Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

Comment by koolba | Hacker News Reader

I’ve had similar interactions with Air France regarding baggage delays (for days, not hours…). A full compensation claim for any necessities purchased while waiting for your bags requires itemized receipts. The claim must be submitted within 30 days.

Unfortunately their website refused to let me include attachments in the request form. Attaching images would cause a bunch of HTTP 500 errors. After repeated attempts, I ended up submitting it without the attachments and added a note that their website was broken. I also took screen shots of the web page, the browser network errors, and recorded all the timestamps.

After an extended radio silence that exceeds the deadline to file a claim, they responded that since I didn’t include receipts, they were only going to give 100 euros of compensation.

It took a lot of back and forth, calling customer service, learning the exact voodoo to get through to someone who even knew who to contact, and then more back and forth to be able to email them the receipts.

The end result was full payment. But only because the principle of getting full compensation and not letting this slide kept me in dogged pursuit.

Fuck Air France.

From their perspective, the system probably worked. You're probably 95th percentile of persistence among their customer disputes. Most people would accept the 100 Euros and move on.

I've essentially gifted Deutsche Bahn several hundred euros because it's like drawing blood from a stone and I was genuinely having mental health issues because of it (on top of the stress of having travel plans completely upended).

They probably have lessons from US hospitals and insurances in how to wear down people who complain.

Can you elaborate? I have no personal experience as I don’t travel enough, but I heard the reimbursement process is pretty straightforward?

I was on a delayed ICE, and they handed forms to every passenger. I found the process straightforward.

I don't live in Germany though, so I've only had the single delay.

It's great. You can do it in the app now and get money back fast. My colleagues also book exclusively late night trains (which are often delayed) so they get a free overnight stay in a hotel.

I've gone through the process some 4 to 5 times in the past two years or so and never had any issues with it. The delays are annoying, but I get part of my money back no problem.

I don't know if it applies to your specific case, but I've successfully used the DB app to get money back. It's quite straightforward! But the option to apply is pretty obscure

I have the app, I'm logged in. Please explain how to get my compensation... its costing me a lot

That can be done online or in the app nowadays and is very quick and painless. I am still not sure who to thank for that (EU legislation?), because previously it seemed to be obnoxiously tedious on purpose.

It's 95th percentile that him the 100 euros in the first place.

I've used ChatGPT to auto draft snotograms to these companies, I don't fight these things anymore the AI does.

Wow, very similar experience with a flight that had to be re-booked for the next day. They swore up and down in Paris that I’d be compensated for the hotel stay, but I couldn’t get them to commit in writing even after a two hour conversation.

It was baffling that they weren’t worn down by that point. I suppose that was their thinking too.

> They swore up and down in Paris that I’d be compensated for the hotel stay, but I couldn’t get them to commit in writing

IMO that's a kind of life-skill that I wish was more often taught and attempted, even if actual success is rare:

A: "I see what you mean, yes, the contract does say we could royally screw you over, but trust me, we would NEVER do something like that to you, valued customer and/or business-partner."

B: "Great! Sounds like we're in total agreement about what we each expect. Just go ahead and tack on a little paragraph saying that to this document, since this process is all about ensuring mutual understanding."

A: "Oh, uh... gee, I dunno..."

A: "Of course, I understand, yet I'm not allowed to make contract changes. I'm sorry I can't help you further. Would you like a lollipop instead?"

or

A: "Of course, I understand, yet we have to follow our [most sacred] process. [...]"

or

A: "Of course, I understand, yet I don't see that button on the screen. [so it doesn't exist in this universe]"

A makes his living playing dumb 8-10 hours a day, it's their job. If B has a life, they'll probably give up at some point.

Similar rebooking: less than 24 hours before a flight from Seattle to Naples via Paris Air France says “lol flight canceled good luck as we aren’t rebooking you”

Had to scramble as flights were filling up. On hold for 45 minutes. Eventually cancel our refundable tickets and buy another pair of tickets on AF and have to make up the difference.

AF is now saying that we should have gone through the non working app to reschedule.

And to top it off the luggage didn’t make it to Naples, arriving 3 days (!) later even though there are multiple flights a day.

Plane and the staff were nice.

Ummmm... It sounds like you booked SEA-CDG and CDG-NAP as separate tickets. Huge mistake. In that case, Air France is not obliged by EU law to make arrangements for you to make it for your CDG-NAP flight.

I assume they still gave you one of the three options in [1], but that just didn't work for you.

