cygone

New rule: tickets booked on or after June 27th for travel anytime next calendar year will not be honored by TACA.

I booked two business class tickets for my wife and myself on June 27th with TACA; LAX to La Paz, Bolivia for April of next year. When I made the reservation with TACA I was very clear that I would be using GP miles, the reservation was confirmed and I sent the email with the TACA booking code to GP, which they acknowledged receiving.

I am also one of the credit card casualties and called GP this morning and offered to send a money order to cover the cost of the taxes for booked reservations that have not been ticketed yet, as I no longer wish to provide them with credit card information. (I must give GPs representatives kudos for being so polite and understanding)

The GP representative told me she would work on my reservation and get back to me later in the day. True to her word she did and gave me the bad news. Tickets booked on or after June 27th will not be honored by TACA for travel next year. GP said it was not there problem it was TACA who was refusing to issue the tickets! They suggested I call TACA to work out the problem and did just that.

I spoke to a supervisor at TACA yesterday and outlined my case for why these tickets should be issued:

My most valid point is: when I made the reservation I told the agent I was using Global Pass miles and if they had a policy that prohibited travel next year on June 27th I should have been informed so I could make other reservations for this calendar year.

I also pointed out I received an email on June 30th from TACA which stated that they were no longer participating in the Global Pass program after June 30th. I don’t see how they can back date when they were participating in the program or which parts of the program they wished to participate in.

The TACA supervisor said he would take my case under consideration and promised a higher level supervisor would contact me latter that day. I did not hear from them but if I do I will post response. Luckily I live in California, which will allow me to pursue this matter in small claims court. I will give TACA a few more days to rectify this matter however.