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Through my long-time travel agent, I bought a r/t international ticket
on LAN Chile from LA to Santiago,Chile and a domestic r/t ticket from
Santiago to Ushuaia, Argentina. Both tickets were charged to my
Capital One credit card.
Checking in at the little Ushuaia airport for the return flight, the
agent at the desk demanded a paper ticket, and said I could not board
unless I bought a new ticket IN CASH from Ushuaia to the first stop
in Chile, Punta Arenas. I showed her every document in my air travel
envelope, including itinerary print-out from my travel agent, but
she was adamant that I had to pay $360.00 IN CASH to board.
(Just for comparison, the entire domestic r/t ticket which they did
not honor was $350 from Santiago to Ushuaia!)
I had only $290.00 in cash. She said they had no facilities to accept
credit card or travelers checks. I thought I was stuck!!! Eventually
she telephoned Punta Arenas and they agreed to accept my credit
card. She took an imprint but I was so shell-shocked I did not think
to ask for a receipt, (and based on their minimal one-horse setup, I
probably couldn't have got one anyway!)
Credit card bill came with a charge of not $360.00 but $403.95.
I immediately contacted my (sympathetic) travel agent and she advised
me to file a protest with the credit card company, Capital One. She
said the airline check-in person would have HAD MY TICKET NUMBER in
her computer, but still demanded paper ticket.
Where is my paper ticket? I never took ANYTHING out of my airline
envelope! Except when we were boarding the ship, the ground agent in
Ushuaia took our return tickets and said he would confirm our
flight. I emailed him if he kept the paper ticket, but he said
"no". ????? Where is it???
Since December, I have been going around with Capital One credit card,
writing directly to the CEO after the dispute people blew me off. I
sent everyone copies of the credit card bill from previous June
showing both original ticket purchases, and the credit card bill
showing the forced duplicate purchase.
They keep stonewalling, saying that "merchant provided the services",
but not recognizing (or choosing to recognize) that I am not disputing
that I took the flight, but that I PAID TWICE for the same damn
flight!! and I want the duplicate payment refunded.
The most recent gobbledygook from Capital One is: "...our Disputes
Department has advised us that this is not considered a duplicate
transation. A duplicate transaction is when a merchant makes a
processing error and the transaction is processed twice. There are no
dispute rights on this transaction as you took the flight and services
were rendered. If you choose to dispute the ORIGINAL (emphasis added)
transaction, our Disputes Department would need a signed and updated
information form with the amount, transaction date, merchants [sic]
name, supporting dpcuments and a credit voucher to be able to assist
you."
Obviously, they are blowing me off with semantic word games. Obviously
they are counting on my not being able to afford a lawsuit, even in
Small Claims, for $403.95, and obviously they don't care if I cancel
the card.
Can I get any advice on recovering the $360.00 (billed as $403.95)
which I had to put out virtually at gun point?
Thanks!!!
Hypatia
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On Mar 11, 3:58=A0am, Hypati...@gmail.com wrote:
I immediately contacted my (sympathetic) travel agent and she advised
me to file a protest with the credit card company, Capital One. =A0She
said the airline check-in person would have HAD MY TICKET NUMBER in
her computer, but still demanded paper ticket.
I believe the agreement between the credit card companies and the
merchants only allow for charge reversals for very specific reasons
(services not delivered, card ran twice by mistake, fraud), etc. It
sounds to me like your dispute is with the airline not the credit card
company. On the bright side, this was a pretty cheap ticket, you could
have been out much more.
Have you called the airline? They should have a record of your ticket
purchases and, one would think, would be able to see you were charged
twice.
-Robert
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n Mar 11, 6:58 am, Hypati...@gmail.com wrote:
Through my long-time travel agent, I bought a r/t international ticket
on LAN Chile from LA to Santiago,Chile and a domestic r/t ticket from
Santiago to Ushuaia, Argentina.
Um, flying from Chile to Argentina is an international flight. They
are different countries. If that makes any difference.
What airline was the Chile-to-Argentina leg booked on? Does that
line do any business in USA? Otherwise you may need to go to Chile,
or Argentina, to sue the airline if it comes to that.
Both tickets were charged to my
Capital One credit card.
Here in USA I presume.
Checking in at the little Ushuaia airport for the return flight, the
agent at the desk demanded a paper ticket, and said I could not board
unless I bought a new ticket IN CASH from Ushuaia to the first stop
in Chile, Punta Arenas. I showed her every document in my air travel
envelope, including itinerary print-out from my travel agent, but
she was adamant that I had to pay $360.00 IN CASH to board.
(Just for comparison, the entire domestic r/t ticket which they did
not honor was $350 from Santiago to Ushuaia!)
Again, it's an INTERNATIONAL flight, not a domestic.
You apparently had no problem going from Chile to Argentina on the
ticket you bought in USA. I have no idea why the Argentine
authorities, and/or the airline, refused to accept your prepaid ticket
for the return flight (your post is unclear about what entity - the
line, or the government - it was that in fact refused to let you board
without buying a local ticket). However, they had you over a barrel,
and you blinked. So whether it was "legal" or not, they've got your
money, you may or may not be able to sue them in USA, and you paid
them to avoid the hassle of being stuck in Podunk, Ar. for the rest of
your natural life unless you wanted to walk home. ISTM you made a
good bargain, and the so called tourist authorities in Ushuaia made a
bad one because you are going to tell everyone you know never to set
foot in that little tourist trap again.
