Filed CC dispute against EL AL airlines, but what are my chances of winning?

[soliloquy]

I know you can't tell me definitively, I was just hoping for your opinions on the matter. I am playing the waiting game with CITI right now and really, I need to purchase airline tickets (with someone else) - likely DELTA before this dispute is likely to be finalized. Sorry, in advance, that this is such a lengthy post.

January 4, 2017

1. I purchased 3 tickets from El Al airlines on January 4, 2017 for a flight which is scheduled to depart on October 21, 2017. I received a confirmation for the tickets at 8:55PM EST from El Al. At the time, I had never heard of El Al before but decided that if I were going to take a trip to Israel, I wanted to take their airlines to have the full “journey to Israel” experience. When I found a competitive price, I purchased the tickets. I had 24 hours to cancel.

1. Immediately after purchasing the tickets, I spoke with a friend to exclaim how excited I was to find such a great price. She told me that I needed to look at reviews before taking that airlines – she had not heard good things about El Al. I checked on trip advisor and saw several issues that concerned me. First, I saw that El Al pilots had gone on strike last November and that a lot of flights were cancelled due to the strike and that things were still (to this day) unstable within the company regarding potential pilot strikes. Second, I read that El Al ranked poorly in timeliness of their departures with roughly 45-55% of their flights not departing on time and therefore not arriving on time. There is always the chance of a flight being delayed, but I didn't want to take a flight which was KNOWN for delays since we had prepared for a tour that begins the day we get there.

1. After reading about these things, I wanted to cancel the tickets. My call log shows that I called El Al at 9:46PM EST. I called the customer service number (Res: 1 (800) 223-6700). I was told by automated message that the offices were closed (no business hours were provided) and that I was being forwarded to another centralized customer service number. When I was transferred, that centralized customer service number stated that they could only help customers whose flights were departing in the next 24 hours or words to that effect. No one with El Al at this customer service center was able to assist me with a cancellation. No business hours for El Al were provided on the automated message or on EL Al’s website which I scoured after I could not get into contact with them.

January 5, 2017

1. My call log then shows that I called at 8:11AM EST before work in the morning. I work 9AM-5PM EST, so I called before starting my work day. No one was available to take my call and again my call was forwarded to a centralized service number where I was told that no one could help me unless I was flying in the next 24 hours.

1. I tried again when I came home (around 6PM on Jan. 5) and received the same message. I started to wonder if US based El Al customer service would ever answer the phone. By 8:55 PM that evening, I was beyond my 24-hour window to cancel my flight even though I had attempted to call on 3 different occasions.

1. At that point, I tried to just accept the fact that maybe I was stuck with these tickets so I tried to just tell myself that the flights would be fine. But, the more I thought about it, the angrier I became that I couldn’t even get in touch with anyone. I then started contemplating whether I should dispute the charges with CITI.

January 9, 2017

1. I called El Al again on January 9, 2017 (this could have been January 11 but I'm pretty sure it was the 9th). This time during my lunch hour from a phone at my work and someone from El Al finally picked up the phone. I spoke with a lady and explained everything that I’ve written above and she told me that if I wanted to cancel the tickets I should have called during their regular business hours. I asked her what their business hours were because I had tried to call and couldn’t reach anyone. She told me that the regular business hours were 9AM to 5PM Mon-Thurs and 9AM to 4:45 PM on Fridays. She said they are closed on the weekends. She said there would be a $250.00 charge per ticket to cancel the flights. This made me angry (although I was never rude in our exchange). I had attempted to contact them within their 24-hour window. It is not good business practice to give someone 24 hours to cancel, fail to put your business hours on the website or on the message which states that your business is closed, and then make it nearly impossible to reach someone within those 24 hours. In reality, you don’t really have 24 hours to cancel with El AL. You only have 8 hours because they are only open 8 hours of the 24-hour window they give you to cancel after purchasing tickets.

1. Had I known that their business hours were 9AM-5PM I would have called during those business hours the very next day, but those hours are NOT on their website and I have never dealt with an airline that is only open from 9AM -5PM so it did not occur to me until it was too late to try and call them while at work.

1. Needless to say, that call did not end well so I decided to try again to speak with someone else at EL AL. I called EL AL back and spoke with a gentleman this time who was very kind but told me that he did not have the authority to override the $250.00/ticket cancellation fee.