[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

It doesn’t sound like that at all. Nowhere in the parent comment did they mention or even imply that these were separate tickets.

Idk if it’s a French thing, but you can be pretty sure that no customer-facing employee is going to engage its employer by writing anything.

They are probably not allowed to do this and if they do it anyway, it’ll probably cost them their job (or any hypothetical promotion).

It’s a cultural thing here that customers never really meet employees with powers to bypass the established process. It’s not limited to airlines but it’s pretty much the case of any company : the employee you talk to never have any latitude and you always have to escalate if you want to hope anything.

There is a reason we are known to be yelling all the time : it’s often the single and best way to escalate to a more powerful employee.

(btw, the employee isn’t at fault so the best thing to do is to be polite without yelling but insisting until you are bothering them to much in their job that they have to call their manager)

I don't think it's specifically a French thing, it's based on a wider truth: individual is powerless against the organization. Unless there's big money on the line, not many people can and will go great lengths, bear the mental burden and potential costs to go to courts and demand justice. Maybe %99th percentile would, and that's the small cost of doing business the way it is.

Companies having already established legal armies, they must know this very well. If they don't have a reason to care about your satisfaction as a customer, it all comes down to the final stand-off where the company says "so what, whatyougonnadoaboutit" and the customer loses by not being able to participate in the first place. If they had something to lose, customer services would be revamped overnight, but they don't.

I don't expect anything to change unless the will to treat the root causes magically appear one day.

Are you American by any chance? Air passenger rights are enshrined in EU law [1]. Asking a random employee to commit in writting for something that everyone knows that is mandated by law would just sound weird to them.

Of course the company may try to stall your compensation, hoping you will forget about it, but that's as far as they can go. After a couple of email exchanges they always yield.

[1] https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-right...

> something that everyone knows that is mandated by law

I'm perfectly sure not everyone knows this.

I have a merchant account with Air France. They run a low-reliability baggage system that relies on people using customer service channels for compensation (versus pen, paper and regulators). Every trip something goes wrong. I rack up receipts, send in a letter, and they typically approve enough to cover most of the original ticket. Worst case, I wind up with toiletries and medication paid for a few months.

Have you ever loaded up a bag with stuff that you didn't want anymore, just to see if they would give you cash for them?

"I had a US$10k guitar in that bag and have the receipts to prove it!"

:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

I'm seriously waiting United claiming in court one of these days that they shouldn't pay out for a broken guitar because it's common knowledge that United breaks guitars, so if you still flew with them and they broke a guitar it's on you.

> Have you ever loaded up a bag with stuff that you didn't want anymore, just to see if they would give you cash for them?

I usually make Montréal Convention of ‘99 claims [1]. What’s in the bag is irrelevant. So instead I’m caught arguing over whether a polo is a necessary expense for a work lunch with some guy in Toulouse.

[1] https://www.iata.org/contentassets/fb1137ff561a4819a2d38f3db...

Since you seem knowledgeable about the topic, would you say it's basically imperative to never check in something into luggage that you are unwilling to lose?

(Ie. only travel with things small enough for cabin or things insured and possible buy again)

If an airline's low-reliability baggage system loses my second-hand bought modular synth I might just have no receipts to show unlike in cases with toiletries and medication for example for one, and besides sometimes it can just be something I cannot even buy again.

Even that is not enough. My wife recently had an experience where American Airlines sent her bag to the wrong country after she was forced to gate check it due to lack of room on the plane. She had paid to have a carryon luggage in the cabin, which she had brought with every intention of having on the plane with her, but was forced to check it anyway or be denied boarding at the gate.

Yeah, my last time flying i notice that delta had no problems whatsoever. But American airlines was just constantly harassing us about how "there wasn't enough room on the plane" and the last passengers would have to check their carry on's. Like what? You think that's my fucking problem? You sold all the tickets, you built the plane, but i guess i just have to let you steal my shit as compensation for this "chance occurrence" that you've engineered to happen on every possible flight. Fuck American airline, the terminal sucked, the plane was rattling like it was made out of cheap plastic, they intentionally fucked up their overhead bins to steal money we paid to carry on, and the plane didn't even have a screen! Delta was cheaper and every seat had a screen. AA sucks

Absolutely.

I mean, some countries are worse than others. I have yet to come home from Mexico without my locks being cut off and bag pillaged, but other international flights have been fine.

Other who place GPS trackers on their luggage have watched it leave the airport and go to a random persons house.

