It took about eight months and two threats to go to small claims court, but I finally got Delta Airlines to cough up the $800 the company owed me.
Which brings me to the three “P’s” of getting what you’re supposed to:
— Persistence
— Patience, and being a
— Pain in the neck, if necessary.
Details of the whole sordid ordeal in a minute. But trust me on this one: When an airline hangs on to my money for eight months, and costs me probably 40 hours of my time and 40 hours of my assistant’s time chasing said money, and then offers me an apology in the form of a measly $100 voucher — all the while pissing off a frequent flier with nearly 2 million miles on said airline — you can be darned sure I’ll go out of my way for a long, long time to fly another airline. Any other airline.
Delta was intent on keeping my money until I finally forced their hand by sending them the small-claims court paperwork. Twice. By certified mail.
Then, lo and behold, it was “Whoops, Mr. Zollman, we can’t imagine why we’ve been holding your money so long.”
It began when I was booked on American Airlines from San Diego to Des Moines. I thought my flights might be in trouble — American was having a lot of problems that week — so I made a fully refundable, one-way reservation on Delta. I was a keynote speaker at a conference and had to have a backup plan.
Sure enough, American canceled my flight from SAN to DFW. After some extensive haggling between the helpful AA ticket agent in SAN and some extraordinarily rude Delta reservation agents (one even hung up on her AA counterpart!) the AA agent gave me two “Rule 240” tickets (Honest! She wrote “Rule 240” on them) and sent me to the Delta gate.
Here’s where I made my first mistake. I spoke to the gate agent, who took the Rule 240 tickets and issued two boarding passes (SAN-ATL and ATL-DSM), and hustled me on for the last seat on the plane. I told her to make sure she canceled my fully-refundable reservation, and jumped on as they closed the door. She promised she would. But I didn’t watch her cancel the reservation, and I didn’t get her name.
After I got to Des Moines, albeit via a rather circuitous routing, the manure really hit the fan.
By phone and e-mail, my assistant and I asked Delta for my $800 back. Initially they said I should get it from the online travel agency we used to book the flight. But they refused to release the funds to the travel agency, which promptly washed its hands of the whole affair.
I politely wrote to Delta, with full details, asking for my money. Surprise, surprise — no reply for two months. I wrote again. I enclosed the first letter, and asked politely. Again. This time I got a simple response saying they never got my first letter and, “Oh, by the way, we’re keeping your money. You used the ticket.”
Now I was angry. Someone owed me the money. If it wasn’t Delta, it was American. But I was betting on Delta. So I wrote again, and again two months later they wrote back and told me plainly, “Forget it.” Along the way we made at least a dozen phone calls and sent e-mails. We kept a record of every one. And the name of every DL person we spoke to or wrote to.
If Delta didn’t owe me the money, AA did. So I sent AA copies of my correspondence with a brief explanation, and asked if the Rule 240 ticket had been used. If not, I said, please send me my money. If it was, please send me the proof and I’ll beat up Delta again. Sure enough, two weeks later, AA responded that the ticket had been used; AA had paid DL for the seats. And they sent the specifics to Delta, which, of course, had the information in its own records if it had bothered to check them.
That was it. Armed with the reply from AA, I sent Delta a “final” letter. By certified mail. There’s a legal concept known as “undue enrichment.” You can’t keep two payments for the same seat. I sent all the documentation and gave Delta 10 days, promising to go to small-claims court not only for the $800 but for an additional $1,700 in costs. (My assistant and I had fully documented our time pursuing the claim; it was far more than $1,700 worth.)
I filled out the small-claims court paperwork, and enclosed a copy.
Sure enough, about three days later, Delta called. “You’re right; we owe you the money. We’re processing your claim and will pay the refund on your credit card; it’ll take six to eight weeks.” WHAT? Six to eight weeks longer? Ridiculous. But I waited. And waited. And waited.
After eight weeks, I sent another copy of the court filing, along with the name of the person who had promised the refund. I gave them until Monday. Expecting the worst, I blocked out two hours on Tuesday morning for my trip to small-claims court to file the paperwork.
At 4 p.m. on Monday, I was on a conference call when my assistant walked in. Delta was on line 2. Sure enough, the woman promised me the refund would be in my account that day, and offered me a $100 voucher for my trouble. Stupidly, I said, “Sure.” I wanted to be done with the whole stinkin’ mess.
The refund came through.
As did the voucher.
But I haven’t used it yet, and perhaps I won’t. I’m going far, far out of my way to avoid Delta, an airline I used to use to the tune of about $30,000 a year.
What did I learn?
Persistence.
Patience.
Being a Pain in the neck (or lower) if necessary.
And, oh yes: Document every name, every person, every promise.
And if the money’s rightfully yours, hang on for what may be a very long and painful ride.