I had only $290.00 in cash. She said they had no facilities to accept
credit card or travelers checks. I thought I was stuck!!! Eventually
she telephoned Punta Arenas and they agreed to accept my credit
card. She took an imprint but I was so shell-shocked I did not think
to ask for a receipt,
Not wise, but you know that, and again, I'm not sure it makes any
difference.
(and based on their minimal one-horse setup, I
probably couldn't have got one anyway!)
You can _always_ get a receipt, even in a one horse town. All it
takes is a pen, a piece of paper, and the person you gave the money to
writes "Received from Hypatia Passenger, on 1/2/34, $360.00 for 1 way
ticket from Ushuaia to Punta Arenas. Signed, Flyme Tothemoon,
Flybynite Airlines."
Credit card bill came with a charge of not $360.00 but $403.95.
Probably due to the exchange rate fluctuation. I'm guessing your
ticket was actually purchased in Argentine currency. This is not
unusual at all in international credit card use.
I immediately contacted my (sympathetic) travel agent and she advised
me to file a protest with the credit card company, Capital One. She
said the airline check-in person would have HAD MY TICKET NUMBER in
her computer, but still demanded paper ticket.
Now I'm confused. Did you bring paper tickets with you from USA for
each leg, but lost the one for your return from Argentina to Chile
before you tried to get on that plane? Maybe that's why they
insisted you buy a new ticket. Maybe their computer was not online
at the moment. I can't make sense of your fact scenario and am
guessing you may be leaving out some crucial point but I can't tell
what it is.
Where is my paper ticket?
You're asking US? Don't _you_ know?
I never took ANYTHING out of my airline
envelope! Except when we were boarding the ship, the ground agent in
Ushuaia took our return tickets and said he would confirm our
flight. I emailed him if he kept the paper ticket, but he said
"no". ????? Where is it???
As you can guess, this is not good for proving your case, assuming no
one else but you is willing to acknowelege that your forced purchase
of a duplicate ticket was unnecessary under the circumstances. If
this particular leg required a paper ticket and would not recognize
electronic ticketing, and if you were somehow notified of that fact
before your journey began but you lost the return ticket somehow,
wouldn't that be your fault, not theirs, just as if you had lost a wad
of money instead? That is one of the risks of travel the old
fashioned way you know.
Since December, I have been going around with Capital One credit card,
writing directly to the CEO after the dispute people blew me off.
Now I'm pretty sure you're leaving something out. Dispute agents at
USA credit card companies don't just "blow you off" for no reason --
what reasons did they give you for denying your claim, or even
refusing to initially accept that you had an unresolved merchant
dispute with the Argentine airline?
sent everyone copies of the credit card bill from previous June
showing both original ticket purchases, and the credit card bill
showing the forced duplicate purchase.
Which is why I figured the absence of an actual receipt from the check-
in desk didn't really matter - you did get on the plane, and it showed
up on your credit card bill.
They keep stonewalling, saying that "merchant provided the services",
but not recognizing (or choosing to recognize) that I am not disputing
that I took the flight, but that I PAID TWICE for the same damn
flight!! and I want the duplicate payment refunded.
I'm guessing that you're missing the point, but I still don't know
what it is either. The real issue, ISTM is which party bears the
risk in the event of a lost return ticket. If you can prove that the
airline office in Ushuaia should have honored your e-ticket and
allowed you to board even if you had no paper ticket, then the airline
was in the wrong for forcing you to buy a new ticket, and you should
be able to sue the airline to recover the excess payment. But I'm
inclined to agree that this would be your recourse, rather than a
merchant charge-back, because the merchant _did_ provide the services
you paid for. You are trying to use your credit card company's
dispute resolution mechanism as a substitute for a civil suit for
damages and it was never intended to be that. Rather, it has a much
more limited purpose and what happened to you just seems to fall into
the cracks of the dispute resolution process for the reasons they
stated.
The most recent gobbledygook from Capital One is: "...our Disputes
Department has advised us that this is not considered a duplicate
transation. A duplicate transaction is when a merchant makes a
processing error and the transaction is processed twice. There are no
dispute rights on this transaction as you took the flight and services
were rendered. If you choose to dispute the ORIGINAL (emphasis added)
transaction, our Disputes Department would need a signed and updated
information form with the amount, transaction date, merchants [sic]
name, supporting dpcuments and a credit voucher to be able to assist
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"Robert M. Gary" <N7093v@gmail.com> wrote:
Hypati...@gmail.com wrote:
I believe the agreement between the credit card companies and the
merchants only allow for charge reversals for very specific
reasons (services not delivered, card ran twice by mistake,
fraud), etc. It sounds to me like your dispute is with the airline
not the credit card company. On the bright side, this was a pretty
cheap ticket, you could have been out much more.
One of the exceptions to a credit card having to reverse a wrongful
charge is if the charge was made outside the country. That's
apparently what happened here.
Stu
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