After 3 weeks stay in San Francisco, I finally got my new passport and rescheduled my flight to San Jose (Costa Rica) in next 2 days. Like most unplanned, surprise things in the life I had great time in this truly fascinating city. While meeting some old friends I made also new ones. It was totally amazing.
In the meantime, it is challenging and stressful being somewhere without having enough plan before your stay. Not only I haven’t brought enough clothes, but also there was no space in my bags for the new ones. Besides, as San Francisco is an expensive city, I avoided additional cost for new clothes and non essentiel needs.
My flight between San Francisco to San Jose (Costa Rica) had a stop in San Salvador (El Salvador). Something I realized during my trips around Latin America and US that Avianca uses San Salvador as a hub between Central America and some destionatins in US.
The flight lasted almost total 9 hours and I finally arrived to San Jose almost 1 month after than planned. After a glance over the wine and whisky shelf in the small duty free of San Jose airport I moved to get my luggage.
When I have arrived to carrousel I have encontered an unpleasent surprise. My suitcase was damaged, tore, shattered from top to bottom. The tear on the side of the suitcase was seen far away. Handgrip was completely gone and thin iron rods were swinging on the head of the bag.
People around me were also surprised and checking the skeptically.
Eventhoug I was so tired, I haven’t had other choise than solving it. First, I found Avianca counter to register the case and start the damaged luggage claim. Even the person in charge couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the bag, then couldnt stop himself woowing.
He registered suitcase details and my flight information on a paper form and shared an address for me to fill an online form. The address to fill the form was a scan code on the paper form that he filled for his recordings.
He was sort of getting rid of me, hence I requested an immediate compensation to replace the suitcase with new one but he refused that he doesnt have any. I was done there, nothing more were to do.
When I arrive hotel I sent the twit below addressing Avianca:
Even though they answered my twit in no time, they didnt say anything new. They were confirming and repeating what the attendant in airport told me.
What needs to be taken care is that there is 48 hours limit to fill the form. If you pass 48 hours, there is another form to register the case. You can also find these forms in their response to my twit.
I created my complaint in 48 hours, and started waiting.
I checked 4 days after..
I was worried because other planned trips was just around the corner. Should I have bought a new suitcase, or waited if they would decide to give me one. Although I was not expecting this as the solution, it was still annoying.
Well.. I finally received an email 12 days after I reported the issue. They were proposing three solution for me to pick one. Solutions were:
– A coupon for $150 1 year valid to use while buying a ticket exluding taxes
– 7000 miles in my frequent flyer account
– Deposit $105 to bank account
To be honest each of them was tempting. The approach to solve the problem was satisfaying. Lately, I had couple of issues with Avianca which I shared on my previous post. Finally I saw a responsible, solid response from Avianca which made me happy and gave me hope for the next flights.
Which one would you select? After some time thinking about it, I decided $150 coupon to use on my next flight with Avianca again .:)
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