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Airline compensation

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mancunian60

New member
What is the name of your state? Delaware

Wasn't sure exactly where to post this, so apologies if its in the wrong category. And I'll try to keep it brief.

Several months ago I bought airline tickets to fly from Philadelphia to the UK, purchased through an online travel agent on Icelandair. Icelandair had a schedule change on their flights, resulting in a long layover in Rejkavik, Iceland which we reluctantly accepted as there seemed to be nothing else the airline would do, citing their 'guidelines' each time I called them, which was many times over a period of several weeks.

Eventually I talked to an agent there who advised that she could make the change to leave a couple of days earlier to avoid the long layover. However, in making the change she accidentally canceled our return flight reservations. I only found out about this when I called back; nobody notified me. During a period of about a week, spending about 6 hours on the phone with Icelandair, they refused to rebook the seats back on the flight, despite the fact that it had plenty of seats and not full. Furthermore, after several days of doing this, I was told that our flights going to the UK were waitlisted and not confirmed. Needless to say, this is not what I was told when I called to make the change. Despite there being seats available on all the flights we were booked on, Icelandair refuses to get back the seats for us, citing ' its not the same fare type as you had before'. I used to work for an airline so know how all of this works; an obvious and indisputable error like this should be fixed immediately, regardless of the cost to the airline or how much our tickets cost. We have had to cancel our trip as we aren't actually confirmed an any flights. Yes, the tickets are refundable, but is there anything more I can do? Further compensation to account for the inconvenience, time wasted, stress and distress? I have paid for train tickets in the UK which are not refundable; I'll have to fight to get reimbursed for those. I had thought of a civil lawsuit, small claims court, whatever else. Iceland air by the way has a visual record of all my conversations with them, as well as recordings of every phone call. They are based outside the US, but probably have a sales office here somewhere. Thanks.
 


Taxing Matters

Overtaxed Member
Yes, the tickets are refundable, but is there anything more I can do? Further compensation to account for the inconvenience, time wasted, stress and distress? I have paid for train tickets in the UK which are not refundable; I'll have to fight to get reimbursed for those. I had thought of a civil lawsuit, small claims court, whatever else.
Sorry, but even if I assume that the travel agent or airline breached its contract with you (and I can't tell that without knowing the details of the contract) you do not get compensated for inconvenience, time spent, stress or distress in a breach of contract claim. Moreover, you do not get compensated for consequential damages like the train tickets you bought unless the breaching party knew at the time that the contract was made that you'd likely suffer that loss if that party breached the contract. I think it likely that the only thing you can get out of this is the ticket refund.
 

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