Chaos with airline cancellations Swiss family with four children stranded in Costa Rica
Because they were careless when booking and Swiss customer service also made a mistake, the Mühlheim family became stranded in Costa Rica. The chronology of an odyssey.
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- On the day of her flight home, Nadja Mühlmann found out at the airport in Costa Rica that her ticket and that of her four children had been canceled.
- The incident was caused by a series of unfortunate mistakes during the booking process and with Swiss customer service.
- In the end, the family flew back with another airline.
It should actually have been a relaxed visit to their grandfather in Costa Rica, who had emigrated. For the Mühlheim family from Nunningen SO, it ended up being a travel odyssey - partly through their own fault, but Swiss also made a mistake.
The disaster began even before the outward flight: the Mühlheims made a mistake when booking five tickets for an Edelweiss flight via Swiss - at a cost of around CHF 5,000. One of the four children is booked twice, one is not booked at all, reports "Blick".
It is not possible to change the excess ticket; instead, it has to be canceled on the instructions of Swiss and a new ticket purchased for the other child for 1,100 francs. Mother Nadja then flies off with the children, father Kevin stays in Switzerland.
Error in the refund process
Kevin Mühlheim applies online for a refund for the canceled ticket, but uses the wrong form. After two weeks, he is told by a Swiss customer service employee on the phone that he should request a refund using a different form. She gives him the ticket number of the canceled ticket.
What she doesn't tell him, however, is that the entire booking is registered under the ticket number. In other words, if the booking is canceled, this affects all of the family's tickets.
Swiss should have split up the booking beforehand so that Kevin Mühlheim could have canceled the affected ticket individually and requested a refund. "Customer service should have done this manually and informed the Mühlheims," Swiss told Blick.
When Kevin Mühlheim finally canceled the booking with the ticket number provided, he received around 230 francs in his account within a short space of time. He did not realize that this was not a refund for the ticket, but rather reimbursed taxes and fees for all five tickets in the booking. From this point on, all tickets were canceled.
Swiss covers the costs
The family realized this on the day of their journey home: at the counter at San José airport, Nadja Mühlheim learned that her tickets could no longer be found. She has to take the children to an airport hotel.
In the Swiss refund process, it is mentioned in English that the refund applies to all tickets in the booking and that these are then all canceled. Nevertheless, Swiss will refund the canceled tickets and will also refund the newly booked ticket.
Kevin Mühlheim is pleased about the refund, but is disappointed with Swiss's customer service: "Many phone calls went nowhere and our concerns were hardly taken seriously," he is quoted as saying by Blick.
Nevertheless, the family is now back home - with the airline Iberia via Madrid for CHF 2100.
