ASTA hits out at American Airlines over September 11 refunds
The American Society of Travel Agents has said it is “appalled” by the way agents who provided refunds to their clients following the September 11 attacks are being treated by American Airlines.
Following the September 11 terrorist attacks many travel agents gave their clients refunds for American Airlines flights and now claim they are being penalised, rather than thanked, for it. ASTA president and chief executive Richard Copland said: “While travel agents actively assisted American Airlines in re-accommodating their travellers after the September 11 tragedy, hundreds, if not thousands, of travel agents have been sent ‘thank you’ notices in the form of $200 debit memos for processing refunds for flights that, in many cases, American did not even operate.”
An American Airlines spokesman told TravelMole that American Airlines has “never permitted” agents to refund tickets for cancelled flights and the policy has always been for the carrier to deal with any refunds. He added that where agents had wrongly given refunds the policy was for the agency to have to pay back American the cost of the ticket up to a maximum of $200. The spokesman said that there had been an initial error which had seen some agents asked to pay £200 when the value of the ticket was actually less than this amount, but that this problem had now been sorted out. The spokesman added: “We recognised there was a problem and moved quickly to resolve it.”
However ASTA insists that American Airlines has confused agents by repeatedly changing the rules regarding refunds. Mr Copland said: “Agents’ anger with American is justified. After September 11, American changed its refund policy on several occasions. First, they told agents that they could refund tickets through September 25, then two days later, American changed the policy to only allow refunds through September 18. Additionally, when contacting American by phone to get an authorisation to refund tickets outside of these dates because of schedule changes or cancelled service, agents were often given verbal authorisation by American to refund the tickets. But, American representatives frequently failed to inform the agent that this authorisation to refund the ticket only applied if the ticket were mailed to American rather than being processed through the Airlines Reporting Corp (ARC).”
He added: “Having confused agents with shifting rules in an extraordinarily difficult time, American Airlines should not place the burden of its own actions on travel agents.”
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