All the time, OMAAT readers will share with me the frustrating situations they encounter with airlines, and I try to share my take and provide tips, best I can. Well, I’ve just encountered a situation with a ticket I had booked on Scandinavian Airlines (SAS), which is leaving me very frustrated.
I guess I should take responsibility here, though it really exposes how one-sided airline contracts of carriage are, and how unforgiving airlines are when it comes to applying logic to these kinds of situations. Let me explain…
In this post:
SAS canceled my flight, and rebooking wasn’t seamless
On the trip I’m just wrapping up, I flew Emirates’ 777 business class from Dubai (DXB) to Frankfurt (FRA), and my plan was then to connect to Copenhagen (CPH) four hours later, on an SAS A320neo business class flight, which I booked with cash (I paid around $300).
While standing in the gate area at Dubai Airport at around 2AM waiting to board, I received an email from SAS, informing me that my flight several hours later from Frankfurt to Copenhagen had been canceled. Grrr! Can I just mention that I have really bad luck, because the last intra-Europe flight I had booked (from a couple of months back) was also canceled on the day of departure?
The email indicated I should check my options by going to the “my trips” section of SAS’ website, so that’s exactly what I did.
Annoying, despite SAS’ email indicating I could rebook through the website, that wasn’t initially the case, as obviously things weren’t programmed correctly. After pulling up my itinerary, I just saw the standard rebooking options, not reflecting that my flight was canceled:
- I was given the option for a same day flight change, at the cost of 60 EUR
- The option to rebook flights showed as “not available”
While I was initially booked on an 11:05AM flight, I knew there was no earlier flight on SAS, and the next flight was only at 3:15PM. For context, I had only one night in Copenhagen, and was staying at Nimb Hotel, the city’s best hotel, which I booked with a Hilton free night certificate.
So it was important to me to get there ASAP, and I was a little worried the later flight would book out with people rebooking, given that it was operated by a smaller regional jet.
Since I was literally in the boarding area for a flight in the UAE (which also blocks most voice calling apps), all I could do was keep refreshing the SAS “my trips” section, to see if options finally showed up. Well, that didn’t happen for quite some time.
After my flight was airborne, around an hour after I initially checked, I saw the proposed alternative flight, which was the 3:15PM flight I was expecting. That was one of the options, or I could request a refund.
The details on this page were all limited, so I clicked through to confirm the flight. After all, I wasn’t even sure if the rebooking was in business class, since it wasn’t mentioned on the page. For that matter, I wondered if it would even rebook correctly, given previous issues I was having with managing the reservation (with rebooking options not showing up).
Sure enough, the flight confirmed, and it was in business class.
I then decided I was going to look for a better option
As soon as I knew what my “confirmed” option was with SAS, I started considering alternatives. As much as I loved the idea of taking the later flight and getting 250 EUR compensation thanks to EC261 regulations, this was less than ideal:
- I’d realistically only get to the hotel at around 6PM, well after sunset, and I really wanted to enjoy and review Nimb Hotel, and my time there was limited
- I had been traveling nonstop for three days with minimal sleep, and quite frankly, sitting in Frankfurt Airport for another eight hours sounded really unpleasant
I took a look at options (which isn’t all that easy on Emirates’ very slow inflight Wi-Fi), and saw that Lufthansa had a nonstop flight at around 10AM that had award availability in economy, so I could book that for 7,500 points. As much as I would’ve preferred business class and EC261 compensation, this seemed worth it to enjoy the hotel, to get some proper rest, and to avoid an extra five plus hours in Frankfurt.
I then decided to start an online chat with SAS to try to cancel my original flight. However, despite what the website says, the online chat doesn’t actually transfer you to a human, and is just AI (at least it was when I reached out). So instead, I called SAS the second I landed in Frankfurt.
I explained my flight was canceled, and I would like to refund it, as the schedule for the new flight didn’t work for me, and I rebooked a separate itinerary. The agent explained that my ticket was non-refundable, because I had accepted the new flight.
Okay, as she said that, I kind of thought to myself “oh boy, this is going to be a headache.” Technically she’s correct — I did “accept” the new flight, but that’s because the website wasn’t working correctly previously with rebooking, and I wanted to see what the option actually was, in terms of the cabin travel would be in, etc.
