svengoli123

Long story short, I booked a trip (2 tkts) to Naples Italy on Air Berlin, with a stop in Dusseldorf Germany. Less than 20hrs before my flight, I see the NY to Germany leg is delayed, and I will miss my connection. Air Berlin had no information, and told me to fly to Germany and they would try to get me to Italy. I refused, and booked a new tkt with United, paying an extra $1500 total. Air Berlin said they will issue me a refund, but is there any way to recoup the extra $1500 I had to pay at the last minute? Thanks

JPG3392

No. AB would have arranged for you to fly DUS-Italy (perhaps even on a different airline) if you missed your connection in DUS, but they won't pay for a new ticket NYC-Italy.

TMOliver

Echoed....You over-reacted/reacted too quickly. Air Berlin would have gotten you to Naples, perhaps on another airline, and likely with some delay, but not $1500 worth.

cl.lurker

you chose to jump the gun and buy new tickets, you didn't have to.... if you want some advice, next time ask before buying the tixs....

Often1

AB is being charitable by offering to refund its ticket and could have imposed whatever penalties it imposes for cancellations on your fare basis.

The reason for handling service recovery at DUS is that it's entirely possible that the connecting flight is delayed as well and that you would never have needed to be rebooked.

You are out the $1,500. Will be interesting to see if AB actually issues a refund or a credit for use on another trip.

SANspotter

I'm actually surprised that Air Berlin refunded your entire ticket - that alone is enough to be thankful for.

Ocn Vw 1K

svengoli123, welcome to FlyerTalk. For more discussion, I'll move this to the proper airline forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

cl.lurker

They haven't yet (and I doubt they will.....)

David-A

Keep in mind it was a delayed context. It wasn't simply a no-show/don't want to use it.

If the delay was for something reasonably under their control, then they might (depending upon the delay they forcast to get the pax to their destinaiton) be obliged to have offered a cancellation and refund.

Of course, if it was for something reasonable to cause delays (weather, etc) then they are indeed certainly being generous already in offering compensation.
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I would not expect them to pay more, you didn't give them a chance to sort it out by the looks of things.

Aviatrix

Under EU rules (EU261/2004) passengers are entitled to a full refund if their flight is delayed more than a certain number of hours and they choose to cancel.... and this is regardless of the reason for the delay. I have, twice in the last two years, cancelled flights that were delayed due to weather and the refunds were more or less automatic.

So as long as the flight was delayed for long enough then the refund should hopefully be forthcoming without too much of a problem.

l etoile

Please follow this in the Air Berlin forum.

l'etoile
sr. moderator

Often1

OP doesn't provide any information about whether the flight was actually delayed on arrival (which is all that matters), the length of the delay or whether the connection was itself delayed.

irishguy28

The OP has given us enough information to figure out that the DUS-NAP flight connection could not be made - which is a problem, as this route operates only 4 times a week, with a waiting time of between 1 day and 3 days for the next AB service on this route, depending on the day of the week in question.

AB would most likely have either:

- rebooked the OP onto an AB service via TXL (which has two flights a day, morning and afternoon, so should be a valid option) or via MUC if the timing/days allowed (AB serves MUC-NAP twice a week only)
- rebooked the OP onto a Lufthansa service connecting via FRA or MUC, as Naples is served twice a day from FRA and either twice or three times a day from MUC.
- rebooked the OP onto an AB service to FCO (Rome) and arranged ground transport from there

seawolf

Or AB at JFK would have rerouted you on another trans atlantic carrier.

irishguy28

The OP said that they wouldn't do this - they would sort it out in Germany. Which doesn't seem unreasonable to me.