Class Action Lawsuit Against Aeroplan?
 

Is it possible? Where to start?

Govt agency we can complain to?

Contact the media?

We need to shame Aeroplan and let them know this is unacceptable.

What, specifically?

Litigation is not the first step to solve the problem, it’s the last step. Just ask any lawyer or judge. It’s in your best interest to contact Aeroplan to try to resolve the problem, and gather as much evidence as possible, should litigation becomes necessary.

Whether a case can be filed as class action suit or not, or whether several cases can be combined or not, is beyond my knowledge. You need to consult a lawyer in a specific field.

I bet @Speedy12 is frustrated that aeroplan can't be contacted easily.

Yes. I can't contact aeroplan. It's inexcusable and aeroplan should not be allowed to get away with it.

Luckily my issue is not super important but there are others with super important concerns and they can't get a hold of aeroplan either.

Contact aeroplan? LOL How?

You obviously have not tried contacting aeroplan recently?

I contacted aeroplan several times in Feb, May and August this year and I was actually quite impressed with how quickly I got through and how professional most of the phone reps were.

This past week, I was shocked that I couldn't call aeroplan to even get on the phone queue. I have been calling 10 plus times per day.

I am hoping my issue will be resolved when I check in for my flight in a few days.

OP needs to get a large stack of crisp new $100 bills and drop them on the desk of a lawyer. Say 1000 x $100 ($100,000) to start with. That will get them working for the OP :)

What's the problem? :confused::confused: This?

I still don’t know what exactly is your issue, but if your complain is about call centre availability, then a lawyer specializing in business contracts may be able to help you, as call centre service may be treated as part of the contract. A lawyer specializing in consumer rights may work too. But to be clear, I am not providing any legal advice here.

However the first thing they would ask, is to let you document the call centre wait time.

The moment you really look into litigation, you will want to step out of it.

"OP needs to get a large stack of crisp new $100 bills and drop them on the desk of a lawyer. Say 1000 x $100 ($100,000) to start with. That will get them working for the OP"
"The moment you really look into litigation, you will want to step out of it."

I don't think you guys understand how class action lawsuits work.and what my point is.

My initial post asked whether a class action lawsuit can be filed. That's my question.

Do I want to spend $5k, $10k or $100k as Mwenenzi suggested to start a lawsuit against Aeroplan? Of course not.

If a class action lawsuit is possible, some lawyers may be willing to do it and these lawyers will work on contingency. Class action lawsuit just needs a lead plaintiff. There is no $ cost to lead plaintiff or anybody who wants to join the class action lawsuit.

My point is aeroplan should not be allowed to get away with this fiasco. Somebody should be fired over this. Aeroplan should be held accountable. If not via class action lawsuit, maybe govt regulator or media?

What is the problem?

Problem is aeroplan's website is having issues, and I and many others can't get a hold of somebody at aeroplan on the phone for many days now.

That's not acceptable.

What is my specific problem with my booking with aeroplan? That's irrelevant.

ok, since you don’t think we understand how class action lawsuits work, then I am not going to answer that. Although I did upthread.

There is a pretty prolific passenger right advocated named Lucas: https://airpassengerrights.ca/en/about/team

I have a friend who is an aviation lawyer and his rate is $500 per hour. If interested I can share his contact info.

They can answer your question.

I'm far from an expert, but I would think each class member would have had to incur damages. In this case the damages probably differ between each case of someone not being able to contact aeroplan in a timely manner. Talking to an experienced lawyer would probably be a good first step to see if this is at all viable.

Air Canada / Aeroplan has publicly stated that it's "business as usual" in one breath but then quickly states that everything other than actual flying is best effort for at least the next while. (I won't bother linking to the one statement about the former and the numerous statements / warnings about the latter).

This has already been covered in the media and it's not clear if Air Canada can really do anything other than muddle through until they reach the new normal. In the meantime we suffer as do their front line staff.

