My first reaction as I sit here in stunned silence is WTF? <\/p>\n
Dear Air Canada, Why even bother to pretend to have a compassionate rate?<\/strong><\/p>\n I read the webpage on Compassionate Rates from Air Canada and got confused. It seemed to be setting up stipulations that made no sense, unless I cared more about receiving a discount, than getting to my Dad before he died. <\/p>\n I thought, surely I’m reading this wrong, so I called. <\/strong><\/p>\n I spoke to a lovely fellow on the phone, who seemed to cringe as he told me I’d disqualified myself from their compassionate discount because A) I didn’t call them first and B) I booked a one way ticket because I didn’t know if Dad would die in a day, a week, a month or recover completely.<\/p>\n I guess I didn’t miss out on much. According to their website: “In many instances, a lower-priced fare may be found by shopping online at aircanada.com. Bereavement fares are intended to provide maximum flexibility for passengers who must travel during a time of family emergency but are not necessarily the lowest fares available.”<\/p>\n So I ask – why bother?<\/strong><\/p>\n I am so much more frustrated with Air Canada now for pretending to have a Compassionate Rate than I was when I didn’t think they had one<\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n Ironically, WestJet offers the same sort of non-rate, with slightly fewer restrictions. The difference is that it’s easy to find their Bereavement Rate information on their website, it’s worded in a way that makes sense to someone who is panicking about getting there in time and gives a hint as to why a bereavement fare is valuable. <\/p>\n Because of the way WestJet explained everything up front and in full sentences, I’m not nearly as irate at them.<\/strong> <\/p>\n I had to do a search to find the compassionate rate on the Air Canada website. After reading their stipulations set out in corporate-speak, I can’t figure out any value for me to even attempt to get the rate. In fact it sounds like more of a time consuming inconvenience for passengers, like me, who are concerned about their family and getting there in ‘time’.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, I HAVE to fly Air Canada to get home at Christmas. WestJet doesn’t fly to Saint John during the winter. The closest airport they do fly into is Moncton. A hour away from my parent’s… err my Mom’s House, and driving down from Moncton isn’t always an option. <\/p>\n If that’s their MO for gettnig business no wonder they’re in trouble!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Air Canada, Why even bother to pretend you have a compassionate rate?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-deathofmydad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1282,"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suenelsonbuckley.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}