She explained that SAS had no further obligation, since I accepted the rebooking, and therefore a cancellation was no longer possible. She insisted there was nothing else she could do. Okay, that’s super annoying — I suppose technically she’s correct that I accepted the alternative, though this just strikes me as incredibly customer unfriendly.
I’m a SkyTeam Elite Plus member booking business class who had a flight canceled on me last minute. The website was bad for rebooking, and I just wanted to see what the alternative option actually was, in full. And then when I reached out almost immediately to explain I didn’t want to take that flight, I was essentially told “tough luck,” because I agreed to the alternative. Grrrr!
Do I just take the loss on this, or try to fight it?
I try to hold myself to a high standard when it comes to how I interact with airlines, and I also know to expect the worst when it comes to airline customer service, and their willingness to apply logic to a situation.
In retrospect, I should’ve probably known better than to confirm the flight, only to then cancel. It was probably a combination of factors — I was super tired, I placed a lot of value in being sure I could get to Copenhagen as soon as possible, and the website was having issues with confirming new flights.
However, I will say, I’ve absolutely had other situations where my flight was canceled, I accepted a rebooking, and then I let the airline know that actually didn’t work, and they were happy to refund me. This just seems like one of those situations where if you step back and apply any sort of logic, you’d say “okay, refunding the customer is the right thing.” But I also understand that the airline industry operates under a system of “computer says no.”
Perhaps the other path here is to try to request EC261 compensation, based on the flight I was rebooked on. Okay, I don’t get my money back, but the 250 EUR would basically cover the ticket cost, and they could only get me to my destination over three hours late. But then I’m sure they’d also argue that I didn’t take the flight…
So yeah, I’m not sure what exactly to make of this, but this is one of the more frustrating situations I’ve had with an airline in quite some time… and maybe I’m just mad at myself here.
Bottom line
SAS canceled my flight at the last minute, which was less than ideal, given that I had just one night in Copenhagen. The rebooking process was far from seamless, but eventually I was able to see what the rebooking option was, and it confirmed.
After looking at alternatives on other airlines and deciding that the flight didn’t work for me, I just booked a ticket on Lufthansa with points, since I valued getting to Copenhagen earlier. However, at that point SAS claimed that I wasn’t eligible for a refund, since I agreed to the rebooking. That’s kind of frustrating, when you consider the consider the big picture, in my opinion.
What do you make of this SAS cancellation saga?
Typical European shit. Focus on rules rather than solving the problem. This is why we are much richer than they are.
Right on.
Because we allow the rich to avoid tax, the powerful to avoid jail, and bully everyone else who goes against us. Oh and we can "liberate" oil rich country whenever we need. We've been doing that since H.W.
Let it go, Ben. Is it right? No. Is it customer friendly? No. You can spend time and effort fighting it but your time is more valuable than that.
This is the difference between "rules" in USA and Europe plain and simple. You would definitely be able to get refunded if this happened in USA due to a cancelled flight. Not the case in Europe. With benefits like EU261 also comes inflexibility.
I'd probably take the L and book a day rate at the HGI over in the Squaire, get in a nap, or if I simply had to get more time in on the review, get the LH eco flight and eat the SK flight.
This is not America where you can book and cancel flights all day long without consequence because you want to "cover all possible bases".
EU261: SAS (or and other European Airline) must book you in the next available/quickest flight even if it is on a different airline.
Most people don’t know: even if the flight is cancelled due to bad weather or whatever they still need to book you on the quickest available alternative.
Next time: write an email to SAS with your husband in CC (to later prove that the email was sent and received) to...
EU261: SAS (or and other European Airline) must book you in the next available/quickest flight even if it is on a different airline.
Most people don’t know: even if the flight is cancelled due to bad weather or whatever they still need to book you on the quickest available alternative.
Next time: write an email to SAS with your husband in CC (to later prove that the email was sent and received) to book you on flight xxx within a reasonable timeframe of a couple of hours - if they don’t reply, book the ticket on your own and keep screenshots to show it was reasonably priced etc.
you will then have to contact the airline for reimbursement.
sorry Ben, but here you are totally wrong. I am based in FRA, Germany and as a HON ein fly constantly Lufthansa. Even with my status they would do anything once I agree on an alternative. They always tell you also in the Hotline, that once you accept the alternative the original rules (if you have a refundable ticket, for sure it's refundable after that) are valid. No chance. So I never, never ever confirm...
