Liz and I are exceptionally grateful to Canadian eclipse chaser Stephen Bedingfield, without whose persistence we might have missed upcoming Dec. 14 eclipse. We knew he had originally planned an independent tour as we had, and had to give it up due to the uncertainty of Argentine COVID restrictions. We recommended the AstroTrails tour we had booked, and he replied that there were many impediments to his travel, including no direct flights from Canada to Argentina.
We were surprised as we had used United mileage and been routed on Dec. 10 to Buenos Aires via Air Canada flight 92 from Toronto. In further e-mail exchanges, Stephen said no, there are no flights on the Air Canada website and furthermore he knew about AC92 as he had used it for the 2017 annular eclipse.
After 4 warnings from Stephen over 18 hours, we finally checked the Air Canada website this morning, did not find flight AC92 on Dec. 10 and called Air Canada again. Air Canada confirmed there is no such flight but said since we booked with mileage via United, we would have to go through United to rebook flights for Dec. 10.
We called United. They looked up our confirmation code and told us that the Dec. 17 flights were reserved but that the Dec.10 flights had been cancelled by Air Canada on Nov. 5. I asked when were they going to inform us of the cancellation, perhaps when we showed up at LAX on Dec. 10? United said Air Canada should have informed us while of course Air Canada had said the opposite.
Air Canada had given us the flight numbers to get us to Buenos Aires on Dec. 11 via Sao Paulo. United naturally wanted us to use their flight from Houston to Buenos Aires that arrives a day earlier or later. I explained that AstroTrails and Argentina would not allow us to use the Houston flight and arrive a day early, which is why we had reserved Air Canada in the first place. So we needed to use an Aerolineas or LATAM flight for the final leg from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires. United capped their abysmal customer service by refusing to book either of those flights.
While I had been on hold waiting for United, Liz was researching alternatives and we were fortunate to get clean connections through Dallas on American. We do not have enough mileage with American, but the price was a dirt cheap $535pp round trip. So I told United to redeposit the mileage and refund taxes and fees.
We were surprised as we had used United mileage and been routed on Dec. 10 to Buenos Aires via Air Canada flight 92 from Toronto. In further e-mail exchanges, Stephen said no, there are no flights on the Air Canada website and furthermore he knew about AC92 as he had used it for the 2017 annular eclipse.
After 4 warnings from Stephen over 18 hours, we finally checked the Air Canada website this morning, did not find flight AC92 on Dec. 10 and called Air Canada again. Air Canada confirmed there is no such flight but said since we booked with mileage via United, we would have to go through United to rebook flights for Dec. 10.
We called United. They looked up our confirmation code and told us that the Dec. 17 flights were reserved but that the Dec.10 flights had been cancelled by Air Canada on Nov. 5. I asked when were they going to inform us of the cancellation, perhaps when we showed up at LAX on Dec. 10? United said Air Canada should have informed us while of course Air Canada had said the opposite.
Air Canada had given us the flight numbers to get us to Buenos Aires on Dec. 11 via Sao Paulo. United naturally wanted us to use their flight from Houston to Buenos Aires that arrives a day earlier or later. I explained that AstroTrails and Argentina would not allow us to use the Houston flight and arrive a day early, which is why we had reserved Air Canada in the first place. So we needed to use an Aerolineas or LATAM flight for the final leg from Sao Paulo to Buenos Aires. United capped their abysmal customer service by refusing to book either of those flights.
While I had been on hold waiting for United, Liz was researching alternatives and we were fortunate to get clean connections through Dallas on American. We do not have enough mileage with American, but the price was a dirt cheap $535pp round trip. So I told United to redeposit the mileage and refund taxes and fees.