Frumpy Mother: Scoring low cost airline tickets is enjoyable. Getting a refund will not be. – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

I don’t know if you happen to’ve ever flown on a cut price airline to economize, however this may be very problematic.

I’ve buddies who will solely fly enterprise class, clearly as a result of it’s extra comfy. The seats are typically larger, softer and also you get a pleasant curtain separating you from the financial system plenty.

The curtain exists so these of us squished within the again, pressured to eat a bag of peanuts we discovered within the backside of our purses, gained’t have the ability to see these of you having fun with your self in enterprise class.

But that’s OK, as a result of way back, I made a pact with myself to surrender a couple of hours of consolation in change for saving cash. This is a essential deal as a result of it’s the one approach I can afford to journey.

I’ve change into an professional on tips on how to use bank card factors and miles to purchase my tickets. I had deliberate to take my household to Costa Rica in April, flying on Avianca Airlines. We’d been to Costa Rica twice earlier than and like it there.

When I took the youngsters to Maui a couple of years in the past, afterward they reported that they favored it, however desire Costa Rica “because of the animals.” There are a lot of wild animals in Costa Rica, and none of them can eat you. Sloths, varied varieties of monkeys, and so forth. Since it prices nearly the identical to fly to Costa Rica as Hawaii and it’s the identical 5 hours within the air, I agreed we might go.

Luckily (or unluckily, because the case could also be), the airline was having a giant sale on seats bought with miles from their Lifemiles loyalty plan, so I used to be capable of purchase tickets for everybody with bank card factors, solely paying for the taxes in money, which got here to round $500. We’d flown Avianca, a Colombian airline, earlier than and located it high quality.

Unfortunately, in February, my daughter Curly Girl determined that she couldn’t afford to take off work for our journey. This was extremely annoying to me — the particular person paying for the entire jaunt — as a result of (a) the entire thing had been her concept and (b) she’d had months to save lots of up and think about this challenge.

Even although I used to be mighty miffed, I noticed I might at the least cancel the flights and get my factors and a refund.

Some of you skilled vacationers are already beginning to smirk at my naivete. Yep, that’s when the issues started. Nowadays, it’s practically unimaginable to pay money for a dwelling human being anymore. It’s like they both disguise their cellphone numbers or depart you on maintain for thus lengthy that you possibly can have change into pregnant and given beginning whilst you’re ready.

It took me three cellphone calls to 3 totally different locations to cancel the flights and get my miles refunded to my account. “Oh, I’m sorry, you’ve called the number for left-handed people. You need to call the number for right-handed people. Here’s the number.”

But the excellent news is that after a number of hours of making an attempt, I finally did get my Lifemiles refunded. The unhealthy information is that I nonetheless haven’t been refunded for the cash I paid in taxes. Somehow, I did handle to search out the key cellphone quantity for customer support and work out the precise sequence I wanted within the cellphone menu to get a reside human being on the road. I felt this was fairly an achievement.

But earlier than I might pat myself on the again, this human advised me I might apply for the cash refund simply on-line by following a number of steps that he outlined for me. I begged him to do it for me. No, I needed to do it on-line. Obviously, I wrote down his directions and adopted them fastidiously. Only to have the web site inform me that I couldn’t carry out that perform on-line, and I’d need to name customer support. “I already called customer service!,” I needed to shout on the laptop, however in fact that may be futile.

So then, I known as customer support and went by means of all of the menu choices once more, waited on maintain once more after which defined the scenario. Again, I went on-line. And nope.

After studying each inch of the web site with the depth of a theology scholar learning the Gospels, I discovered a buyer relations decision web page, which promised to repair issues. I crammed out a kind with all the lengthy saga and submitted it, and waited. Nada.

I submitted a criticism to the U.S. Dept. of Transportation Office of Aviation Consumer Protection. On July 13, I obtained an e-mail from the airline telling me they’d obtained my criticism and could be responding to me “as soon as possible.”

It’s practically September, and I’m nonetheless ready.