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| - I paid $1600 to fly from Houston to Rome for a friend's wedding. The cheapest option was to book with United, which involved flying via Montreal. Unfortunately, the Montreal-Rome leg was operated by Air Canada.
When I booked the flight I was allowed to select seats on the United flight, but to do the same on Air Canada costs $15 extra so I skipped that step as it didn't seem necessary. Unfortunately it turns out if you don't do that, they'll just give away your seat. So it's not really optional. When I boarded in Houston they already knew they'd given away my seat on the second flight. Instead of telling me that so that I could try to make alternative arrangements (at that point they could have rebooked me through New York, Atlanta, London - the possibilities are endless), they flew me to Montreal for no reason, to be told on arrival that there was no seat for me and that I was on standby.
After they confirmed that all the seats on the flight were gone I thought it would be straightforward to get rebooked on a different flight. Unfortunately there was nothing available until 22 hours later - that actually makes sense, since it's their policy to overbook all their flights by 20% (they freely admit to this). Still, what I wasn't expecting was that I would then have to spend 2 hours standing in line at their ticket desk to get rebooked. By the time I got to the hotel they had booked for me, the dining room had closed and it wasn't possible to spend the $15 meal voucher they had given me. On top of that, the agents on the desk seemed to be extraordinarily incompetent - the first ticket they issued me turned out not to be valid at all and when I went back to the airport the next day I had to spend another hour standing in line at the ticket desk to get that rectified.
The onward flight was routed through Barcelona so what should have been a 9 hour journey turned into a 14 hour journey. I eventually arrived 36 hours late - 2 hours after the wedding reception had started. I missed the entire rehearsal dinner. Nothing could compensate me for this. But what they did offer was laughable - $200 in cash or a $500 Air Canada voucher.
I certainly won't fly with Air Canada again. What they are operating is essentially a scam - pay another fee to book your seat or we'll give it away. And the agents on the ticket desk kept telling me 'next time make sure to book your seat'. What they didn't seem to understand is that there won't be a next time.
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