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Ticket cancellation w/ no notification, stranded for 2 days

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r0m8470

Junior Member
Definitions:
AA: American Airlines
CX: Cathay Pacific
AS: Alaska Airlines
JL: Japan Airlines
SEA: Seattle
LAX: Los Angeles

I booked my parents on award tickets using my American Airlines miles. Itineraries are operated by AS and CX, but the issuing carrier is American Airlines. They flew their outbound portion just fine. On their inbound portion, they flew the SEA-LAX portion, and needed to get their boarding passes at CX desk at LAX. CX agent refused to issue the boarding passes, citing that tickets were cancelled by AA. They immediately got on calls with me (I was in Seattle at the time), and AA phone desk. AA agent insisted that tickets are still valid, CX agent would not budge. After back and forth, AA agents admitted that tickets were cancelled. AA ended up rebooking my parents on combination of AA and JL, but leaving 2 days later. AA did not provide hotels, and/or voucher for incidental expenses.

Needless to say, I am not happy with the situation. I'd like AA to pay for the hotel and incidental expense. I also took 1 day off work to fly down to LAX using my Southwest points on last min ticket to help my parents. My parents are seniors, well in their 70s, not very fluent in English. They were just not equipped with this kind of travel disruption. I filed a complaint to the DOT, and AA responded, admitting that they provided no notification to the cancellation but they refused to pay my expenses. I have also submitted complaints through their customer relations form, with no results, other than generic response. I've exhausted all non legal means to get AA to reimburse my expense.

Questions:
I put in a small claims in the state of WA, under my name as a plaintiff. The judge dismissed the case. He said that even though he is sympathetic to my parents plight, I cannot file the suit as a plaintiff. My parents have to be the plaintiff. How can I do that if my parents live in Indonesia? It's not financially viable to fly them just for the small claims case. How can I proceed in small claims? Or do I just forget small claims and hire an attorney?
 
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Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
Definitions:
AA: American Airlines
CX: Cathay Pacific
AS: Alaska Airlines
JL: Japan Airlines
SEA: Seattle
LAX: Los Angeles

I booked my parents on award tickets using my American Airlines miles. Itineraries are operated by AS and CX, but the issuing carrier is American Airlines. They flew their outbound portion just fine. On their inbound portion, they flew the SEA-LAX portion, and needed to get their boarding passes at CX desk at LAX. CX agent refused to issue the boarding passes, citing that tickets were cancelled by AA. They immediately got on calls with me (I was in Seattle at the time), and AA phone desk. AA agent insisted that tickets are still valid, CX agent would not budge. After back and forth, AA agents admitted that tickets were cancelled. AA ended up rebooking my parents on combination of AA and JL, but leaving 2 days later. AA did not provide hotels, and/or voucher for incidental expenses.

Needless to say, I am not happy with the situation. I'd like AA to pay for the hotel and incidental expense. I also took 1 day off work to fly down to LAX using my Southwest points on last min ticket to help my parents. My parents are seniors, well in their 70s, not very fluent in English. They were just not equipped with this kind of travel disruption. I filed a complaint to the DOT, and AA responded, admitting that they provided no notification to the cancellation but they refused to pay my expenses. I have also submitted complaints through their customer relations form, with no results, other than generic response. I've exhausted all non legal means to get AA to reimburse my expense.

Questions:
I put in a small claims in the state of WA, under my name as a plaintiff. The judge dismissed the case. He said that even though he is sympathetic to the my parents plight, I cannot file the suit as a plaintiff. My parents have to be the plaintiff. How can I do that if my parents live in Indonesia? It's not financially viable to fly them just for the small claims case. How can I proceed in small claims? Or do I just forget small claims and hire an attorney?
You have no dog in this fight (that's what the small claims judge was telling you.) Your parents are the ones that would need to take action. You can hire an attorney on their behalf if you'd like, but any recovery they may be (though probably won't be) awarded will likely be dwarfed by the nonreimburseable attorney costs.
 

r0m8470

Junior Member
You have no dog in this fight (that's what the small claims judge was telling you.) Your parents are the ones that would need to take action. You can hire an attorney on their behalf if you'd like, but any recovery they may be (though probably won't be) awarded will likely be dwarfed by the nonreimburseable attorney costs.
That much I know. So, in other words, there is no way that another small claims suit be entered with my parents as the plaintiff because they could not be present during small claims court hearing? What if they wrote a Power of Attorney?
 

justalayman

Senior Member
That much I know. So, in other words, there is no way that another small claims suit be entered with my parents as the plaintiff because they could not be present during small claims court hearing? What if they wrote a Power of Attorney?
Nope.

A POA does not make you an attorney. It makes you an agent and that is not adequate to represent your parents in court
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
So there is no way to get that expense re-imbursed through small claims then ... ?
Assuming the contract of carriage allows for it to be heard in small claims court, then the expenses could be reimbursed if such a case was successfully argued by your parents.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I'm curious - were your parents flying TO Indonesia when this occurred?
 

r0m8470

Junior Member
No. I pressed AA through phone calls with their reservation agents post rebooking but no one could tell me.

I suspect I know why, but it is a speculation on my part. About a week before the trip start, AA sent me a change of schedule email, and issued new ticket numbers. The Alaska inbound segment has a flight number change, but the schedule stays the same, no change on the CX portion. The new AS flight per the 'old' schedule would have broken the minimum connection time rule at LAX. Somehow, that change was not captured by the reservation system. That may have triggered the ticket cancellation. Again, this is all speculation on my part. What the agents told me consistently was that that portion of the tickets were cancelled 13 hours before the departure time.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
Hopefully your parents arrived home in good health. Given the actual minimal damages it probably is not worth it to do anything further.


Btw; your work time and flight costs and whatever are not compensable. It was nice you flew to help your parents in their time of need but it was not required but your choice.
 

r0m8470

Junior Member
Hopefully your parents arrived home in good health. Given the actual minimal damages it probably is not worth it to do anything further.


Btw; your work time and flight costs and whatever are not compensable. It was nice you flew to help your parents in their time of need but it was not required but your choice.
I get that. AA conditions of carriage (CoC) mention that consequential damages are not airline's responsibilities. I knew it was a long shot to get the consequential damage. I am however not happy about un-reimbursed hotel expenses. Their CoC mentioned about them taking care of unexpected expenses but that goes out the window too in this case since they refuse to pay. It's a marked contrast with Delta for example. I had a flight from Greensboro SC to Seattle via Detroit just last month. The Detroit leg was delayed due to de-icing issue, and I got re-routed via Atlanta, with overnight stay. Delta provided hotel vouchers, no questions asked.
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I get that. AA conditions of carriage (CoC) mention that consequential damages are not airline's responsibilities. I knew it was a long shot to get the consequential damage. I am however not happy about un-reimbursed hotel expenses. Their CoC mentioned about them taking care of unexpected expenses but that goes out the window too in this case since they refuse to pay. It's a marked contrast with Delta for example. I had a flight from Greensboro SC to Seattle via Detroit just last month. The Detroit leg was delayed due to de-icing issue, and I got re-routed via Atlanta, with overnight stay. Delta provided hotel vouchers, no questions asked.
Their flight is governed by the international version, not the domestic AA carriage rules.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
One thing you might consider doing is writing letters to some of the more world wide travel magazines talking about what happened to your parents. I have found that when airlines are approached by travel magazines they tend to come up with some form of compensation for situations like the one your parent's experienced.
 

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