After receiving an apology from Northwest Air Kurt and I responded to the BBB and NWA with this letter…
I have received your letter containing a letter of apology, a copy of rules for traveling with pets and a travel voucher for $200. You stated that “from your personal experience great emphasis is placed on the read back of all reservation information”. I can assure you that no mention of a health certificate was made on any of the three occasions that Kurt spoke with Northwest employees over the phone. Nor was any mention made of it two years prior when we first traveled with our cat. At that time, Kurt informed the Northwest employee taking the reservation that we had never traveled with a pet before and asked if there were any special requirements. I hope this incident causes Northwest airlines to revise its training so that all customers are informed of pertinent rules such as the necessary health certificate.
While the letter of apology is appreciated, the voucher will be of no use to us. First of all, it is issued in my name only; Even though my boyfriend, Kurt ****, is the one who bought the tickets for our ill-fated trip. This voucher is non-transferable and can only be used by me. No compensation is being made to Kurt at all. This voucher also expires within one year. We only travel during Christmas time. The voucher says TCV seats may be limited. Currently, Kurt has over 80,000 frequent flyer miles. He has attempted to use frequent flyer miles to book our Christmas vacations for the last two years to no avail. Even booking the trip three months in advance, there were no available frequent flyer seats for any flights within a week of Christmas. If the use of this TCV is anything like that, I doubt it will be of use to us before it expires. Moreover, this voucher is insufficient to purchase one complete ticket to most destinations, let alone one for each of us. In other words, with the use of this voucher we will still have to pay $300-$400 out of pocket for a pair of tickets. It seems like an insult to me that your “apology” does nothing but force us to give more business to your company. If your apology were sincere you would send us a complete refund of the $586 Kurt spent on the tickets. Another acceptable apology would be a voucher for Kurt and I that would cover the complete cost of two airline tickets that would not expire in a year.
This would be acceptable repayment for (1) the inconvenience of a 24 hour delay, (2) the stress and aggravation caused by your employees treatment of us, (3) the added $45.95 expense to visit a vet in Madison in order to get the health certificate, (4) the inconvenience of arranging an extra nights stay as well as (5) transportation to a veterinarian and (6) back to the airport, and (7) the added expense of boarding our two dogs and our parrot for an extra day in Seattle. All of this could have been avoided if the Northwest employee taking our reservation would have mentioned the need for a health certificate for our cat and not the employee taking our tickets at the gate on our flight back home.
As I mentioned in my last letter: If any of the operators had informed us that a health certificate was necessary, we could have, and would have postponed our October 29th (that’s one day after our reservations were made) vet visit to a date closer to our departure and received the certificate for no extra charge and a lot less misery.