Dear,
In March 2024, I was waiting for my flight $ 96 Frontier Airlines from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Trenton, NJ, when Gate agents announced that they were looking for 20 volunteers to fly the next day to illuminate the aircraft cargo. Offer: Credit $ 800 for future flight. (Or were there multiple future flights? This was the topic of discussion between passengers.) I went forward and I was asked to write my email address on a piece of paper, which passed for other volunteers to do the same. The portal agent was patient and kind, but he didn’t give me any proof. When I came back the next day for my makeup flight, it was there again, so I asked why I didn’t receive an email with the credit, as other passengers had. He didn’t know. Later, I arrived at the border, but the carrier made it very difficult to get to a man over the phone and sent me emails that made no sense. I received a $ 384 payment – not a coupon – a few days after the flight, but since my frontier owes about $ 300 from a cancellation last year, I thought it was about it. Can you help? Linda, princeton, nj
Dear Linda,
Let me get this straight: The Frontier method for monitoring volunteers due to $ 800 vouchers was to leave their email addresses on a piece of paper?
This is a rhetorical question because he sent me by email the photo that broke that sheet, which showed a list of 10 email addresses in a wide variety of writing. There I started when I dug your problem, writing at the other nine email addresses to ask if they had received their credits – in some cases for multiple travelers in their party.
Eight wrote to tell their stories. Everyone (except you) had received coupons, although three complained, unexpectedly, about the address-electronic mail and several grumbles, that the coupons proved to be a lump sum use. One, Dino of Fort Washington, PA, managed to persuade the border to divide the four vouchers of his family into eight $ 400 coupons.
With the help of the documentation you sent, the answers from your colleagues passengers and a useful e -mail back and forth with Jennifer de la Cruz, a Frontier spokesman, I have understood what happened and returned to you as much – or maybe more than – you deserve.
Asked by passengers to record their email addresses, Ms de la Cruz wrote is not a “formal process”. Instead, portal agents are instructed to find the customer’s reservation in the system, to confirm that the contact information is correct and comment as voluntarily or inadvertently refuses to embark.
The difference is significant. Compensation for unintentionally refused boarding – blow – is governed by the rules of the US Transport Department, while airlines can offer whatever they want to seek volunteers. Your name has somehow found its way to the unintentional list, which in this case meant that you would receive four times the amount of the original ticket $ 96 or $ 384. This explains the $ 384 that Frontier returned your credit card two days after the original flight. (It had nothing to do with the cancellation of 2023.) Your frontier now sent you a $ 450 coupon to bring the amount to just over the $ 800 you promised.
Ms de la Cruz also examined money – $ 302 to be accurate – you say you owe the cancellation of 2023. He said that your local travel agent has fallen into error and how much you were paying. It was not a refund, the spokesman said, but a coupon, and it was only worth $ 54 after the fees were removed. This coupon was published in 2023 and ended three months later. (You claim that he never received it.)
As courtesy, Ms de la Cruz said Frontier would send you $ 302 and you told me you received an email that promised $ 302 in the form of a check. (For a company that charges you extra if you do not check in through its application, Frontier definitely uses a lot of paper!)
You and several other passengers, by the way, gave Kudos to the portal agent. Let us give him the advantage of doubt that he was not aware of the Frontier system – as it turns out that he was not working directly for the frontier, but for Trego Dugan Aviation, a contractor. It is a very common arrangement these days-and the agents of the gate wearing airline uniforms are often contractors. This agent was even kind enough to record his email address so you can follow. Unfortunately, your message to him bounced back, not the first time in this story that an handwritten email address led someone misleading.
So what is the lesson for those who are thinking of leaving a place for a coupon? Be careful about anything a portal agent promises you orally and always kindly try to receive a receipt or other written items. Ask to watch as the agent enters your details and take a photo of the screen and the agent – with consent. Prefer Cash for Coupons, which are almost always limited by time, and ask for a free hotel room if your substitute flight is not until the next day.
Some positive news about potential border volunteers: Mrs De la Cruz said (regardless of this article) that Frontier have changed her policies since then to make coupons well for more than one flight. This is good, because, as Megan of Doylestown wrote to me, Pa.
I will say, at least if you only make one place. I played with the booking page and-care to North Dakotans-you can, from this script, take a flight from Fargo to Mexico Cancún, with additional auxiliary luggage and checked luggage, for just under $ 750.
If you need tips on a better travel plan that went wrong, Send an email to trippenup@nytimes.com.
