Here is the story. My wife and I live in western New York, because of an emergency she needs travel to Costa Rica (she is a Costa Rican citizen). She bought the ticket on 8/7 and the flight was on Friday 8/14 out of EWR, with a layover in FLL, then to Costa Rica. The flight from FLL to Costa Rica was a repatriation flight, the flight was booked on Spirit's website. She contacted the Costa Rican consulate ahead of time asking if she needs a COVID test before flying, they told her if she is a citizen then testing is NOT required, there is a 14-day mandatory quarantine after she lands in Costa Rica. For a peace of mind, we still got a COVID test the day before her flight.
Here comes drama, when we got to the airport, checked the bags and she was already at the gate; right before boarding, a gate agent called my wife's name and asked her for the COVID test results, stating that a negative COVID results is required for passengers traveling to Costa Rica. This came to her as a shock as she was assured by the consulate that she doesn't need a COVID test to fly. We also checked on the consulate's website that testing is NOT required for Costa Rican citizen on a repatriation flight. She explained this to the agent, and said that she got tested but doesn't know the result yet. The agent then called a second gate agent, and shortly after he pulled out a piece of paper, and showed it to my wife stating that "COVID test is required for all passengers traveling to Costa Rica." My wife didn't even get a closed look at the paper, the agent told her that this requirement is from Spirit Airline, and the paper is an official document. He was actually not allowed to show it to passengers. This became even more confusing because if it is a requirement by the airline, why wasn't this information available during booking? Also during online check-in and airport check-in, nothing about COVID testing was mentioned. My wife was the only person on that flight traveling to Costa Rica, other passengers were able to board and didn't need to show any testing results. All of this was incredibly sudden and frustrating. She didn't know what to do at the moment, then the agent proceeded to reschdule her flight to Monday 8/17 (same flight), and told her that she might get her result back soon, or that she can get rapid test at CVS and get the result within 48 hours (which is complete BS). So they denied her boarding.
This is even more frustrating considering I had to take a day off, drive 6 hours to New Jersey, get a hotel for the night, and 6 hours back. All of the time and expenses basically for nothing. Before anyone says why didn't your wife book a different airline, Costa Rica goverments have suspended almost all commercial flights from the US to Costa Rica, Spirit and United are the only two airlines operating repatriation flights. And the only flight out of New York right now is Spirit Airline. My wife is reluctant to deal with Spirit again. It is also suspicious that before she checked in online, she got an email from Spirit asking if she is willing to voluntarily change her flight. We suspect that Spirit over booked the flight, and the agent made up this bogus reason to deny her boarding.
I called Spirit customer service today asking about the COVID test requriment, also asking for a refund, the agent said he will look into this requirement and call me back within 6 hours to discuss options and refund. It's been 6 hours and I have little hope that he will call me back. At this point what actions can we take? If she doesn't get her result by Sunday then she won't be able to fly, should we cancel and reschedule again? Also if she doesn't fly on Monday then she might as well not fly at all, because she would miss her appointment. If this doesn't get resolved should my wife sue Spirit Airline in a small claim for expenses and damages cost for missing her appointment?
TL;DR: My wife was denied boarding after the airline gate agent made up seemingly bogus reason, now she faces possible time and money lost due to missing her appointment.
Submitted August 15, 2020 at 08:25PM by RadSalmon https://ift.tt/2FnX3HP
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