AirTran engages in bait and switch and tries to gouge us for $500

In January 2008, my husband and I made reservations on Orbitz for an Air Tran flight to from Seattle, WA to Newburgh, NY via Atlanta. These reservations had us leaving Seattle at 7:20 am on Monday June 9 on Flight 19 and arriving in Newburgh at 7:51 pm the same day on Flight 590.

AirTran changed these two flights (as well as our two return flights), and neither AirTran nor Orbitz notified us of this change. I discovered the changes myself when I went to the AirTran Web site to check on our flights after reading newspaper articles about airlines canceling flights. The new flights had us arriving at our destination at midnight, after our rental car place had closed. We called to protest the new schedule, and an AirTran representative proposed we instead take a red-eye flight the day before so that we could arrive at noon rather than midnight. We agreed to this change.

We arrived at the airport for the red-eye and AirTran denied all knowledge that we were reserved for the red-eye flights. They said their records did show that I had called one of their representatives but did not reflect that we had been reserved for the red-eye flights. They then informed my husband and me that they did, in fact, have space on the red-eye flights and could get us on them. However, they said, they would charge us each a $75 change fee. Further, they said there was a price differential. In total, we would owe them $500 extra for a fare that originally totaled $845 — a 60 percent increase! The changing of our flights was initiated by them, yet they wanted to gouge us for an extra $500!

When we refused to pay this, we had to take a cab home for $45 and come back again the next day for the flight that got us into our destination at midnight. The only thing that saved us was that the rental car company agreed to wait for the AirTran flight.

Sent by Jane Hadley

photo credit: Cubbie_n_Vegas