Complaint Review: Copa Airlines - Nationwide

Thank you so much for the clarification.

So now the bad news for you. The airline did NOT oversell the flight, and they did not Rip you off. In fact the only ripoff here is the thing you attempted to do.

What you did is a version of what is known by many names such as "Hidden City" ticketing. That is where you buy a ticket with seats you have no intention of using because the end result is that one of the legs gets you to the destination cheaper than it would be to just buy only the ticket you really need. While not illegal, this is highly frowned upon by the airline industry as a whole.

You will also find that EVERY airline has a similar policy that if a passenger fails to show up for a specific leg of a flight, then all remaining legs for that passenger are automatically cancelled without refund. Yes, this includes the RETURN flight as well. After all, as far as the airline knows if the person never made it on the original flight, how could they be in Caracas to take the return flight...UNLESS you were trying to "cheat" the system.

You can claim you didn't know these were the terms, or that you were never "told", but when you bought the ticket you are prompted that you have read and agree to the terms and conditions of the tickets including any restrictions.  It was YOUR failure to not actually read what you were agreeing to.

This all occurred at the Venezuela Airport while trying to check-in. The second passenger was already in Venezuela and was just returning, because the tickets were cheaper for the round trip that’s what we ended up getting. So because the second passenger did not fly out on the initial flight their system automatically re-sold the seat for both ways. We were never notified that the second passengers ticket was no longer valid, even though we were already charged for that ticket. Since they re-sold the second seat that I had already purchased I asked for a refund for that ticket or upgrade it to first class. But they refused and said I would have to call corporate. I called corporate while there at the airport and was getting the run-around was going nowhere I decided to pay for the difference for the first class ticket but by that time they were fully booked and second passenger would have to wait for the next flight, but now there was an additional charge and penalties that they were trying to charge. At this point I was absolutely furious and decided to make reservations with another Airline.  

Airlines oversell seats all of the time and it is totally legal. They do this on the assumption that not everyone will show up for the flight, and they still have a full flight. In the case where everyone does show up, the way it should work is that anyone that gets "bumped" would be put on the next available flight.

What is odd here is the timing and seems a lot of the details are being left out. You stated this was 4 hours before your flight and you were at the airport, and there is a LOT that can happen in 4 hours. Were you in LA or Caracas when you found out "your" seat was sold?

How did you know "your" seat was sold? What options did they give the person that was bumped? Did they offer to put them on another flight or did they say they would just be stuck in Caracas until they paid for another flight at their own expense? Did you even give them a chance to give you options?

Since you are posting this, you either obviously never went or you did go and have since returned.  So what exactly was the current status of all of this?

Sadly, yes it is legal for any airline to oversold/overbooked airline ticket. You may read this blog about why and all other things else related to the situation.

However, your experience demonstrates how bad their policies are. If they are really good at customer service, they would have upgraded you with no extra charges even though it is not their obligation in order to avoid this kind of situation. This tells me that this airline will not provide the right service if anything wrong happens.