Yes, this is a problem of their own making. Yes, this is impacting a lot of people in different ways. And Yes, their call centres / social media folks are severely overwhelmed.

Is it good customer service? Of course not.

Is it good business? That's up to AC's management and shareholders to determine.

It's not like AC / Aeroplan isn't providing the primary part of their contracted offering (free / paid carriage, toasters, etc.), it's just that customer service for anything beyond that has significantly degraded.

Launching a class action suit is unlikely to solve the OP's current issue. Maybe there are lawyers who are licking their chops over this, but I really doubt it. And, even if it is accepted, this will take years to litigate and the remedy will likely be for change fees or other exceptional actual charges as opposed to anything punitive.

But unless it furthers AC's greater business needs, I really doubt a lawsuit will either incent or deter them in behaving significantly differently than they do today. Any other expectation is probably unrealistic, IMHO.

Surely the volume of bookings got to be significantly lower than usual, and a number of customers must have taken their business elsewhere. So good business? I suspect there must have been quite a bit of wishful thinking at play...

The starter to this thread shows just how frustrated some of AC's customers are getting and I imagine many may choose to vote with their feet. But that doesn't really help with existing reservations.

As an aside, if I worked for WS Marketing, the gloves would be off.

Gee, I called Aeroplan yesterday to see why I couldn't check-in online for a rewards flight...only took less than 3 minutes to get a nice agent on the phone. Mind you he couldn't solve my issue, ergo website/new system issues. But checked in at the airport this morning...all is well.

I thought outside the box this morning and got thru to an excellent aeroplan rep (lead supervisor actually based in Montreal).

She was excellent and made a slight exception for me as she knew the hassle I went through.

This call took about 3 hrs which is still way too long but I got my change done.

The only way to get it done is over the phone. I fly in a few days and if I hadn't got through, I am sh't out of luck. I would have been p*ssed. Let's hope aeroplan gets its act together in 3 weeks when I will need to call them again.

I called maybe 50-60 times in past few days and weren't able to get through until this morning.

I feel bad for those with more urgent matters who can't get through.

First, you should hire a firm that has lawyers who specialize in a form of artistry called the shakedown. These people are colloquially referred to as "shakedown artists" because of their incredible skills in civil litigation. In personal injury cases, these people are considered "ambulance chasers"...

No legitimate reasoning exists here to sue Aeroplan...that is the bottom line!

Yes, the wait times are long and frankly annoying as heck, but they are not a valid reason to sue the company.

Just my opinion and I know for a fact that I am going to get some heat for this!

I had to call over 300 times in 3-4 days to get through to an agent. So you are doing much better than most of us.

I agree, this would die on the cutting room floor, but the lawyers would make out quite well Read: dealing for dollars $$$

50 times is unacceptable and 300 times is really really bad.

Aeroplan should be held accountable.

The best way to go about it in my opinion is to contact CBC to try to have a story published: "Air Canada IT woes, desperate customers unable to reach customer service agents by phone"

I’m going to call ........ on this.

Some people in this thread seem to be assuming Aeroplan & Air Canada are one and the same.
They are different entities.

The specific problem most definitely *IS* relevant.

What are your damages, and are there others who likely are similarly situated?
If not, or if you won't discuss the nature of the problem and the damages, then there is no point in suggesting a class action suit.

GC

IANAL, but you are going to have to actually demonstrate damages. Not being able to book a flight isn't at all damaging. Not being able to change a flight could be, but if you bring lawyers into it, they might break down and refund you.

They are having a bad month. They are putting a good spin on it, but that is hardly a level of actionable misrepresentation.

Really?

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...d683717938.png



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To have a class action lawsuit against AP don’t you have to be their customer?

To clarify. Their customers are air canada, TD, etc.

You are the customer of Air Canada, TD, or whenever else you are getting the miles from. But you are not actually the customer of Aeroplan.

Also you’re not even really a customer. It’s a loyalty program. So wouldn’t you have to go after the loyalty program provider?

