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KLM Airlines - Delta Airlines Scam for getting customer in situation where they were stranded and had to buy ticket from them Internet
I want to report to you that we encountered a very big problem on our travel on May 12-13, 2010 due to either uncaring customer service or incompetence on the part of Air France/KLM agents in Amsterdam and in Paris. It is my understanding that our tickets were through Delta because it was a flight originating in the U.S., so I have also sent Delta an email regarding this issue.
Flights: KLM 6032 Seattle to Amsterdam, KLM 2043 Amsterdam to Strasbourg Passengers: Robert Pastorok = Ticket # 0067842838078 and Man-E Ng = Ticket # 0067842838080; Under a separate ticket with XL Airways, we were supposed to fly from Strasbourg to Seville.
Our original KLM flight from Seattle (LV May 12) to Amsterdam (ARR May 13) left approximately on schedule but arrival was delayed by 1-1/2 hour. When we went to the KLM/Air France agent in Amsterdam and told her we had missed our connections (one from Amsterdam to Strasbourg via KLM flight 2043 and another one from Strasbourg to Sevilla via separate airline (XL Airways, on a separate ticket), she advised us to travel to Strasbourg and find another flight to Sevilla from there. I told her I was not knowledgeable about Strasbourg and flights and had no idea whether XL Airways would have other flights. She still advised us to travel to Strasbourg. I asked her to please contact XL Airways and find out whether there were other flights and she said she could not do that. I asked her to help us by finding the telephone # for XL Airways or for a local travel agent. She refused to help. We did not have a working cell phone with us. Because she advised us to travel to Strasbourg and we needed to catch that flight soon, there was no time for us to walk to another terminal and talk with XL Airways ourselves. There was also no help available as I tried to find help from several other persons (some also associated with Air France) just to telephone XL Airways. Our travel agent was in Seattle and it was the middle of the night there. So on the advice of the Air France/KLM agent, we ran to catch the flight to Strasbourg via Paris. When we arrived in Strasbourg, we were told that XL Airways only had one flight per week to Sevilla (the one we had missed due to the flight delay by KLM flight # 6032 from Seattle to Amsterdam). We were informed we needed to wait several hours and check with Iberia Airlines about flights. In the meantime, I talked with Air France agents who would not help us by re-routing us back through Paris to get to Seville. When we were finally able to talk with an Iberia Airlines agent after their counter opened, she told us Air France should take responsibility and re-route us at least to Paris at their expense. She said they never should have sent us on to Strasbourg knowing we had missed our connection. She offered us a flight to Sevilla on Iberia Airlines, but it was through a connection in Madrid and since the flight from Strasbourg to Madrid was late, we would miss the connection to Sevilla in Madrid and be stuck there. She also told me we would have to wait for more than a day to get another flight from Madrid to Sevilla. In any case, the cost of the two tickets from Strasbourg to Seville was a total of 4000 Euro, which I did not have available. We then returned to Air France agents and pleaded with them for help. They still refused to fly us back to Paris at their expense, even standby. Because there was no way now to make our hotel in Sevilla, we decided to skip that night in Sevilla and travel on to Tanger (Morocco), which would be a flight the next day, May 14, as it was our plan to be in Tanger on May 14 any way. The Air France supervisor said they would help us do that, but we would need to buy the tickets at our expense. I felt we had no other choice and were essentially being extorted for this money. So I paid with an American Express card, resulting in an expense total of $515.92 EURO. I would like to receive compensation for this expense from Air France/KlM since it was their agents incompetence that led us astray and stranded us in Strasbourg. The claim by Air France/KlM agents in Strasbourg and Paris airports that they fulfilled their contract by getting us to Strasbourg is a moot point. We really didnt want to go to Strasbourg. We wanted to go to Seville and they should have assisted us with reaching that goal at their expense or at least partial expense. So Air France/KLM now had us fly back to Paris (where we could have earlier caught a flight to Seville if Air France agent in Amsterdam had been more helpful and not just sent us to Strasbourg). We had to stay overnight in Paris at our expense because the Air France supervisor there refused to give us a voucher for a hotel room for one night (Can you imagine??? If this had been the USA, there would have been no issue and they clearly would have covered our hotel). The argument of the Air France supervisor in every case was that because our last leg from Strasbourg to Sevilla was with a separate airline, Air France/KLM only had a "contract" to get us to Strasbourg and they did that. My position is they never should have sent us on to Strasbourg and should have assisted us with getting in touch with XL Airways or finding a travel agent in the airport in Amsterdam, both of which I requested from the Air France agent there. Her only response was she could not do that and she advised us to travel to Strasbourg. I believe that advice was the source of the entire problem and should have never been given. KLM/Air France really made a mistake sending us on to Strasbourg knowing we would miss our flight with XL Airways. Unfortunately, KLM/Air France would take no responsibility because the Strasbourg-Sevilla flight was a separate ticket with XL Airways. The result was over 30 hours of travel without sleep for us to go Seattle to Amsterdam to Paris to Strasbourg, back to Paris, stay overnight at our expense and also lose the money for the hotel reservation in Sevilla, and fly the next day Paris to Tanger. This was all on the first day of our honeymoon. The fact that Air France/KLM would not even supply us with compensation for a hotel room in Paris is inexcusable.