mrs_deb

So mr_deb and I flew down to Ecuador for a week over Thanksgiving on Avianca, Clase Ejecutiva (Business). Things were fine on the way down...back up, not so much. Our first leg was delayed, which would cause us to miss our second leg, so they rebooked us for the next day on a different routing. They put us up in a lovely hotel, no complaints there. However...although our first leg remained in Business, there was no availability there for the second (longer!) leg, and we were squooshed into middle seats in Economy. "Don't worry!", said the agent, "You will be compensated."

Well, we were...with a voucher for another Avianca trip, which expires one year from issuance, no extensions.

We've already made all of our 2019 travel plans. We are not flying anywhere in 2019 that Avianca flies. Believe me, I've checked.

I tried requesting a cash refund of the compensation...no dice. I tried requesting an extension...same. Their customer service, both online and on telephone, is difficult to deal with due to my crappy Spanish. I tried contacting them on Facebook...no luck there either.

Any advice? Although I'd prefer the cash, I'd be happy with an extension of an additional year to the voucher. Any magic words I'm missing?

obscure2k

Moving thread to Avianca Forum
Obscure2k
TravelBuzz Moderator

two_scoops

Had a similar thing happen recently and now I have four vouchers for $470 each that are little use to me since I have no plans to fly Avianca in the coming year.

My best use of the vouchers will be to buy Lifemiles and redeem them on another Star Alliance airline. There are occasional Lifemiles sales with 140% bonuses which means buying miles for about 1.4 cents each. I should be able to convert the vouchers into about 130k miles.

I have not attempted to buy the miles yet. There is a post somewhere on FT that said this can not be done over the phone and must be in person at an Avianca office. I don't know if this is true or not.

mrs_deb

I just wanted to close the loop on this with a huge thanks to two_scoops for the idea of purchasing LifeMiles. S/he was correct that Avianca insists the purchase "must be in person at an Avianca office", even though the EMD specifically reads that you may do it over the phone with the Call Center. And the closest office to me is NYC, which is a five hour drive away.

After another month and a half of calls trying to get them to adhere to their own written policy, I visited Christopher Elliott's webpage for addresses and started going up the chain with emails to higher level customer service people. Friday morning I had an additional 20,000 LifeMiles in my account which I used yesterday to offset the cost of a couple Lufthansa flights to Europe this fall.

Thank goodness that's over. Four months I'll never get back !

two_scoops

Glad to hear it worked out for you mrs-deb. I managed to use my vouchers as well but I did it by going to the sales office in NYC. Once there they completed the transaction in about 30 minutes then the miles appeared in my account instantly.

cuitao42

Hi, I have a similar situation. Just wonder whether you can share more details on this "I visited Christopher Elliott's webpage for addresses and started going up the chain with emails to higher level customer service people." Can you share the email address with Avianca? Thanks.