I paid out 2 times for my airline tickets

Dear Journey TROUBLESHOOTER: Final calendar year, I paid out $1,284 for two tickets from San Francisco to Barcelona, Spain. The working day ahead of our flight, I tried out to print our boarding passes. I could not.

Christopher Elliott, the Travel Troubleshooter ...
Christopher Elliott, the Vacation Troubleshooter 

We went to the airport 3 hours early. Even though I supplied the airline’s agent with the confirmed itinerary, they could not come across it. To get on our flight, we paid an additional $1,973. It took almost a few several hours to get us reticketed, and we just about missed our flight.

Stage Airways won’t refund the $1,973 for the reason that it claims we were a “no show” for the flight. How can we probably be a no-display if we were on the flight? Also, we compensated 2 times for the flight.

I referred to as my credit history card organization and a agent prompt that I dispute the first buy. I did, but my credit rating card sided with the airline. Can you assist me get my $1,973 back again?

— Ellen Boelens, Redwood City, Calif.

Respond to: Stage Airlines, a price cut airline operate by Iberia, must have had a document of your flight. You procured your tickets through its website and attempted to verify your reservations on line a working day just before your departure. You also arrived at the airport early to check out to kind items out. Alternatively, Degree marked you as a “no-show” and then sold you new seats at a $689 markup. That is mistaken.

You may possibly have observed a fewer high priced fare on yet another airline, but I imagine it was intelligent to rebook on Level Airlines. That way, the airline knew for specified that you compensated for your tickets two times. You essentially were being on your at first scheduled flight, so you could not have possibly been a “no-show.”

Even though your flight took position before the pandemic, you tried out to solve it all through the pandemic — and that was the trouble. Amount Airlines, like each other airline in the planet, was overrun with refund requests. Yours was one of hundreds of 1000’s of them.

As I reviewed your paper trail — good job on holding that, by the way! — I noticed no proof that you had been a “no-demonstrate.” This was just an electronic glitch that Level Airways pinned on you. And it seemed all also joyful to enable you spend for your ticket 2 times. That is how airways make their cash these days. Absurd.