Travel, Airlines - Delta Airlines trouble with stolen tickets

Tickets Stolen

Delta Airlines

From: Patrick Corbett Email User

Date: Wednesday, March 14, 2001 12:33 PM Dear Business: a consumer posted the following e-message at Complaints.com. Please respond directly to the consumer, using the consumer's name and e-mail address (as per the From: field above). You may also wish to respond publicly on the Complaints.com site. Just locate this e-message posted in your business's conference and click on the "Reply to" link. (Note: a user registration is required before posting e-messages to the Complaints.com site.)

_____________________ I went on Holiday to Costa Rica for 10 days from Feb 24th to March 07th. I Flew Delta Airlines flight DL1095 to Atlanta and DL375 to San Jose. Upon arriving in San Jose my friends and I took a bus for 5 hours to a little beach town called Pueurto Viejo on the Atlantic coast. About a week into our stay the return airline tickets went missing from our Hotel room. I consider myself an experienced traveler and carried my passport or money on my person at all times. The tickets were an exception to the rule as I considered them of no value without my passport. The hotel owner was horrified that this took place and questioned the cleaning staff. She said that Costa Rican law, in attempt to bolster tourism is extremely hard on hotel staff accused of theft. I was given a Delta Airlines phone number to call and inquire about having the tickets replaced. The man on the phone assured me there would be no problem as long as I had my passport, all I would have to do is pay a 70$ USD service change for each ticket. He asked as a precaution that I arrive a couple of hours early to make the necessary arrangements before my departure time. When I got to San Jose I got a completely different story. The Delta Airlines clerk said there was no possible way they could refund the tickets without a police report from the theft and the actual 'ticket numbers', although I had my passport, my itinerary from the travel agent and the boarding passes from the flight down. She said there was no way they could verify I was scheduled to be on that plane without these numbers. I asked 'Isn't that what computers are for - to cross reference my name with my reservation?' She said I would have to phone my travel agent in Canada and have them FAX Delta with the ticket numbers on company letterhead. Once that was done she could re-issue me the tickets for a 100$ USD fee per ticket (the price was going up). Although I had a phone card there were no pay phones in the terminal and she wouldn't allow me to use their phone.

I contacted her supervisor and demanded they grant me the use of a phone as I was a Delta Airlines customer - I was in a serious bind, and it was now one hour before my flight was scheduled to board. They granted me a 3 minute phone call to Canada. As I was calling a travel agent, and the likelihood of me bring put on hold was high I found this to be somewhat unfair. My only options at this point was to spend another night in San Jose and buy two full fare one way tickets to Toronto the following day. As my current flight was completely booked (with my reservations! – apparently non-retrievable from the computer!). I eventually got in contact with my travel agent – he was very helpful – he called the ticket wholesaler to fax Delta with the Info and said I should call collect if I had anymore problems. The Fax never went through but the Delta agent conceded to take the ticket numbers from him over the phone. I had to fill out a form in order to get my tickets replaced which also acted as a waiver absolving Delta of any recourse I might persue in the matter. The service change listed on this form was $70 USD per ticket as I had been told on the phone. The Delta Clerk said “that’s an old form, It’s $100 dollars now”. I refused to pay anything more than $70 USD and eventually this was granted.

I got on the flight with minutes to spare due to the helpfulness of my travel agent and my own persistence. Delta Airlines did everything in their power to thwart my attempts of getting on that plane. It was clearly a case of “we have your money” we don’t give a @!*% about you now. It could also have been the case where a Central American representative of a major American Airline needs some work on managing the expectations of their customers. The bottom line is the Airline had NOTHING to gain by stonewalling my attempts at getting my tickets replaced. I cannot see where the $70 service change for replacing the tickets can be justified.