About six weeks ago, I was going to Europe on business and we decided that my husband would come with me. When not traveling for business, I almost always buy travel insurance, but this time I forgot to do it for my husband – I already have insurance through my job. A week before we were scheduled to depart, my husband went in for a routine doctor's appointment that ended up with his being hospitalized and told in no uncertain terms when he was discharged that he could not fly. Naturally I contacted our airline, KLM, at once to cancel his ticket. When I got back, we sent an email request to customer service for reimbursement of the unused ticket, backed up with copies of his doctor's do not fly orders. Now, I have to say, I was not very hopeful. Nowadays airlines play hardball on this kind of issue; and after all, that's why they sell travel insurance. Still, the fare was $1300, so I figured my opening request would be for reimbursement, and then when that was denied, I'd request that they let us roll over the fare amount for future flights, and then when that was denied, the fallback plea would be to let us rollover the fare and pay a hefty change fee. At least any of those would beat losing the whole $1300. To my surprise, we got an email last week approving the full reimbursement, and my credit card statement shows that it was credited the full amount of the fare. So three cheers for KLM! They'll definitely get my business in the future.
Posted by
Atlanta
3262 posts
JER, I'm so sorry to hear about your husband's illness! It's good to know that KLM has agreed to refund the money you paid for his ticket. Thank you for reporting something positive that an airline has done. Take care!
Posted by
Seattle
4637 posts
I think that's because KLM is not a US airline but a European one.
Posted by
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
2779 posts
Unfortunately this is not standard, not even for a European airline. I'll keep that in mind for my next long-haul flight and am posting this to keep this thread appear high up on the list.
Posted by
LaGrange, Ga, USA
1178 posts
Great results!!! I had a similar incident with Delta only a few weeks ago..they wanted to charge $150 change fee on a $186 ticket and the flight was oversold!! I could not go for health problems. After advising that I could show up at the ticket counter, sick, and then perhaps be given an option, or I might have to fly, I was finally able to get a credit. I will try to find a KLM Fight in the future because of your experience!
Posted by
OP
Seattle, USA
990 posts
I know how rare this kind of accommodation is, which is why I thought it was worthy of a post. Airlines have become increasingly unwilling to even meet the customer halfway in situations like these. Here's a "no cheers" example. My adult daughter came down with a tummy bug or perhaps mild food poisoning the next before she was scheduled to leave on a cross country flight. I called her airline's customer service to see if she could change her early morning flight to one later in the day, or even the next day. We were willing to pay a change fee, but the customer service rep insisted that she would have to also pay the difference between the fare she booked, well in advance, and the fare for the new flight, as though it were being booked at the last minute. Together with the change fee, they wanted all told six hundred extra dollars! She was appalled, and despite spending most of the night in the bathroom, bravely downed some Immodium and decided to tough it out. Well, when she got to the airport, she looked so miserable that the gate attendants refused to let her fly and booked her on the late afternoon flight. (Of course, since this was an airline decision, they had to do it for free!) In the end, the airline's unreasonableness cost them the change fee that we were willing to spend, and cost her a miserable day at the airport when she could have spent it comfortably tucked in bed at our house. Lose-lose, I think. The airline? US Air.
Posted by
Myrtle Beach, USA
12313 posts
Good for KLM. I had a similar deal with Southwest where my leave was canceled so I was out the cost of a roundtrip cross country flight. Southwest gave me a credit to use later rather than a cash reimbursement, your first fallback option.