As Thanksgiving and Christmas approach, airline passengers need to know how to deal with a system that squeezes every nickel, dime, and dollar from them. Dealing effectively with airlines that view their customers as “the meat in the seat,” as a British Airways flight steward once indelicately put it to me, can make the difference between losing money on a ruined trip or getting a satisfactory credit/refund.
I’m an experienced traveler, but I still learned some new tricks recently. I had to reschedule a flight to attend a shooting competition in Switzerland. Something went wrong with the online rebooking. Instead of the $5,459.21 refund I expected, I received $72.91. Customer service reassured me I’d have a full refund in 7 to 10 calendar days. On the 11th day, they said the waiting period was up to 13 business days. When that date came and went, customer service suddenly did a 180 and informed me I’d received my full refund a month earlier — $5,386.30 of my business class fare had seemingly vanished. A kind agent tried to escalate the case, but Swiss Air Lines customer service representatives had no direct way to contact the Swiss Air Lines refund department staff. The airline’s computer programs continued to report that my refund had been issued.