It strikes me as odd when people are ultra frustrated and fall back on the attitude of "SUE those .......s!" but don't really have a concrete reason or expected outcome.

Is there some precedent where suing a corporation resulted in better access to customer service for the masses?

In this case I would go with a long-winded and barely comprehensible letter full of legalese. It was just such a letter that solved all our deflategate woes.

I agree this Aeroplan situation is BS. But yea, I'm not sure a class action lawsuit is the way to go.

I've got a huge max length, max segments J round the world booking. Segments keep dropping off, I've contacted AP probably 8 times about it, they always graciously fix it, purchase the segments that are needed to be purchased, then I'm all set. Only to have segments drop off again a week or two later. Now, my trip isn't until Jan but I'm concerned about it for sure. I'm amazed that they're not offering call backs. Not even offering holds most of the time.

Again if you're ALWAYS experiencing higher than expected call volumes, should you not raise your expectations of call volumes? I think we're beyond them hiring a handful more bodies though. I'm not sure how much this has to do with the switch to amadeus and the big problems that has caused, or if this is something more. It needs to get fixed, but for now I'm kinda at their mercy as well. I'll have to make some calls to them at like 0300am PST and see if I can get in then. If not, I'll be checking with my travel insurance policy to see if I can buy my own flights if I have to last minute and bill them back or what to do. Cuz it's gonna be damned expensive that's for sure.

That's because when you punched in your AP #, they see that you have SE status or diamond or whatever high status. Some of us peons like me have no status, thus, we get the "please call back later" bs

You hold them accountable by moving your business to the competition. A class action lawsuit would take years, and by then these issues would not even be remembered by most travellers.

I’m sure things will improve over the next few weeks. If they don’t, talk with your money and move over to WS.

However, keep in mind that WS has also had their fair share of technical, union, reservation system, etc. issues that have delayed flights and frustrated travellers.

LOL, oh Lucas would love a case like this. It is his opinion if you get farted on in the wrong way, you are subject to compensation. His facebook group page is ... interesting

I agree with most posters that suing Aeroplan is a bad idea and wouldn' t go anywhere but I do think passengers should be much better protected. With all of the problems passengers have had reaching Air Canada and rebooking their flights, as well as Air Canada choosing to remove the self-rebooking tool the government needs to step in.

What we need is a law that in case an airline cancels a flight they either rebook the passenger immediately, allow passengers to use a self rebooking tool on their website, or answer the telephone in a timely manner ( say no more than 30 minutes; I'm pretty sure airline executives and must-rides don't have these problems when their flights are delayed).

If an airline choose not to do any of these, a passenger whose travel is impacted should be free to go on offending airline's website ( or the ticketing carrier if different at the passenger's sole discretion) and rebook any seat avail for sale, with that fare being refunded to the passenger and either through a charge-back or claim a for the new ticket, as they have already paid for their transportation. It' s up to the airlines to chose whether the rebook passengers in a timely manner or the passengers will do it for them, and the airlines that don' t take care of their passengers will take a hit by having all of their inventory depleted. Passengers pay airlines for transportation; not the other way around. I understand IROPs happen and never get frustrated as I know front line employees are doing their best. It just boils my blood when my flight is cancelled and I can't get through to get rebooked while the airline is still selling seats for the flight I want on their website. Sometimes I think they do it for the money: from the airline' s point of view it does make sense to not rebook a passenger on a discount fare when you could sell it for much more to a new client at walk-up rates. That' s just wrong: airline CEO's should take care of displaced clients before the new ones; the money' s not coming out of the CEO' s pocket anyway so why should they care?

Most people are calling because they have an existing reservation . How do you propose they "move" that business?

Just reading " worst rated major airline, Air Canada" today.
 

I tried calling 3 times a week ago as online it showed flight departed while texting with daughter hoping to board for flight AC 555 which was delayed a few times. Never got through. I don't worry about Aeroplan, no available points flights 2 months from now. Ses there never is. Sent back Aeroplan TD card yesterday, never used as points seem useless on flights I want.

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