sorry Ben, but here you are totally wrong. I am based in FRA, Germany and as a HON ein fly constantly Lufthansa. Even with my status they would do anything once I agree on an alternative. They always tell you also in the Hotline, that once you accept the alternative the original rules (if you have a refundable ticket, for sure it's refundable after that) are valid. No chance. So I never, never ever confirm anything until I do not know that it will be my final solution. Until I do not confirm anything any agent can do anything with a ticket which is status TK/UN. But if you arrive more then 3 hours late with the alternative booking you are eligible for 250,- EUR EU261 compensation. As you the ticket has Germany contact (departure FRA) you can contact a German lawyer like Dr. Böse and it will be an easy thing. reminder for the US people here: in Germany you have not cost if you fight for your rights before court and you win. then the looser has to pay everything. and in such cases it's quit crytal clear. I never lost a case when I was sueing an airline cause they had cancelt or rescheduled my flight. So in this case we say in Germany: Fass dir a die eigenen Nase - blöd gelaufen und nächstes mal schlauer sein. All the best!
Thanks for bringing up Dr. Böse…so I don’t have to…
None of the rationalizations, excuses you tell yourself changes the fact that you accepted an alternate. The circumstances don't matter. Your motivation was also to make sure that alternate plane didn't get booked up.
I don't know of any airline that does any differently in terms of options once accepted. Note that your booking on alternate may potentially have made a seat on that plane unavailable for sale. So there is a potential cost to...
None of the rationalizations, excuses you tell yourself changes the fact that you accepted an alternate. The circumstances don't matter. Your motivation was also to make sure that alternate plane didn't get booked up.
I don't know of any airline that does any differently in terms of options once accepted. Note that your booking on alternate may potentially have made a seat on that plane unavailable for sale. So there is a potential cost to them of your decision.
After that it is entirely up to them to make an exception for good will. One in 3 or less will do that.
SAS is an almost LCC and so unlikely. But worth a try.
As you got an interesting and informative (for the readers in the future) post out of it, I’d say it’s a reasonable €300 business expense. I know you know this and probably aren’t that upset but I get it.
EU and ME3 usually have these stupid customer unfriendly by the book to the T policy.
The employees can't even do anything if they wanted to help you. They can only wait for an approval by someone hidden in a bomb shelter. The request usually takes 48 hours, and mostly will remain the same customer unfriendly answer.
So basically these airlines tells you to go f**k yourself when something goes wrong.
Everytime I fly...
EU and ME3 usually have these stupid customer unfriendly by the book to the T policy.
The employees can't even do anything if they wanted to help you. They can only wait for an approval by someone hidden in a bomb shelter. The request usually takes 48 hours, and mostly will remain the same customer unfriendly answer.
So basically these airlines tells you to go f**k yourself when something goes wrong.
Everytime I fly ME3, I just hope nothing happens. No delays, no rebooking, no bag damage, no incident. Just check in, fly, arrive, and be done.
I'd escalate at the airline's elite support. The salient point for me: their original email, telling you that if you do A, you can expect B. They promised you, at the time of their writing, that a web page offering you options was available. It wasn't. It may not gain you anything but it seems to me this is their biggest sin. Sadly you're not dealing with a high service culture so manage expectations accordingly. I enjoyed this post and value it highly.
Accepting a new flight makes it non-refundable? Okay SAS or other airlines, if you do this, make it clear to the customer. Don’t hit them with unexpected non-refundability after the fact. Or you may face class action from my peers in the plaintiff’s bar!
Seems pretty clear to me.
If you originally booked a non refundable fare. They would rebook you into the non refundable fare. Accepting a new flight is like you just booked a non refundable flight.
Keep trying, you might find a lawyer stupid enough to do a class action.
I would've made the connection for the SAS agent that your delay would've led to EU261 eligibility and that you were planning on pursuing the case if you forced into taking on the SAS flight.
I'm sure escalation onto a supervisor who is authorised to realise that it would be a net loss (once taxes and airport fees are deducted from the cash fare) to fly you, you would've seen your requested refund provided fairly quickly.
I still can't see how EU261 would apply if he didn't take the rebooked flight.
They gave him an option, and Ben took it. No one forced him to take any flight.
N.B. supervisors are not accountants. They wouldn't care the monetary consequences.
the alternative arrives more the three hours later. that's enough for 250,- EUR. that's great EU customer Law.
And that's why he's called Lucky.