3 hours before my flight, I had no seats. I had to go to the gate, and wait for the gate agent to appear (30 minutes before the flight) and try to get me 3 seats in a row. I was so PO'ed. My impression was that Air France does not actually make seat assignments until you check in, even if you THINK you made them when you purchased.

On our return from Paris we tried to check in online, and were unable so had our concierge call. It took 45 minutes to get a person, and then the person hung up on our concierge. We finally got through, but it must have taken and hour and a quarter to actually check-in and confirm our seats. A HUGE pain.

I'm not sure I would ever fly AirFrance again after that fiasco. At least, I would actively try to avoid it.

I am glad that at least they did answer you, Lisa. I hope it works out!

They tweeted back and said they were going to investigate and confirmed our e-mail address to get in touch with us. We will see. Fingers crossed.

Years ago the word was "Take a chance. Fly Air France."I am sure there are horror stories about all carriera but AF does seem to stand out. Econ. Plus seats are pretty good for the long haul if you can't finagle Bus. That said the inconvenience of reseating is most definitly a pain. Hopefully you will hang in there and not let the designed delays in response tempt you to throw in the towel. Let us know down the road how this turns out. If you charged the extra cost to your credit card you might challenge the charge and let the cc comp. deal with it.

I used American Express travel insurance and paid with my
American Express Card.I will definitely go through the process no matter how lengthy. I want whatever compensation I am entitled to.

Amer_can's "take a chance, fly Air France" slogan is certainly out of date. Of the airlines we fly to Europe, AF consistently has the best food and the service is as good as anyone else's, though that could be damning with faint praise.

Overbooking happens. The later you check in, the more likely you are to be bumped. You should be compensated for your loss.

I vigorously agree w/Ack. No better food in the air than AF, and generally gracious service on the ground and in the air! I just try to avoid connections, but I do that w/every airline. Sometimes you cannot avoid them....

Altho I cannot remember the exact sequence of events, unlike china _cat, I *was* able to get seat assignments for our outbound Delta code share on AF from BOS to CDG last October, but I made the reservations 6 mos or more before the flts and now do not remember exactly how I did it....

I agree. We do like AF and have had relatively good luck with them. We made a very tight connection to Rome on the 1st part of our trip and all of our luggage landed safely with us. We have been upgraded 2 times when they have overbooked. This time I actually paid for better seats but got downgraded. Stuff happens and as long as we get some compensation we will fly AF again as they have a straight connection to Paris from Houston and better food and free wine, which my husband loves and takes advantage of as he is afraid to fly.

I love Air France, and will never forget how amazing their service was when I flew last September with a broken foot and on crutches. There was someone to help me at every step of the journey, like clockwork - just incredibly gracious, helpful, efficient people.

Only the crew at the gate at CDG were not helpful. The flight attendants on our plane were flat out fabulous even offering to write a report that we did not use the premium economy seat. They even thanked us for being so calm and not making a fuss on the plane.

I stand corrected and that's a good thing!!! Sounds like it might be a good idea to "take another chance"!!! Haven't flown them in years due to several very poor experiences previously. Thanks for the update..

Just got an email from AF..re: specials fares from Canada, if anyone is interested.. 4/1 to 6/18 and 9/11 to 12/14..Well under $1000. Know that this may not be the place but much interest in AF prompted me to share.

Just got something from AF customer care saying that they are giving my husband and sister in law(who will never fly them again) a $200 voucher on a future flight in addition to the refund we need to send to claims dept. We e-mailed back what happened. Don't know if they received it or not. Very frustrating not to speak to a live person. They did apologize for being told at the gate as we got on the plane we had been downgraded though. This response was from the tweet.

Looks like the situation is geting straightened out..Good!!I, personally, would not be satisfied with a future flight voucher as who knows what tomorrow brings and trips on AF may not be on your priority list.. Keep up the quest!!

Will do. I plan to FAX the refund request tomorrow. It would be nice if the voucher were actually for me and not my sister in law though.

Ah, now there's the rub -- compensations are linked to passenger names unless you can prove that you paid for all of the tickets.

I paid for all 3 on my American Express card.

Get in touch with AMX..They may have some suggestions or maybe able to help..Worth a try...

They will try to dispute the charge but I am going to try to ge the refund and see how much that is first. I am not sure if AF will give back 75% of the ticket as the EU rules suggests or try to wiggle out with only the last portion of the flight. I did put the rule in my FAX along with the fact that they should have let us know that we were getting downgraded BEFORE we were walking on the plane. We will see.

Refund Faxed off. We will see. I will let everyone know if I hear anything as unfortunately these things happen and if I can help anyone else in the future I will. I will also try to work on a trip report this weekend.

It was a wonderful trip from Rome and no Pope to meeting my husband's extended family on Sicily to landing in Paris during the blizzard of March 12. Quite an adventure.

Again, thank you for all of your help and advice and understanding of the pleasures of flying!!

Lisa

My elderly mother was downgraded by Air France from business to economy while flying on her own to South America. They were very rude about it too, she was just told that they were overbooked. She had booked and paid for business ages in advance.

When she tried to leave the plane after getting to her destination, they stopped her and told her to wait for the business passengers...

She got a refund an apology in the end, but it took some paperwork.

Your poor mother. What we went through was frustrating enough without paying for Business and being moved to economy. I'm glad she got a refund AND apology. I

Today I got a $200 voucher to go along with my husband and my sister-in-law's last week. The person from AF apologized for the actions of the gate staff at CDG. Apparently this was a goodwill gesture on his part. So now I am just waiting on the refund for the fax I sent last week to the refund department. That may take a while.

Oh and by the way Socialworker, we got the vouchers through posting on Twitter. Thanks for the heads up.

I am so happy to have been able to help, Irock!

I only knew to do this b/c of the younger people in my family. All of the businesses want to maintain good relationships and connections with the Twitter generation, and if you complain via Twitter, they assume that you are young and they do not want to lose that demographic!