Derry woman wins compassion flight fares

Flushing resident Susy Mullan contacted the Echo earlier this month after several telephone calls and emails to the Continental Airlines customer care department proved fruitless.
Mullan’s ordeal began June 28, when relatives in her hometown of Dungiven, Co. Derry, called with the news that her 85-year-old mother had suffered a major stroke.
Five days earlier, Mullan had booked a three-week trip home for herself and her 13-year-old daughter Siobh_n, using Continental’s new Newark-Belfast route. The return tickets cost $909.76 each.
Upon hearing news of her mother’s illness, however, Mullan contacted the airline to try to get the next available flights out of Newark. The customer representative she spoke with changed her departing flights to July 30, leaving her return date of August 11 unchanged.
“I explained the situation and gave them the telephone number of the hospital. They said they would give me the bereavement fare,” Mullan said.
“She quoted me a price of $967.41 per ticket. I thought this was the bereavement fare and that they would cancel the original fare, so I said that was fine.”
When Mullan received her new itinerary via email on June 28, she saw that the airline had in fact charged an additional $967.41 per ticket, bringing her total fare to $3,753.28.
“I thought it was a mistake,” recalled the mother-of-three. “I asked my older daughter to call them while I was away and to tell them they had made a mistake. She got nowhere.”
Mullan’s mother died on July 5th and she and her daughter returned, as originally planned, on August 11.
“When I got back, I called and said there had been a mistake, that we were supposed to have gotten the bereavement fare. She told us that was the bereavement fare,” according to Mullan.
Mullan followed up the call with e-mails. She then turned to her credit card company, who asked for documentation relating to her flight and her mother’s death certificate, copies of which she also sent to Continental. She received no reply.
“Unfortunately you can’t plan for emergencies, but we can’t plan for that either,” Continental Public Relations manager Mary Clarke told the Echo when the newspaper enquired into the matter earlier this month.
“Our fares are designed for leisure travel and not for emergency travel. The closer you get the date, the higher the fares get. Her tickets required that you buy at least seven days in advance. She wanted to change the flights two days in advance. They waived the penalty, there’s usually a penalty for changing flights at such short notice.”
Clarke said she would contact the Customer Service Department to enquire about the matter.
Last week, Continental Airlines called Mullan to say they would refund her $2,743.11, reducing her total fare to $1010.17.
“The service agents charged her what they thought was a compassionate fare on the day, but it wound up being an incorrect fare,” Clarke acknowledged last week. When asked why the airline refused to grant Mullan’s subsequent requests for a refund, Clarke replied:
“I put it down to maybe agent error I suppose. Compassionate fares are designed to give a discount off last minute fares, not fares that are booked in advance.”
“Only for the Echo this never would have happened,” a delighted Mullan said after hearing the news.
“When I called them, they were not prepared to deal with this. I was told I wasn’t entitled to a refund. I’m ok, I’m legal here. But if this happened to some young person, they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Emergency fares

Outlined below are the fare change policies of the three airlines that offer direct flights to Ireland.

Continental Airlines compassion/bereavement fair policy states that, in the event of death or serious illness (requiring hospitalization or hospice care), passengers are entitled to a five percent discount on one-way flights costing up to $499.99 dollars or return flights costing up to $999.99. A 10 percent discount is offered on one-way flights costing $500 or more, or return flights costing $1,000 or more. For more information, call 1-800-525-0280.

Aer Lingus charges a fee of $40 per adult passenger per flight to change flights, plus any difference in fare on the new flight. Passengers canceling a flight due to the death of a family member will be given a full refund upon presentation of a copy of the death certificate if they cancel before the flight, and will be entitled to exchange return flights up to 45 days after. For more information, call 1-888-474-7424.

Delta charges a fee of $50 plus any difference in fare to change flights within the U.S. For travel outside the U.S, the change fee is typically $200 but can vary based on location and type of fare. Changes are usually permitted on to the return portion of an international itinerary. For more information, call 1-800-221-1212.