If anyone collects Airmiles you know it's a great way to us your points to buy cool items, gifts, or flights for cheap. One thing I learned the hard way is to be very careful when booking your flight and to always triple check your flight reservation.
This past August I had booked my ticket home to Vancouver for Thanksgiving long in advance so I'd get a good flight time. I booked online like I had done many times before, paid for the taxes on the flight and thought it was all good. Boy was I wrong...
Two days before I was supposed to fly home to Vancouver I was looking up my flight details to confirm my flight number and the time of the flight. Only to find that there was no flight record. In a panic I call up Westjet to see if they have any record of me being on the flight; I would have called Airmiles but they are closed on Sundays. After speaking to Westjet they had no record for me being on the flight to Vancouver. The next morning I wait on hold for Airmiles for over an hour and a half and once I finally get through I find out that they claim I booked the flights for September and not October. I really didn't think I could have made that mistake but even so I had no way of proving anything. So according to them I had missed my flight a month ago. Annoying part is I never got an email saying anything about missing my flight, the flight reservation just disappeared. The lady on the phone said she could reinstate my flight back to Calgary for free but I'd have to purchase a flight to Vancouver so 300 dollars later I had my ticket and was on my way.
Being home in Vancouver was great but Monday rolled around and it came time to go back to Calgary.My dad drops me off at the airport and I go to check in. They have no record for me being on that flight, instead the lady from Airmiles booked me on the Wednesday night flight for some reason. Once again I had to purchase a flight and this one cost 400 dollars. So approximately 850 dollars later for a 4 days trip to Vancouver I learned the hard way to double and triple check my reservations.
That sucks so bad! There is nothing worse than thinking you get a free trip and ending up having to pay fully price for all of it. I will make sure I keep all my documentation if I ever use airmiles
ReplyDeleteIt's too bad you've had this negative experience. Is it that airmiles doesn't provide the documentation you needed to recover your reservations? I've never experienced the frustrations you did, but it sounds like it may have been an isolated incident. I hope you still collect airmiles, and plan to be more cautious in your planning for the next redemption.
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