A couple of wks ago, I was travelling home the pacific west coast from St. John's Newfoundland on a latittude ticket upgraded to business class. Wife was travelling with me (a rare occurrance) on a business class aeroplan reward ticket.
Plane departed St John's for Toronto 35 mins late, jeopordizing our connection to Vancouver. However, with a little airport sprint we arrived at the departure gate in YYZ before aircraft for YVR started boarding.
Even had to wait 5mins! When boarding, it was discovered that my wife had been offloaded so we were sent to customer disservice for assistance.
We were told that since her checked bag could not make the connection, she was offloaded and would have to wait for the next flight, jeopordizingng the connection to the island. I was asked if I wanted to proceed on my own???!!!
These tickets had been booked well in advance of our travel date, although we had to change our return date so we cold attend the funeral of a friend. For this, a change fee of approx $400 was charged for the two tix. Air Canada no longer allows free ticket adjustment for bereavement travel if traveling domestically.
A very caring service director on our next flight took our complaint forward and a few days later I had a call from AC. As I had suspected, my wife had been offloaded from the flight as it was oversold and the lowest revenue passengers are bumped first. No consideration that the ticket had been booked from my aeroplan acct; in fact the excuse is that her ticket had a different booking reference so how would they know they were linked!
I have travelled 1.75 million miles with AC and have been SE for the last 8 yrs. In fact, I have already travelled in excess of 150000 status miles this yr.
WJ does not fly from my point of departure yet but I can't wait until they do. AC does not seem to be able to improve their customer service and just when one thinks it can't get any worse..............
We did get a little "compensation." a travelvoucher for future travel on a AC flight for the $400 we paid to change our flights. Nothing for the inconvenience of the forced delay or the frustration of how we were treated.
There is also no committment this won't happen again.