Dissatisfaction with Allegiant Air
My daughter, Katie, had a flight booked to leave
Missoula and go to Los Angeles on Thursday June 12th. The fight was booked several months in
advance so she could visit with family and attend her uncle’s wedding. The day prior to her flight, I went online
and looked up her flight status with her confirmation number, I printed out her
flight confirmation, which stated the flight departed Missoula at 1:36pm. Thursday was her last day of school, and she
was so excited to go to California, visit with family, go shopping, eat some
In-N-Out and enjoy her summer. She had
worked really hard over the school year, playing Volleyball and Basketball and
maintaining straight A’s in all of her classes. Brad and I took Katie out to lunch to say
goodbye before her 2 week trip to California, after all, we had a couple hours
before her flight.
Katie and I arrived at the Missoula airport at 12:00,
this way we had plenty of time to check in, say our good byes and wait for her
flight to take off. When we got to the
ticketing area, it was empty, no one standing in line, no one working the
ticketing counter – I thought this was odd, but hey, it’s a small airport on a Thursday,
maybe we’re really early! An employee
asked if she could help, and I explained we were checking in for my daughter’s
flight to LA. She stated the plane
already left, I responded “No it hasn’t” with my flight confirmation in hand. She asked to see my paperwork and apologized saying
the flight had left about 30 minutes ago.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
As I looked over at Katie, I could see the look of disappointment and
her eyes starting to tear up, how was she going to get to California? The lady stated she needed to get a
supervisor over to assist.
Another lady and a tall man, came out of the ticketing
office to assist, both looking at my paperwork, confused as to how I just
printed out a flight confirmation with the wrong information on it. I asked if this had anything to do with the
upgrade to their system. I had to call a
week prior to change the baggage between Katie’s flight and mine, as she needed
a larger, checked in bag. After waiting
35 minutes and being disconnected several times, I finally got a customer service
agent who took about 30 minutes to update the “new system” with the baggage
change, and charged me $19 for the change.
It was due to this customer service interaction, that I was made aware
that Allegiant Air had recently updated their computer systems and lots of
people where having “troubles” with the online reservation system and modifying
their flights. And regardless of the
amount of times I attempted to contact their customer service, and the wait
times, I also sent in several “contact us” emails to the Allegiant Air website,
none of which were able to assist me with the baggage change nor did anyone
verify or mention a change in the flight times.
The Ticketing agent, Stacy, was very apologetic and
tried to assist with getting Katie’s flight corrected, as she was holding my
printed flight confirmation from the day prior with the wrong flight
times. She contacted customer service
to figure out why this happened and what they could do to correct the
issue. After about a half hour of
waiting with Katie at the airport, they offered to fly Katie to Oakland
California, which is about 5 hours in the opposite direction she was
headed. I stated that that would not
work as she was a 15 year old, and had no way to get from Oakland to LA by
herself. Then after waiting another
15-20 minutes, they offered to transfer Katie’s flight information from
Thursday June 12th to Sunday June 15th, 3 days later. Now,
since this was our only option to get Katie to California, I said “YES”. The ticketing agent said she was trying to
get the Allegiant Customer service to waive the fees. I am sorry, but I should not have to pay any
fees for their error. I am not even
sure why they would think about charging a customer to correct their own
error. After about another 30 minutes
of waiting for the ticketing agent to assist, she was able to print the new
ticket confirmations for a Sunday flight, and stated I should contact Allegiant
Air customer service for a better resolution.
I asked if someone could contact me back, due to my numerous issues in
the past with waiting on hold and being disconnected. She spoke with a Holly at Allegiant who took
my phone number and was going to look into what they could do to make this
better (aka compensation).
About an hour after I got home with Katie, Holly from
Allegiant customer service called, apologized for the error and offered me $25
in vouchers. I proceeded to tell her
the story and the inconvenience this has caused us and our family in
California, which she advised me to use the “Contact Us” Link and request
additional compensation for their error.
Their first response was:
Thank you
for contacting Allegiant Travel. Please be advised every passenger was notified
of the schedule change via email. On the reservation in question the email
address is different than the one you are emailing from, which would have
prevented the email from getting to you. Whoever booked the reservation would
have received the email with notification of the change. At this time it
appears a voucher for $25 was issued on this reservation for the inconvenience.
I apologize, however, no further compensation will be offered.
Allegiant
Travel, as well as other airlines, reschedule aircraft and flights as needed,
to provide the most efficient operation. Every attempt is made to notify customers
of changes in schedule that affect them directly. Customer contact is done
through our Schedule Change Department and Reservations Department by telephone
or e-mail. Media outlets and our web developers have the information the same
day as the Schedule Change Department, therefore, Allegiants passenger may hear
the information from outside sources prior to the Schedule Change Departments
notifications. There are many reasons for schedule changes including but not
limited to: aircraft availability, route changes, service to new markets,
airport curfews, crew resources, passenger feedback, or airport availability.
The options available to the passenger are based on the amount of time the
flight was affected – less than or greater than 4 hours. If you have any
questions please call us directly at the number listed below. We are open
from 4:00 AM to 11:00 PM PST seven days a week.
Thank you
for choosing Allegiant Travel.
To which,
I needed to write back again: I understand airlines change flights, that is not
the issue. I checked the flight info online on YOUR website, which
told me the flight was not changed and was still at 1:30pm. I gave my
printed flight confirmation, from your website, to the ticketing
agent Stacy, who contacted your customer service number right away due to YOUR error.
I hope you reconsider your response below, if you're not able to apply more
compensation, then I need to speak with someone else who can.
They wrote me back:
Hello Wendy,
We
apologize, again for any inconvenience this has caused. Our final decision is
to deny your request for compensation. While we understand that this decision
is unsatisfactory to you, we are not able to modify our company’s policy
regarding flight status. No further emails regarding this matter will be
responded to as our final decision has been made. We thank you again for your
business and appreciate your concerns.
Thank you,
Tori S
So now, they won’t research the issue or respond
back to me
Very dissatisfied with Allegiant’s Customer
Service
Allegiant Travel - Customer Care
Phone: 702-505-8888
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