Travel and Leisure
You might have noticed that there is a bit of apprehension on the part of Canadian travellers to head to the US right now. In fact, it's pretty much the rest of the world that is turning away from going anywhere near the states, especially Europeans. The UK and Germany recently issued advisories about travelling to America, and Canada went on to say that university teachers and educators should avoid non-essential travel to the United States.
As you can imagine, this has a knock-on effect across the entire travel industry, and the first to feel the effects of this are the airlines.
The Guardian reported that "Passenger bookings on Canada to US routes are currently down by over 70% compared to the same period last year". Over 70 percent? Wow. Who would have thought that a bunch of maple syrup-drinking, snowshoe-wearing, igloo-dwelling Canucks would be so patriotic? But Canadians are expressing their displeasure with the current administration's economic threats and statements about annexing Canada, making it the 51st state.
While we stand with the rest of Canada, most of Europe, and the rest of the world, we weren't planning on going to the US anytime soon, but we did have a flight booked that took us through Houston on or way to Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. The best flight itinerary was with United, but the first leg from YVR-IAH was with Air Canada, and I guess we fell victims to the changes in Air Canada's scheduling, as that segment got cancelled. We had already been second-guessing our plans to route through a US airport, even though we would not set foot outside the airport in Houston. So when they changed our itinerary to a much earlier departing flight, I used this as an opportunity to cancel the entire journey.
Here's where it gets interesting, and why knowing your rights is important. As you can see from the screenshot from the US DoT website above, they indicate that a significant change in the flight entitles you to a refund, even for non-refundable tickets. Not wanting to get caught by the "significant" wording, I checked the actual rules posted on the United site, specifically for flights originating from Canada. Here's the screenshot:
As you can see, their rules basically say that they are obligated to refund the ticket if we were to refuse the rebooking options, which we wanted to do. Ok, so facts in hand, I called United. Suffice it to say that their initial response was to offer a flight credit, to which I refused, and quoted both of the excerpts above. 15 minutes later, the full refund was issued for the flight cancellation.
So the moral of the story is, don't accept what the airline says as gospel, and as with everything (especially in these trying times), check your facts!
