Avoid travel nightmares!
The Miami Herald posted a travel horror story today with some good tips about airline policies for travelers. Unfortunately, the article missed the most important lesson to be learned from this couple’s bad experience.
Here’s the story:
http://www.miamiherald.com/986/story/486308.html
Travel agents know the dangers of flying with two tickets for one trip. In the trade, we call this “split ticketing,” and it is not the safest way to fly. As the couple in the story learned, the airline’s responsibility to the passenger ends at the ticket’s final destination regardless of the passenger’s actual final destination.
Best practice: Buy one ticket all the way through to your final destination. Then the airline is legally required to get you there and re-accommodate you at no charge if necessary. There are several airlines that fly from L.A. to Rome avoiding a change in airline. This couple also could have purchased a ticket on Alitalia from L.A. to Rome that included the American flight to JFK, and may have cost a little less than the two separate tickets. Even if it cost a little more, it would have been a much better value for this couple.
Here’s the story:
http://www.miamiherald.com/986/story/486308.html
Travel agents know the dangers of flying with two tickets for one trip. In the trade, we call this “split ticketing,” and it is not the safest way to fly. As the couple in the story learned, the airline’s responsibility to the passenger ends at the ticket’s final destination regardless of the passenger’s actual final destination.
Best practice: Buy one ticket all the way through to your final destination. Then the airline is legally required to get you there and re-accommodate you at no charge if necessary. There are several airlines that fly from L.A. to Rome avoiding a change in airline. This couple also could have purchased a ticket on Alitalia from L.A. to Rome that included the American flight to JFK, and may have cost a little less than the two separate tickets. Even if it cost a little more, it would have been a much better value for this couple.
