My airline is refusing to refund tickets purchased on another carrier when our original flight was cancelled. This despite our having mid-level Elite status, and the fact that the gate agent 240'd other passengers over to the very flight that we purchased tickets on.

After two rounds of insulting form letters riddled with corporate crapola, all we've received is vouchers for $100. I explained that:

1) vouchers are worthless to us, as we only book online

2) as Elite customers, they should perhaps show us something other than the middle finger when such a situation arises

3) despite asking repeatedly, we never received an explanation as to why a supervising gate agent would first refuse to send us to another airline, then reverse himself and send the remaining passengers there

4) a novel concept: we shouldn't have to pay for flight segments that never happened

They've not only refused to pay our out-of-pocket on the replacement flight, but so far have not even credited our respective credit cards for the cancelled flight segments.

After the disgusting responses we've received from the corporate pup tent so far, we're done trying to talk sense to these people. The question now is, what are our rights, and how do we pursue them? Is small claims court a possibility? If so, we're more than willing. We live in CA -- the airline is based in another state.

Thanks --
bk