US Airways - trouble booking tickets to Las Vegas

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on February 24, 2003:

From: Dick Willis [Email User]

RE: US Airways - trouble booking tickets to Las Vegas

Two years ago my grandson and I took a bump in Pittsburgh on our way from Tampa to Elmira NY. The airlines had overbooked and there was weather problems in the northeast. They were desperate. They offered accomodations for the night and two tickets to anywhere in the US. This is consistent with most airlines policy. We were going to use the tickets in February of 2002 for a trip to LasVegas.

Two days before we were to leave my wife suffered a stroke and a 6cm tumor was discovered on the brain. She is recovering now, but will probably never be totally ambulatory again. It was her wish that I take our grandson to a baseball academy in Orlando this February and we made arraignments with friends and relatives to look in on her during my absense. US Air had been kind enough to extend the original tickets for an additional year under the medical circumstances.

On January 14th of 2003 I attempted to make reservations for my grandson and I to Orlando and was informed because I had not used them within the year extension of my making the reservations for the Las Vegas trip they were no longer valid. I attempted three times to reach US Air Customer Service by e-mail and never did receive a response until I Cc: my original e-mail to complaints.com. US Air CS representative e-mailed me and extend the time an additional six months. Too late for the Orlando trip but at least we were going to have

them to use. In mid February I attempted to make reservations for my wife, two of my grandsons and myself for the long anticipated trip to Las Vegas.

Everything went along fine, plenty of room on the flights we wanted to take out and back until I gave the US Air sales rep the booking memo I was told to use by US Air Customer Service. This trip was being planned for mid April. Suddenly there were no seats available unless we wanted to purchase four full fare tickets. I find it difficult to believe that many people have planned for a trip to Las Vegas in April that the seats normally reserved for what the airlines consider bonus or free tickets have been exhausted. Originally we did US Air a favor by taking a bump and one could argue US Air did us a favor by extending the time, still something just doesn't seem right. Dick Willis