I thought I would try flying Spirit Airlines from Chicago to Ft. Lauderdale and had the worst experience of my life with an airline. First they delayed the flight, promising to give us timely updates. After waiting for almost 3 hours the flight was cancelled. Since we were taking a cruise and needed to leave soon, we were forced to purchase $400 one-way tickets on United in order to make our Cruise.
Instead of taking the offered free round-trip tickets we asked for a refund for the cost of the one-way ticket. When checking on the return flight on Spirit we learned that we had be cancelled off the plane and we were getting a full refund for the round trip. I wouldn't have minded, except we needed to get home and never asked to have the return flight cancelled, only a refund for the outbound flight.
What made me so mad was that it was their error and they would not put us back on the return flight unless we paid for one-way tickets, which were the equilivant to the round trip price. I told them we never asked for a full refund, only for the one-way. Their reply was, "It's Saturday and the accounting department isn't open, so I'm afraid we can't help you".
The most they offered was a 10% discount on the one-way tickets. I even offered to pay half of the original fare, but they stood firm after leaving me on hold for almost 30 minutes in all. (I can't wait to get that cell phone bill!).
I tried to be calm and reasonable and explained over and over that this was not our fault, it was their fault, yet we were being charged for their mistake. What ever happed to the "customer is always right" attitude and in this instance we couldn't have been more right or just on our request.
All I know is that if their customer service policies don't change, they won't be in business much longer.
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