Involuntarily denied boarding: Philippine Airlines
 

In April 2014, I was involuntarily denied boarding by PAL, despite holding a valid e ticket. When arriving at check-in was told there was no record of my outward flight booking from Hong Kong to Manila and my internal connection (the return flight however was in the system).

After several hours of discussions with customer service, I was told that there was nothing they could do in HK and that I would have to buy a new ticket to Manila. They said this would be refunded should the subsequent investigation point to a mistake their end.

I went ahead and bought a new ticket and finally departed 7 hours after my booked flight had gone. Obviously I had missed the connecting flight, so instead took a 12 hr bus journey and finally a car to my final destination.

The investigation has been agonizing - it's been a battle to get any sort of response out of them and every excuse has been used (moving office, typhoon disrupted work, busy period etc etc) and its now almost 2 years on from when this happened.

They have however admitted (in writing) that they made a mistake their end and the booking was full valid. However, they are not willing to pay any compensation (either for the unused ticket, or the ticket that was bought).

Can anyone give me any advice how best to proceed with this and/or what I should be entitled to? It's now become more of a matter of principle than $$.

Thanks

Did you pay via credit card? File a dispute with your card company.

It's probably too late now, but you might have been able to file a credit card dispute after returning home and not being to resolve the situation with your carrier or travel agent.

Wish I had thought of that - just checked and sadly too late.

I am probably being naive but is there not some organisation or governing body that protects consumer rights?

Just amazed they can deny boarding, admit they have made a mistake and then refuse any form of compensation.

You might have some protection depending on where you purchased the ticket and where the boarding denial occurred, but I wouldn't expect the Philippines to offer much in the way of consumer protections.

Did you use a travel agent, including an OLTA?

Did you actually fly the earlier segments?

Did you check your credit card's policy or speak to someone about the chargeback? Most have policies limiting the time to file but I'd appeal to them as you now have a written statement from them stating it was their error. Which you did not have during the eligible time.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.1030 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

Contact the Ombudsman Service at Condé Nast Traveler magazine. They are pretty good at resolving problems like this:

[email protected]

Did PAL indicate why they are not willing to reimburse?

Did you book your ticket from a travel agent? If yes, then maybe you should investigate more on that side. It's probably too late for that now. Best thing to do in my opinion is to book your tickets at the main airline ticketing.