Complaint Review: Allegiant Air - Nationwide

To: Allegiant Air

From: Marcia F

Date: March 16, 2015

Our family chose to fly Allegiant Air from Cincinnati to Ft. Lauderdale for a family wedding. Since the airline is new to CVG, we had no experience with its processes or customer service. There were 6 of us traveling together, including our 3 year old granddaughter.

During the booking process, we learned that the flight prices were very basic and did not include things such as carry-on bags and pre-selected seats, for which we had to pay extra. However, because of travelling with a toddler and for a wedding, we paid for carry-on bags and pre-selected seats.

Prior to leaving, we did not know about the mobile app. We found out about it upon arrival at the airport. We also learned that it cost $5 per boarding pass to get them printed at the airport. Again because we didn’t know, we complied.

All of this withstanding, the major problem occurred on our way home. We arrived at the airport and we all checked in except my daughter, who along with my husband, returned a rental car. We waited in the ticket counter area with her luggage to be checked. When she arrived at the ticket counter, no one was there to wait on her. She arrived at 7:40. Additionally, she was unable to pull up her boarding pass on the mobile app. Therefore with no boarding pass, she was not able to get through security and ultimately missed her flight. There are several problems with this:

• No information about the ticket counter being closed COMPLETELY within a certain time. There was no sign saying that the counter was closed. Because we didn’t know what happened, we lost valuable time waiting there for someone to show up.

• No information at all about the mobile app being turned off for getting an electronic boarding pass after a certain time. Had she been able to get her boarding pass pulled up, she could have gotten through security and had a chance at making the flight.

• We were travelling with her 3 year old daughter and were unable to get the gate attendants and the ticket counter to work together to provide her mother with a hard copy boarding pass. At this point, we were told that she would not be able to get through security in time. Therefore we had to board with her toddler without her diaper bag, car seat and luggage.

  Needless to say it was upsetting to leave our daughter behind to find another flight to get home, especially since the next Allegiant flight to Cincinnati was FOUR days away! We had her child without her belongings, not knowing when her mother would get home. To add insult to injury, when I got our check baggage at CVG, it was tagged with my daughter’s name, the one who was not allowed to fly! The ticket counter agent took my ID (Marcia A F) but pulled up my daughter’s name and tagged my bag incorrectly!!

  Please know that we are not novice fliers and have had experiences with other airlines.  We had high hopes for the success of this airline in our home airport so that we could return to CVG as our departure point of choice. However, this experience with Allegiant Air resulted in a stressful, disappointing end to our wonderful family weekend. Therefore we are requesting a full refund of our daughter’s ticket, including the extra for the checked bag. Her itinerary number is #M508134.