Air Canada flight bump leads to woman missing out on dream vacation
Vicki Russell had spent years gearing up for a visit to the Galapagos Islands. A retired lawyer, she was set to finally put her ambitions into action this spring after booking a $10,000 cruise in the area of the iconic Pacific archipelago.
That is, until an airline slip up threw it all into chaos.
Russell did everything required of her in the pre-flight process. Yet as she was about to board a plane in Toronto bound for Miami, she was informed by the Air Canada staff that her flight had been overbooked and her ticket wasn't valid.
Over and over she pleaded with the airline representatives, but nothing came of it. Russell was directed to a new set of customer service attendants, however, it was too late at that point to get her on an adequate flight and remedy the situation.
"They could not have cared less," Russell said of the Air Canada staff. "Time did not seem to have any importance to them at all [....] The series of errors that they made, their lack of apology, their disinterest in helping me is appalling."
All of that occurred on April 1 (no, it was not a sick April Fools joke). Since then, Russell has received $800 in compensation from Air Canada. It more than covers the $430 she paid for her round-trip flight, but she felt that Air Canada should've footed the entire $10,320 trip bill.
Thankfully for Russell, when her tour company, Lindblad Expeditions, heard about the incident, it offered to book and pay for a separate expedition for her.
Lindblad's response to the situation is heartening, but the whole thing is a reminder of the precariousness of traveling when it's essential to hit certain time-based checkpoints. Russell just as easily could have walked away with inadequate compensation here.
Her story highlights the value of having trip cancellation & interruption insurance. When you negotiate your travel insurance package, it's certainly something to insist on having.