My Air Canada saga (otherwise known as Las Vegas, Part Deux)

[Guest BluesLover]

Vicki and I flew to Las Vegas at the end of March to celebrate her 50th. We had some problems with the Air Canada flight leaving Toronto - it left, it came back, it was supposed to leave again, it was cancelled, it eventually went out the next morning.

So, I wrote to our good buddies at AC and asked them to compensate us for:

·one night's hotel stay in Veags (I had pre-booked and pre-paid),

·breakfast (Tim's at TorontoAirport would not accept the AC voucher) and

·one night of parking at TorontoAirport).

 

Anywho ... finally (a couple of months later) I get a response back from my good buddy (budette?), a certain T Wylie at AC Customer relations. It's basically a "too bad-so sad-but you're SOL" letter, where s/he tells me that they have already compensated me - on the rescheduled flight we received a letter - en francais, even - allowing us the pleasure of taking $75 off their nearly-exhorbitant regular fees whenever we felt like it ... and oh yeah ... please submit your original parking and meals receipts so that we can "consider" whether or not to reimburse you.

 

So, this morning, I thought I'd have some fun with my good friend T. Wylie - here's the letter that I sent him/her back:

[sarges46]

Go get em Lou! And all the best of luck to you. Air Canada can be frustrating to say the least.

[Eugene]

Nice wording on your letter - similar to my letter to Lowrance re: my GPS.

 

Ain't no such thing as customer service anymore!

[Guest BluesLover]

Nice wording on your letter - similar to my letter to Lowrance re: my GPS.

 

Ain't no such thing as customer service anymore!

Eugene - I had a very different experience with my Lowrance. My 500C "crapped out" on me - the hard disk was toast after 2 years (warranty is 1 year). I walked into their shop on Matheson Blvd in Mississauga and within 5 minutes they gave me a brand new one (now, they did charge me $100, which isn't bad for a brand new $700 unit).

 

If you need more info, PM me and I can send you the particulars (address, phone # etc., of their Mississauga location).

 

Cheers,

[Guest BluesLover]

Go get em Lou! And all the best of luck to you.

Thanks Rick - I'm not expecting them to actually do anything about it, but at least I had some fun with it. And, in the end, even if they don't give me any kind of rebate, I'll have the pleasure of knowing that I have been able to waste much more of their time and money on the administration of the complaint than the measly $150 that they owe me...

 

Cheers,

Lou

[friesman]

I had a similar experience with Air Canada a few years ago and will never fly them ever again. I have had nothing but good expereinces with their competitor, WestJet and will use them every chance I can.

Air Canada was sticking it to us for pricing also until WestJet came on the scene so I feel its doubly important to support anyone but Air Canada. I just got back from Halifax on Wed and had great service and happy people running the WestJet flights I took there and back.

 

Brian:cool10:

[BradT]

This is so common nowadays it is scary. NOt only Air Canada but, Rogers, starchoice, bell Canada, etc... .

 

I had a problem a few years back with my Company Cell phone through Bell, so I went through the normal channels and could never get any responses to their promises.

 

I got on the WEB site looked for all the top ranking execs (About 8 of them), they actually had their email address' so I wrote a nice but bold letter, in which I Bcc'd myself. Then every day I forwarded the Email and started asking why no one would respond. This went on for two weeks, before I got a phone call at work.

 

THis guy that phoned, gave me every excuse in the world, but did he try make me happy which he was not going to do easily. Tried giving me a fancy new phone for free, but I actually wanted an older one that was discontinued for a year. Surprising this guy found a brand new one and sent it too me.

 

If you want to have some real fun start forwarding that letter. HAHAHA

 

Brad

[Gambler]

Lou , very nice letter , personally I think they should consider your

request very carefully, because they just pissed off 5000+ people.

 

Gambler:banana:

[Eugene]

Eugene - I had a very different experience with my Lowrance. My 500C "crapped out" on me - the hard disk was toast after 2 years (warranty is 1 year). I walked into their shop on Matheson Blvd in Mississauga and within 5 minutes they gave me a brand new one (now, they did charge me $100, which isn't bad for a brand new $700 unit).

 

If you need more info, PM me and I can send you the particulars (address, phone # etc., of their Mississauga location).

 

Cheers,

 

Hi Lou

 

Thanks for the help.

 

I guess it really comes down to the person on the other end - some seem to go the extra mile - some just don't care.

 

I went up a couple of levels and got every excuse why they could NOT fix the unit (Eugene - it would be much cheaper for you to buy a new unit - yah, sure!!) - I liked the one where they said the unit could NOT be opened - well, after they sent it back, I opened it - surprise!! I got it opened - not very difficult.

 

Then I sent a letter to Miss., one to the U.S. and an e-mail as well. Got back the auto-reply as to how important my e-mail was and that I would hear back within 2 business days. Blah, Blah Blah - that was three weeks ago (or 4 - I lost track).

 

Bottom line, I bought a used 350 from one of the members on this site and will use on the bike it until it pooches out - then move on to Garmin.

 

So we all have differing experiences - it still saddens me to think we all spend hard earned bucks on stuff and by and large the follow-up service is sooooo poor in so many different cases!

 

Anyhow - enough ranting - thanks again, Lou for your kind offer to help.

 

Cheers

 

Eugene

[bongobobny]

Next time, drive down to Buffalo and fly Jet Blue...

[91nwl]

I had to spend an extra night in Newark a while back and the customer service rep offered me a voucher for a free cup of coffee. (Continental)

[Sailor]

I had a problem with a watch I bought. It was a Casio. It lasted 4 months then quit. It had a one year warranty I sent it back to the company but they refused to fix it unless I paid for the repairs. After about 6 months and several letters I finally told them to send it back unrepaired as I wanted to nail it up on my office wall and when people asked me why it was there I would tell them all about Casio quality and customer service. I got the watch back...repaired for free. Guess they did not know I did not have an office.

[Guest BluesLover]

I had a problem a few years back with my Company Cell phone through Bell, so I went through the normal channels and could never get any responses to their promises.

Oh Brad ... please say it ain't so, please, please ...

 

That company is too close to my wallet ... I mean heart ... to hear that in public!!!

 

Cheers,

[Guest BluesLover]

Here's an update on "the saga".

 

Last week I received a letter from my (now) very good buddy (or is a budette?) T. Wylie at Air Canada. In the letter, s/he regrets that I am not happy with their response and says that I can be assured that my concerns have been reviewed appropriately.

 

S/he also says that since I'm requesting my original receipts back, that they can't give me a cash reimbursement, and instead they're offering me a travel credit for $50 (if they can keep my receipts, they will refund me a whopping $32.92!!!).

 

So, I've decided to write them back and keep up this little charade, since they still won't own up to the fact that because of their unecessary cancelled flight, I'm out not only the $32,92 but also around $160 for a room in Vegas.

 

I will keep writing to them (and having them respond to me) until I either get the response I want back, or until I feel that I've wasted enough of their time and effort to cover the roughly $200 ...

 

Alas, this story has not such a happy ending ... as you will see in the letter, I have decided to break my "buddy-ship" with T. Wylie and have decided to move up the ladder ...

 

Cheers,