Theft of checked in bags is common, and rummaging through bags is expected.

Maybe to your travel destinations but that is definitely not common.

Bags mysteriously disappearing is common enough that you probably know someone who’s been impacted by it.

It’s true: never attribute to malice that which can be sufficiently explained by incompetence. Except that we have proof of malice in many cases now that gps trackers have been commoditized.

If you don’t lock your bags, as many don’t, you might attribute a missing item to forgetfulness, but it’s just as likely that it’s simply been stolen.

The simple fact is that you should take care with what you check in, especially in countries of higher corruption, less security or less caring security.

In the states where you baggage likely has cameras on it from beginning to end is different, and probably just incompetence. It’s not like we send our best to manage bags (albeit I’m sure you can come up with some fine examples otherwise).

I travel internationally on about 3 R/T flights a year to Europe and Asia (mostly Delta and United alliances). I fly in the US about 12 flights a year (Delta and Southwest). I always check a bag.

My bag was delayed by a day one time in 2018 when Thai Airways hustled me to a connection through BKK, but my luggage wasn’t so lucky. That’s the only time I’ve had a problem. (knock wood)

Of course, my evidence is anecdotal. But so is that of folks who are outraged (outraged!) by their lost luggage.

I reserve my outrage for the people who prolong the boarding process finding bin space for their duffel bag, roller bag, and backpack.

I had a German friend who grew up in Rwanda, each time they’d go through Paris/CDG, at least one piece of luggage wouldn’t arrive. Years later, a network of Paris people was snatched in CDG. But it keeps going on.

> never check in something into luggage that you are unwilling to lose

This is exactly the name of the game if you travel to Argentina. Avoid getting separated from your luggage at all times if possible. So basically use a carry-on luggage.

Baggage handling is corrupt as hell in Argentina.

Had an interaction with them during a Delta flight which was cancelled. I was re-booked with Air France, told to show up at CDG and they would take care of the rest. The staff at Air France desk was infuriatingly unhelpful.

Delta isn’t any better. They rebooked me while I was in the air and I only found out when I went to my connecting flight gate to be told I wasn’t on that flight. Still waiting to hear back from them…

I've come to nickname this type of behaviour "rat profiteering" where companies intentionally either degrade or never properly implement certain processes which, on paper, do not provide to the bottom line. Maybe there's an actual term for it.

For some reason customer service has fallen into this mode in almost all large corporations.

The reason is that regulation has killed competition and the market has reached an equilibrium where margins are razor thin.

I think it's not a margins issue - plenty of good money making machines doing this - but definitely a not-enough-competition issue.

There is competition and they're all the same. It's a capitalism issue. Less expenses = more profits and that's literally the only thing that matters.

Corporations only do things for one of two reasons - money or regulation. If they don't have to and it doesn't make money, they don't do it.

Nope, there used to be a lot more airlines, all now absorbed or merged to a few select ones. It’s not a profit issue, but their ability to survive.

what is your alternative system to capitalism?

Never claimed I had one. I just don't think the current system works very well.

CEOs are overpaid and have too little liability. Corporations happily break the law and in many cases the only consequence is that they have to pay what they should have paid in the first place. Or a slap on the wrist fine that's less than they earned from the crimes.

Get rid of corruption and enforce laws properly would be a good start.

Capitalism is just a system where industry is own by private entities and is for-profit. Corruption or laws have nothing per se to do with capitalism.

Why not mail the copies of receipts via snail mail just to ensure you don't miss the 30 day frame?

Using registered post also ensures that they can't wiggle away by saying they never received it.

This is essentially required when dealing with French businesses in my experience. They absolutely will ignore anything that's not sent by registered post.

Mail them where? To do so, the company needs to provide an address where they would accept such correspondence and they may not do so.

You first ask them nicely where to send post and if they don’t give you one, you send it to the address where the legal entity is registered. In this case: 45, rue de Paris, 95 747 Roissy CDG cedex, France

Whether to accept complaints by post or not is not a company’s choice. Many countries have consumer protection laws that list non-exhaustive ways of making a complaint. When the postal means are listed there, refusing to review a mailed paper complaint could be a violation of that part of the law.

I've spent quite some time in France over the past few years and variously dealt with websites of French organisations during this time. I'm not sure what it is, but French websites seem typically to be frustratingly semi-functional. This story is completely unsurprising to me.

Can you post the email address here?

Could you please share at least some of this voodoo? I am French so this may be useful :)

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