Back in September I booked a flight for a friend and family to spend Pesach in Israel. Booked on ITA airways with someone else's centurion account. Return flight was on May 5 with a brief layover in Rome.
When ita resumed flights to/from Israel the return connection would have been overnight, but ITA instead initially set a negative connection time, then cancelled the return, then eventually rebooked a return on May 6 with overnight layover and second leg May 7 since they no longer had 7 seats available May 5. This paragraph took hours of phone calls with ITA, Amex, and multiple rounds of bookings, changes, cancellations, rebooking... Just to give history.
Unfortunately this past Shabbos friend's father passed away, and he missed his father's levaya in NY on Sunday. Kevura was in EY today. I contacted ITA yesterday as the return ticket today would be too early to allow them to be present at the Israeli levaya.
Over several hours of phone calls with ITA + emails with Amex I was told the following:
1. No problem, just send a death certificate
2. We received the death certificate but need proof of relationship (birth certificate)
3. We received the proof of relationship but can't do anything for you anyway
4. Actually we can do something for you but only when the department that processes this opens tomorrow, call back then
5. ITA told me this should be handled through Amex, they told Amex that I need to handle it with them directly since it was a partially flown itinerary
This morning I called back when the department was open and was told:
1. It's too close to travel time, nothing we can do now
2. Ok we see you emailed us yesterday but anyway we would only refund if the deceased was a passenger
3. Ok, ticket terms do say death of passenger or relative but we can only rebook and charge fare difference but waive change fee
4. Actually we will refund the son's ticket and refund some taxes on other tickets to Amex
Meanwhile, Amex called and was told the ticket was marked as no show and they would not issue any refund or credit
I've already booked alternate return tickets elsewhere for this family so they could be at their father's/grandfather's levaya and then get back to Shiva as soon as reasonably possible, but I am now stuck on trying to get some refund from ita for the return.
I'd really appreciate any help or direction this board can provide!
