Legal Question in Consumer Law in United States
I am on active duty in the US Army. Recently, I was stationed in Korea with my family. In November of last year, I traveled to the US on emergency leave with my wife and two small children, aged two and three, for my grandfather's funeral using CheapOair. Our route of flight was supposed to be Seoul - Beijing - Dallas - Columbus. We were flying to Beijing on Air China and the rest via American. Since the two airlines do not operate under the same alliance, we were unable to receive all of our boarding passes in Seoul and were told to pick up the boarding passes for the rest of the flight in Beijing. Our first plane was to land in Beijing at 1615. The transfer desk for our second flight would not give us our boarding passes to fly from Beijing to Dallas because they said ticketing closed at 1625. The 10 minutes provided by the tickets purchased from CheapOair was not sufficient to make our connecting flight. We tried to contact the airlines for our second flight to hold the plane for us but to no avail. We spent the next several hours exhausting all means of flying out of Beijing that same night. Due to the fact that we missed the flight and there were no other available flights that day, we had to stay overnight in Beijing. The entire reason we were traveling home was for my grandfather�s funeral and we didn�t make it in time. Additionally, we had to purchase additional tickets to get home the following day, and I used CheapOair for those as well in the hopes of simplifying the refund process my wife and I had already decided we were going to pursue. Due to the fact that we missed the funeral because the tickets sold to us by CheapOair did not allow us enough time to make our connecting flight, we requested a full refund on both bookings as well as a reimbursement for the $77 we had to spend unnecessarily on a hotel for the unplanned overnight stay in Beijing. It is now mid-January and there has still not been any resolution from CheapOair. We were assigned an individual to handle our case. She doesn�t reply to my emails, she doesn�t reply to my voice messages, she doesn�t even answer her phone when I call. CheapOair then gave me another email I should use for somebody else and they never responded. I was then given a phone number for another individual who once again, never called me back. They continue to drag this process out and needless to say it is very frustrating. I am writing to you in the hopes that you will be able to advise me as to my legal rights in seeking financial compensation for all the tickets I purchased as well as the hotel room I had to pay for. CheapOair seems to think that the airlines should only reimburse me for the unused tickets. What I would like is for CheapOair to reimburse me for all the tickets. Is this something that I have any power to obtain?
1 Answer from Attorneys
I have two suggestions. First, explore your opportunity to dispute the charges on the credit card because you did not get everything you purchased, which should have included assistance for a smooth boarding pass.
Second is to repost this under your state of residence (not your duty posting) to get the attention of a home state lawyer who might know your state laws that could apply.
Good luck. I'm sorry for what you had to go through.
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