Posted on 05/02/2012 2:57:09 PM PDT by dynachrome
Here is how it should have been handled:
“I am so sorry, sir, please hold for a supervisor.”
“Mr. Meekins, this is a supervisor, I see you are traveling on a military discount fare. Thank you for your service. I am so sorry you will not be able to visit your daughter because of serious health issues. Although it is our policy that all fares are nonrefundable, we will refund your money. Please call us if your circumstances change and you are able to fly on Spirit.”
No it wouldn't.They could place some kind of weaselly legal phrase into their refund disclaimer.You prove to us that you've just been diagnosed as having two weeks to live and you'll get your money back.
That isn’t the point though. I am truly sorry he can’t use the ticket, it raises the question can he sell it (are the tickets transferable since they don’t offer refunds). But when there are terms and conditions to a sale, you make yourself aware of the consequences, and you make the choice. My husband and I are faced with a situation where a friend bought my husband a plane ticket and he will not be able to make the trip, and the friend cannot get their money back. The whole point of them buying was he could not afford the trip otherwise, and now we feel, obviously, that we should try and pay them back - for a trip we couldn’t afford in the first place. So that kinda sucks, but it is what it is, and it isn’t the fault of the airline. This airline does not offer military discounts or refunds, period. It may be the main reason their fares are low (if they are) or because they are small and keep costs down. Who knows. But it seems contradictory to me to have a big hue and cry over how this company should succumb to pressure because we happen to like the cause. But what about all the times when companies make choices and are forced to change policy and we don’t like why? Like a business who doesn’t want to make gay wedding cakes, or a hotel that doesn’t want same sex couples taking honeymoons there? Or a business that doesn’t hire cross-dressers. Are we for businesses being able to make their choices and set their policies and let the market decide?
It’s a bit like the outrage at Target who had a policy of no soliciting in front of the store. Nobody, period. So everyone gets upset that they don’t allow the Salvation Army. Well, no soliciting means nobody. Wasn’t a critique or slam on the Salvation Army specifically.
Here it is. I should have posted the link along with the poll.
It took you a very long paragraph to say that?
You wrote “This airline does not offer military discounts or refunds, period.”
Maybe they should lose some customers.
We fly a lot on American Airlines (especially my wife, who flies so much around the world because of her job that she could probably buy one of their planes).
As a result, when we are traveling together we go to the Admiral’s Club. I have always been impressed that active-duty military (including my daughter) can show up and rest and eat there, no questions asked. American also gives preferential boarding to active-duty military.
Perhaps the other airline in question could change their policy, because they are most certainly off my travel list!
ps. Sorry your husband cannot “make the trip”. Apparently the US Marine also cannot.
As far as your “its not as if he missed the flight because he overslept” strawman argument, ROTFLMAO!
He made a bad decision.
It amounted to about $200.00.
OMG, let's all get in an uproar about it because he bought a cheap, nonrefundable ticket!
I am a Veteran, and none of my Lotto investments have paid off. I demand a refund!
Sounds to me as if you'd make a great IRS Agent.Feel free to see that as a compliment if you wish.
The airline should have offered him compensation and resold the ticket.
You may not remember that the airlines stiffed many of their passengers and yet we taxpayers were forced to bail them out post 9-11.
We bailed out Wall St, AIG, GM and Chrysler too in 2008. We taxpayers get paid back as though that is adequate compensation for our risk. Wrong! We should have been paid loan shark interest on the loans, just as the banks charge us on their credit cards.
But you would make a great anti-USA Socialist!
Feel free to take that as a compliment,which you will, if you really do enjoy a belief in random, illogical delusions of moral superiority, against all facts.
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