This was not my day. I should have taken several Valiums and had a box of tissues for the part where I just lost it.
After a conversation yesterday with a very nice woman (and a very misinformed woman) at American Airlines, I got up today planning to purchase our tickets, and pay for the shipping charges for the dogs and cats. Well, suffice it to say - IT DID NOT GO AS PLANNED!!!!
I got wrong information from American Airlines people yesterday, and to make things worse, it happened again today. And today was not from one person, or even two people, but can you imagine - four different people! Okay, the confusion about using my miles to upgrade was one thing. But, I was told by four different people, "oh all you have to do is purchase your tickets, call us back with your reservation code, and we'll set up all the arrangements for your pets to fly because we have enough spots for pets on that flight." Seemed simple enough right? And I was thrilled that it was going so smoothly. Hah! I really should have taken those Valiums this morning after all.
Well anyway, so I pulled up the flight information, whipped out the credit card and voila, two tickets to Buenos Aires on May 1. Wow, we even had pretty good seats.
Time to call American Airlines back and take care of the pet part before the "spots" are gone. That's where the day started to crash and burn.
This customer "dis"service agent told me, "gee I'm sorry but you were given the wrong infomation, there are NO GUARANTEES that your pets will have a space on ANY FLIGHT." You see, American only puts the pets on if there is space in the belly of the plane. And you don't find that out until you're already sitting at the airport thinking things are hunky dorey.
For you pet lovers out there, can you imagine the thought of heading to the airport after selling all of your belongings; you no longer have a home; and you have no family that can take your pets if they can't take them on the plane? Imagine the stress of thinking about shipping them already.
So, after two hours on the phone this morning, one set of tickets reserved and then cancelled twenty minutes later, we will NOT be flying American Airlines with our pets. As a matter of fact, after the runarounds, misinformation, and just plain bad attitudes, I really don't even want to fly with them in March, but I guess we're struck with that.
Interestingly enough, after calling some pet relocation services (one of which we may just use,) I found out that no self-respecting pet relocation service uses American Airlines to fly to South America, they prefer to use a variety of South American airlines instead.
I just consider myself fortunate that I started this process more than three months prior to our trip. Imagine if I had waited until the last month, or worse yet, been at the airport just preparing to board.
By the way, when I called back to cancel the tickets, the agent that
handled the cancellation told me it could be up to two billing periods
to get the refund because if I should have called five minutes earlier.
I guess she didn't remember that she had put me on hold - almost
fifteen minutes. So I called my credit card company to start a dispute
about the charge and would you believe the woman at the c.c. company told me the same thing
had happened with a family of five who were ready to board the plane
and were told there wasn't enough room for their dogs and they had to dispute the charges as well.
In closing, this should not discourage you from moving with your pets, but do be aware that Mr. Murphy (and we've all met him right?) will always be there waiting in the wings for when you least expect it. Are there a lot of people that I've talked to that have traveled with no problem? Sure, and probably when we get down to it, we will too. But it won't be because I waited until the last minute.
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