Family changed travel plans during government shutdown, expected refund to be easy

CHARLOTTE — Charli Cotty has one of those library book boxes near her house, great for her three year old. And something else was going to be great for the little girl too: her first flight.

Cotty says they bought tickets through Expedia. They were flying American Airlines to Texas and Southwest Airlines home. Then: the government shutdown.

“The idea of traveling with all this chaos going on with my three-year-old. So we opted to cancel,” she told Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke.

She assumed they were doing the airlines and TSA a favor. She says American gave a voucher for a future flight. “They were kind enough to at least provide a credit,” she said. But she says Southwest would not. She says the company told her to go through Expedia. But she says Expedia wouldn’t budge.

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“It’s frustrating. We were looking forward to a trip. This isn’t something that we said, ‘Hey, I would like to cancel because I don’t want to go anymore.’ We canceled because of the airline madness,” she said. “It feels like we are being ripped off over something, cleaning up the responsibility of something that had nothing to do with us, and it wasn’t our fault.”

Stoogenke emailed Expedia. They company replied Southwest’s policy for the government shutdown said customers traveling before a certain date could get refunds, but that Cotty was flying after so she wasn’t eligible. But Expedia added, “Given the circumstances, we are refunding Ms. Cotty’s Southwest flight as a courtesy.” It was close to $1,500.

A few days later, Cotty emailed Stoogenke the good news, adding, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Action 9 emailed Southwest for their side of the story. They didn’t respond in time for this report.

This case was a little more complicated because it didn’t just involve the airlines. It involved a third-party: Expedia. In cases like this, Stoogenke usually likes to start with the third-party. After all, that’s who your direct relationship is with. That worked here. But his next step would have been to contact Southwest.

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