Meaghan J.

Remarkably poor customer service... Our initial flight was delayed out of Boston for a "safety" reason, what I have gathered is that this is what they tell you so that it can not be their fault. We landed in Montreal and when we got off the plane, were handed ticket changes to give us a 3 hour delay in Montreal, send us to Portugal and give us another layover there before heading to Milan (adding roughly 7 hours to our travel and making us miss everything we had planned and already paid for in Milan). We got to the gate of our initial flight on time and tried to get our seats, but they had been sold to someone else as we were removed from the flight. We waited for the new connection and got to Portugal. In Portugal we were told by Air Canada that we could not get on the flight as we did not have boarding passes and they could not give us boarding passes because we had not paid for our baggage. I showed them the receipts and was told that there was nothing they could do and they could not even open it up for us to pay a second time. The Air Canada people had me take all of our passports and go out through the exit, find the check in area for Air Canada and get help there since we were short on time as it took an hour just to get this far in trying to get our boarding passes. I ran the 20 minutes to get to check in only to be told that they could also not help me and it was not their problem so I needed to call Air Canada, they did not give me a number or anything just told me it was not their problem and that I needed to call and was pushed aside for the next person. I called the number I found online, only to be told that there was nothing they could do either. So here I am, stuck outside of security with no boarding passes to get back to my family and my family's passports. I was so frustrated that I cried. Finally some nice lady with a different airline helped me and took maybe 10 minutes to fix the issue and get me my boarding passes. By this time I had 40 minutes to get through security and to the gate. We made it, 0 thanks to Air Canada who was apparently content to leave us stranded in a country we shouldn't have been in to begin with as we made it to the gate of our initial connection to begin with.

When I complained to Air Canada, explaining that we do not travel often (this was 4 years of saving) and just asked for the money back from what I had prepaid and missed, they told me that it was not their problem or responsibility but here is a $200 Air Canada voucher that you will never use. Their response to my rebuttal asking that they make this right and just refund me the roughly $500 in missed activities as they mishandled our flight from beginning to end, they told me "While I am sorry and understand your disappointment with our decision, our response is in line with the Air Passenger Protection Regulations. Although this may not be the answer you are looking for, I thank you for your understanding and appreciate this final opportunity to reply to your concerns." AKA it's okay for us to re-route you, make you miss everything you had planned, and not even bother to make sure you could get on the extra 7 hours of travel we put you on.