My Nonprofit Reviews

cprucha
Review for Elliott Advocacy, Spokane, WA, USA
My wife and I were traveling on a round trip ticket between our hometown and Wilmington, NC on American Airlines. The first flight was very turbulant and my wife, who is a nervous flyer, indicated she didn't want to take the connecting flight due to the east coast storm. I approached the AA customer service counter at PHL to inquire about my options regarding not taking the connecting flight, but still wanting to take the return flights home, as we were considering driving to Wilmington. My concern was that if we didn't take the connecting flight the airline would cancel the return portion of our trip. The agent indicated that they would put a note in our flight file and that we would have no issues on the return flight, meaning the ticket would not be cancelled. Based on this information, we decided to drive from PHL to Wilmington.
After receiving the check-in reminder email from AA and then checking in for our return flight and receiving our boarding passes, we were good to go. As you can guess, that was not the case. Upon our arrival at the airport and inquiring about re-routing our trip home due to a travel advisory at our connecting airport, the customer service agent at the check-in counter informed us that our return flights had been cancelled and that our boarding passes were invalid. The only way to get home (without renting a car and driving 14 hours) was to purchase 2 one-way tickets at a cost of over $900. Reluctantly we made the purchase as we did not have the time to drive.
After utilizing the method outlined by Elliott Advocacy to obtain a refund from AA for the cost of the return tickets we had to purchase, and receiving unsatisfactory responses from the airline, I reached out to Elliott Advocacy for help. I provided our advocate (Dwayne) the documentation showing that as of the morning of my return flight my trip had not been cancelled (reminder email, boarding passes, seat upgrade payment receipts). I even provided a photograph of the note that the customer service agent at PHL put into my file stating my intentions and why I was not taking the connecting flight on the outbound trip.
After a number of back and forth communications between Elliott Advocacy and AA, the airline refunded the additional amount I had to spend to get home. Without the assistance of Elliott Advocacy, I am sure that I would never have received the refund.