As a parent I am beside myself as I watch my 16 year old daughter cry hysterically all over one tiny error that resulted in American Airlines cheating my daughter and her boyfriend out of $200 and an airplane ticket.
Ricky and Maggie had to face heartbreak when Ricky's family moved back to Mississippi this past February. Although they are thousand of miles away, the young couple has chosen to stay together and work through it. Since their separation, both Ricky and Maggie have been working and saving every penny they get so that they could afford a plane ticket for Maggie to visit Ricky in the summer. After many hours of labor work, babysitting, and saving birthday money, they finally saved enough money to buy a round trip ticket for $351.00.
Maggie being so excited about her trip, booked her flight using Kayak through American Airlines. She however, did not notice that the site populated my first name (because I am the parent and my debit card was being used for the transaction) with her last name and information. So the ticket had the wrong first name. Unfortunately we did not catch the error right away. So when Maggie noticed the error, she immediately tried to call American Airlines multiple times without being able to get through. Their website doesn't even have an email address to reach out to them. So when Maggie finally got through and asked to change the name, she was told she could change the first name FOR $200. Maggie then asked to cancel and again the person said she could cancel FOR $200.
She calls me up balling because it took her and Ricky 4 months to save up all that money and she doesn't have enough to change it.
So as a parent, I reach out to American Airlines via social media, I get a response to message chat. I tell them the story and all I get is "sorry for your convenience but our reservation specialist already told you it was $200 to change it. However, it you would have called in the first 24 hours we could have changed it for free."
So why is it that in the first 24hours it's free but after that you want to charge me an amount almost as much as the entire ticket just to change a simple error, 8 little letters? How hard is it to change the first name?
So now Ricky and Maggie are out $200 and a plane ticket. As a parent, I do not want to see my child hurting because some greedy corporation refuses to fix an error. Please stand with me and let American Airlines know that it is NOT OK to take these kids money. These two kids who worked so hard to see each other after 4 long months. Please help me share this story so this doesn't happen to ANYONE else.
Please join the Facebook movement at https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206949816810077&set=a.2361738809067.163245.1418223647&type=1&theater and continue to share this story.
