A MOM traveling solo with her five-month old baby was hit with a $3,600 fee from American Airlines after a huge error.
It came after she used a common booking method to save money on her flight.
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Despite the company’s error, they refused to issue a refund, forcing the shocked mom to launch a battle to get her cash back.
“It seriously keeps me up at night,” she told one person on TikTok.
Katie from Orange County, California, shared her ordeal on the social media platform about how a trip to visit her husband at his military base in Japan turned into a full-blown “travel nightmare.”
“American Airlines accidentally charged me thousands of dollars, and now they’re refusing to pay me back,” she told viewers.
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Knowing how expensive the trip to and from Japan would be, on May 5, Katie bought the return part of her ticket using a common money saving method.
“I purchased the flight [from Japan to LAX] using 60,000 American miles and $50 in taxes and fees,” she explained.
“I’m pretty savvy with using credit card points and airline miles, so I’d been checking the American Airlines site daily for an award ticket to open up,” she added when speaking to the Daily Mail.
She then immediately called the airline to add her baby to the booking with the five-month-old being booked on as a ‘lap infant’, costing her an extra $386.
Katie approved that payment but was shocked when she checked her receipt to see an additional charge of $3,674.11 for “a second full-price ticket under her name”.
After her “heart dropped” at the shock, the 28-year-old called American Airlines and was told that a refund would be processed within a week.
However, the ticket wasn’t canceled meaning there were two tickets in her name for the same flight with the same code.
A mix up at Okinawa Airport meant she flew using the full-price ticket instead of the one bought with points.
After once again being reassured she would get a refund, and numerous phone calls and other communications later, Katie still hadn’t got her money back.
Two months after the charge was made, the airline informed the stressed mother that she would not be getting a refund because the agent checked her on the flight with the full-price ticket and Japan Airlines had already billed American Airlines for it.
“This has been such a nightmare experience,” Katie told viewers.
“I feel I have exhausted all of my resources and American have been awful and now they are not responding to any of my messages and I don’t know where else I can turn.”
LAST RESORT
Posting her story to TikTok was a last resort and it worked.
Thousands of viewers watched the video and six days after uploading it, she received a call from an American Airlines rep and the cash was returned to her bank account along with a 7,500-mile bonus.
“It’s funny – just days earlier, their ‘hands were tied,’ but a little bad PR and suddenly they weren’t tied any more,” Katie told the Mail.
“I felt so much relief knowing I was finally getting my thousands back.
“I also felt vindicated – it was the justice I’d been fighting for all along.”
“I had this huge weight on my chest knowing a massive corporation had taken thousands of dollars from me, and it would keep me up at night,” she added.
Shocked viewers called the airline’s move “not very ‘American'”.
A spokesperson for American Airlines told the news outlet: “Our team has been in touch with this customer and offered her an apology, refunded her in full and offered her a gesture of goodwill.”
Now the registered nurse and dietitian is not only using her TikTok not only for wellness videos but also travel hacks and tips including on “getting a refund when a company screws you over”.
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