January 12, 2017

1. I then decided to contact Citi to formally dispute the charge on January 12, 2017, and one of the agent began the dispute process, but after speaking with her she said the process could drag on for 120 days. We discussed my cancelling the tickets with EL AL and then disputing just the cancellation fee of $250 per ticket (total $750.00), but the Citi agent said she felt like that might be more difficult to dispute then just disputing the charges outright. I told her that I wanted to think about my options and that I would call her back.

January 15, 2017

1. On, January 15, 2017, I called CITI back to open a dispute on all three charges because I don’t know what else to do.
   
   
2. I just wanted my money back for these flights and to make a simple request – that EL AL list their business hours plainly on the website and on their ticket confirmations so that when people need to call to cancel, they know EL AL’s business hours are limited to “banking hours” (in comparison with other airlines that are open 24 hours per day.) To drive the point home, I contact the US DOT because I think they are in violation of the spirit of the 24-hour reservation requirement.
   
   
3. DOT responded back with the following:

U.S. Department of
Transportation
GENERAL COUNSEL
1200 New Jersey Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20590
Office of the Secretary
of Transportation
January 17, 2017

@

Case No. @

Dear Ms. @l:

This responds to your communication regarding El Al Israel. The U.S. Department of Transportation seeks to ensure that all airline passengers are treated fairly. Complaints from consumers are helpful to us in determining whether the airlines are in compliance with our rules and to track trends or spot areas of concern that warrant further action.

Based on the information you have provided, your complaint appears to fall under the Department's rules. We will forward your complaint to the airline and ask the company to respond directly to you with a copy to us. Airlines are required to acknowledge receipt of a consumer complaint within 30 days and provide a substantive response to the complainant within 60 days. We will review the airline's response. If you need to contact our analyst assigned to your case, you may leave a telephone message on our Aviation Consumer line, 202-366-2220, or send an email to airconsumer2@dot.gov. Please include your name and case number (see above). We will make every effort to reply to your message within one business day.

If our review of your complaint and the response from the company discloses a potential violation of our rules, we may pursue enforcement action. Generally, we pursue enforcement action on the basis of a number of complaints which may indicate a pattern or practice of violating our rules. Your complaint may be among those considered and may lead to appropriate enforcement action including the assessment of civil penalties. However, we have no authority to order compensation for individual complainants.

We have entered your complaint in our computerized industry monitoring system, and it will be counted among the number of complaints filed against this airline in our monthly Air Travel Consumer Report. This report allows consumers and air travel companies to compare the complaint records of individual airlines and tour operators. The data in this report also serve as a basis for rulemaking, legislation and research. Consumer information for air travelers, including the Air Travel Consumer Report and our pamphlet Fly-Rights, a Consumer's Guide to Air Travel, can be found on our website, www.dot.gov/airconsumer. Thank you for taking the time to contact us.


Sincerely,





@
Director, Aviation Consumer Protection Division
Office of Aviation Enforcement and Proceedings

[fltireguy]

Just wondering - since El Al is NOT a US carrier, do they have to go by the 24 hour rule?

[soliloquy]

Yes, the US DOT says they do if they are doing business in the US. They have offices in NYC and Miami among other places. They do have different rules for Israeli nationals. Israeli nationals have 14 days to cancel. 

[Anonymous]

I think your chances are good that the dispute will be judged in your favor but all you can do is wait the process out.

I'm surprised that you have never heard of El Al.  They are widely known as being one of the safest (in terms of hijacking and terrorism) airlines in the world.

[longtimelurker]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I think our chances are good that the dispute will be judged in your favor but all you can do is wait the process out.

I'm surprised that you have never heard of El Al.  They are widely known as being one of the safest (in terms of hijacking and terrorism) airlines in the world.

---

Yes, that was my initial thought as well!

[RobertEG]

Since you paid via a credit card, you have a billing related dispute on a revolving credit account, which is subject to dispute under the Fair Credit Billing Act, which has explicit requirments and periods for response.

I suggest that you file a dispute under the FCBA.

[soliloquy]

I suppose there's still quite a bit more I'll learn as time goes on. 

[soliloquy]

Thanks for the suggestion!