Travel with Kevin and Ruth: Well that was a worthwhile end to the story!

Sunday, September 10, 2023

Well that was a worthwhile end to the story!

If you haven't been following along, I'll give you the short version of the whole story, starting at the beginning. If you have, you can skip the next couple of paragraphs to the most recent part!

We had booked flights with Air France from Paris to Ottawa direct. When we went to check in, they told us the flight was overbooked, but they offered us €600 ($875 CA, $642 USD) each in cash to switch our flights to arrive in Montreal, with an Air Canada connection to Ottawa.

Of course we jumped on that deal (and the cash has already been received as a credit to our Visa card)!

We arrived in Montreal without a problem, but quickly found out that our evening flight to Ottawa had been cancelled. Air Canada had rescheduled us to fly the next day, on a ridiculous route from Montreal to Toronto, and connecting back to Ottawa.

But that left us stuck in Montreal overnight. Air Canada would do nothing to compensate us for the inconvenience, saying that they had no responsibility to do so because the problem was "weather related" due to a lightning strike on the airplane.

We went to the Air France desk and explained the story. They quickly and happily set us up with a free hotel room for the night, as well as vouchers for dinner, breakfast, and the taxi ride there and back.

Ruth's brother Colin offered to pick us up the next day, so when we returned to the airport that morning and went back to the Air Canada desk, we cancelled the ridiculous flight route back to Ottawa. Air Canada said that we would be reimbursed for that leg of the flight and we would hear from them by email within 7 days.

Well 7 days passed and we weren't surprised that we didn't hear back from Air Canada. So I called them yesterday afternoon. I used their "call back" service so I wouldn't have to wait on hold, and got a phone call about an hour and a half later.

The guy said that I had been given wrong information and that it wasn't Air Canada's responsibility to reimburse us. We would have to go through Air France. I agree that its a bit of a complicated situation, but it was kind of frustrating being stuck in the middle.

I called Air France, and of course had to explain the whole story again. The guy disappeared for a couple of minutes and came back on saying that it looked like compensation had already been issued. I thought he was talking about the original payment for the overbooked flight, but he said that two €600 Air France vouchers had been issued on August 31st to compensate for the cancelled Air Canada flight!

It turns out that when Air France did the vouchers for the hotel and meals, they also issued the compensation vouchers, but never told us about them. Or maybe the system does that automatically in the event of a cancelled flight. Anyhow, I wasn't about to question it!

So we got $1,875 CAD for the overbooked flights, which is more than we paid for the round trip flights to begin with, which means our return flight to Paris next month is also totally free. And we also got €600 each in Air France vouchers! Wow!

The vouchers can be used for anything... upgrades, excess baggage, seat selection and of course flights. And they can also be used on Air France partner airlines... KLM, Delta, and Virgin Atlantic. But they are only valid for one year, so we have to keep that in mind.

What a deal that overbooked flight turned out to be for us! We were so well looked after by Air France, and always with a friendly, helpful attitude and a smile. They definitely rank high in our books!

Yesterday, we headed over to Barb and John's for a BBQ. This is the couple whose wedding we went to in Ireland in May.

Their friends Eric and Loret joined us. They also travel a lot so there were a quite a few travel stories being shared.