A Langley couple is battling Sunwing for compensation after the airline said it wouldn’t honour a flight voucher they received after a Mexican hurricane ruined their vacation.
On the last day of Bob and Karen Paget’s vacation at San Jose del Cabo, the skies went dark and Hurricane Odile blasted through the beachside resorts.
"It was so scary. I never witnessed anything like it in my life. I just thought, ‘oh my God, we're going to die,’" said Karen.
The Paget's hotel was hit hard, with winds gusting over 300 kilometers an hour and the couple was forced to spend a night in the bathtub, before getting bussed to the Los Cabo International Airport.
"It was like going through a war zone, through the city to get back to the airport. People were lined up and when we got to the airport, we found ourselves at the tail end of about a two thousand person lineup," said Bob.
They missed the Vancouver flight, so boarded a Sunwing plane bound for Toronto and were delighted when the pilot announced all passengers were getting a free travel voucher for the amount of their original vacations.
“Everybody cheered and clapped and that's when we kind of knew everything was all over and it was going to be good again," said Bob.
The Pagets were handed the voucher when they got off the plane in Toronto. But when they went to book a flight with it last January, Sunwing said the voucher was not valid and that it was only meant for Toronto passengers who had the majority of their vacations disrupted.
Sunwing told CTV News in an email that, "due to the chaotic situation...some customers who arrivedfrom Vancouver took the rescue flight back to Toronto, and the announcement made onboard regarding compensation stated it was for Toronto customers, and it was not intended to apply to them. We are very apologetic for the misunderstanding."
But the Pagets disagree.
"I would like to see them honour the voucher. That's all we're really asking. They did give it to us. Why not honour it?" said Bob.
The Pagets insist the onboard announcement did not specify Toronto passengers only. The Vancouver passengers affected by the hurricane ended up getting $250 travel vouchers. The Paget's vacation cost $2500.00.
The voucher issue aside, Sunwing did receive a lot of positive response from customers for the way it dealt with the disaster in Mexico. Sunwing was the first commercial carrier to respond with rescue flights. It handpicked its customers out of massive lineups to get them boarded and then opened remaining seats free of charge to other stranded Canadians.
