To make a long story short, after more emails and phone calls, Northwest refunded my money several days ago. I have moved my money and reservation to American airlines, similiar itinerary and price to the $229 Saturday to Saturday flights I am "positive" I booked one week ago. When I said earlier I am 99 plus % sure of what I booked the first time - I meant I am positive my notes are correct. (100% means metaphysical certainty. Not even DNA labs ever say a match is 100%). There is no way I would have booked Friday to Friday 6 months ahead of our planned Saturday to Saturday trip as I had lots of time to keep looking for flights. Anyway,after booking American via Orbitz, I received the confirmatory email instantaneously. I feel the most significant issue in the NWA mixup is the fact I booked Northwest on a Saturday and did not get a confirmation until Monday. I have no explanation as to what went wrong and I will never know. I do appreciate everyone's help and support, especially from those who had similiar stories to tell.

It sounds like your persistence paid off. I'm glad everything worked out for you. Thank you for letting us know the outcome.

Congratulations Hilda! I am so glad that you were able to work things out. I have been following the posts after my initial comments, but found myself getting very frustrated with what I was seeing. Of course, people are entitled to their opinion, including me, but I found that some of the posts were not being very constructive to help the situation. I wondered exactly if these were "adults" posting on here. The displays of "accusations" just floored me. Of course, their opinion does count and I am sure that there are many people that fit the role of "not being honest", etc. However, in this case, I am still convinced that there was a very big communication error.

In anycase, I think that the airlines "policies" are definately not "consumer friendly". We put up with this because we have no choice.

Kay2, I am so glad you shared your story. To those of you who doubted Hilda's story, please refer to Kay2's post. It really does show that things can happen!

Do I think the airlines were intentionally ticketing incorrectly? Of course not. It is not in their benefit to do so. Not even for a change fare. I do however, believe that they relied on Hilda "giving up" and paying the change fee.

I can say that I have learned a lot about the "system" and will forever in the future make sure that my reservations/ticketing is correct. I thank you all for that! *smile*

Again, congratulations!
Sealygal

Amazing. I can't believe all the people assuming this woman was lying. Twice in the last few weeks, similar things have happened to me. I ordered tickets for a broadway show from ticketmaster. I had a printout of the confirmed seats etc. Next day, email confirmation of wrong day and wrong seats.

Ordered a wireless phone for my college son from ATT. Same thing. Printed out the online receipt with different billing & shipping addresses. They sent it to wrong place and then told me there was no way they had made the mistake even though I faxed them a copy of the shipping address from their website.

My point is nothing and no one is perfect and instead of automatically assuming someone is lying, how about giving them some support. @#%& happens.

A while back I booked two frequent-flyer-award flights on United. The next day I received a fax listing the flights with the word "Confirmed" at the top. I called the airline two weeks before I was supposed to leave to get seat assignments and was told that my reservation was cancelled because I hadn't confirmed it! When I told the agent that I had in my hands a fax saying the flight was confirmed, she had the gall to tell me that that didn't mean anything!!!

It took me 3 separate calls to United's 800 number--I was in tears by the third call--to find an agent who would help me. The flight I'd booked was sold out by that point, but she was able to get us on another flight using our FF miles. So, yes, airlines do make these kinds of mistakes!

And the whole point of this story is......stick to SOUTHWEST, avoid the hassles of other airlines cancel/re-schedule fees, enjoy the great fares (esp to Florida).

well, all this talk is making me nervous about my award trip coming up on American....i do have the paper tix in my hand so guess we are on if they don't cancel the flight!!!yikes!!!