United, US Airways together at last — on list of most complained-about airlines

After the way US Air has handled the following, I can understand why they made this list.

On March 6 I made nonrefundable reservations to fly roundtrip from New York’s LaGuardia to Charlotte, N.C. On May 13 I realized I booked my return trip home for the day after I meant to. My mistake. I called US Air to see what I should do. The very nice rep gave me two options: I could change the flight with him by phone for a $100 change fee (as stated on my e-confirmation as well), or I could just go to the airport on the day I needed to leave and fly standby for a fee of $25. At that time, he said there were plenty of available seats, so based on the information he gave me, I made the deliberate decision to fly standby. We left on time for Charlotte and even arrived early–a perfectly smooth flight and the in-flight crew were as nice as can be. The night before I was ready to return home, I called the airlines to make sure seats were still open on the flight I wanted to take, and was told there were.

The next morning I was dropped off at the airport at 6:45 a.m. I waited on line, then when an agent became available for me, I explained to him the situation and that I wanted to fly standby. This is when everything went downhill. He told me I could only fly standby on the same day of my original flight and that to change my flight that day would cost me $150. I reiterated what I had been told by the US Air rep in mid-May, but the agent told me there was nothing he could do, that he was beholden to the computer. Well, there was nothing I could do either–I had to get home, so I charged the $150 and figured US Air would right the wrong once I got home.

Wrong again. After holding for a full hour with customer relations, the woman (Kiki) refused to refund me down to the standby fee because nowhere in my files did the agent I spoke to in May record that he advised me of the standby option. The records did indicate he told me about the $150 change fee, which wasn’t correct either. He told me $100, and that’s what it says on my e-confirmation as well. I was on the line with Kiki for 20 minutes, but she refused to budge. It boils down to my word (the customer) against what a file (allegedly) says. Needless to say, I feel outraged about how I was treated. I own my own business and have plenty of things to do besides sitting on the phone for an hour waiting for someone to answer my call.

To sum it all up, the original booking error was mine, but the misinformation I was given in May came from US Air. I fully expected to have to pay something for the change in flights, but I made my decision based on an airline’s rep misinformation and am now being penalized. It is not my intent to get anyone in trouble or pull a fast one to get free tickets. All I want is to be refunded $125 of the $150 I had to pay (and why that’s $150 and not $100 is beyond me as well). The $25 left over represents what I would have paid to fly standby.