Questions and Answers

A few months back I bought my freshman son a ticket from BOS to LAX for his spring break. I figured the prices would rise the closer it got to his travel date so $108 on Virgin America seemed decent enough at the time. [I had already gotten burned on his Thanksgiving ticket to LAX]. Anyway, he called this morning telling me that the bus service he was going to use to make the 2 hour trip from his college to BOS tomorrow had been cancelled because of the the storm blowing in. I called Virgin America to ask about the flight status and (after waiting for 30 minutes and being hung up on once) I was told while his flight had not yet been cancelled for tomorrow, it most likely would be. They naturally offered to waive any change fee and put him on another Virgin flight. Unfortunately, I was told they were not going to be able to get him out of BOS until Friday and they implied I would have to pay the fee difference. Is that reasonable?

I told them I would check with my son and get back to them. I got on line and saw the fares for Wednesday literally start rising before me eyes. I found a direct flight out of BOS on Thursday for $40 more than my original fare on AA. So I booked it before those fares started to rise as well. I called Virgin America and (after being on hold for 40 minutes this time) cancelled the original flight. They are refunding me my original $108, but is that it? Should I expect something more? I wound up spending over an hour on the phone and finding my own replacement flight. I am not trying to be a whiner. I just have never had to deal with weather cancellations before.

Because it’s a weather related delay, there’s really not much more you can expect.

I was in a similar situation last year where my return flight was cancelled due to weather just when I arrived at the airport. The lines for AA were atrocious, as was the phone hold. I booked separate ticket on jetBlue, which was also cancelled before finally booking a ticket on Alaska. jetBlue refunded me what I had paid and AA refunded me the unused portion of the ticket. Neither airline offered anything else, even when I asked, since it was all weather related.

[QUOTE=”David W, post: 52925, member: 29″]Because it’s a weather related delay, there’s really not much more you can expect.

I was in a similar situation last year where my return flight was cancelled due to weather just when I arrived at the airport. The lines for AA were atrocious, as was the phone hold. I booked separate ticket on jetBlue, which was also cancelled before finally booking a ticket on Alaska. jetBlue refunded me what I had paid and AA refunded me the unused portion of the ticket. Neither airline offered anything else, even when I asked, since it was all weather related.[/QUOTE]

Thanks David. I figured as much. The weather is the weather and I guess nobody can be held accountable for it. I had to ask since the one helpful guy I did talk to from VA made a comment to me to the effect that he was a little suprised I hadn’t asked to be compensated like most of the other calls he had taken that day. Just made me wonder if I was leaving money on the table. I never like to do that.