Ok, it's kind of hard to be upset at an airline after they honor your 163 RT glitch ticket to Israel, including an 80 dollar ticket for infant in his own seat. But I think AC has managed to convince me to be mad at them anyway. They FA's and airline employees were just so rude, mean, and obnoxious that I think I can bifurcate being thankful to the top brass who honored the tickets and mad at the midlevel management who allows the employees to be jerks.
Incident 1: On flight from BOS-->YYZ, first the FA came and made us undo the car seat to show her the sticker that said FAA approved. IMO, if you didn't ask before I installed it, it's too late. Then, on landing, she made us take the baby out of the car seat and hold him, which is way more dangerous, because she decided that's the rule. Jerks.
Incident 2: As above, they pretended they were unable to change the name to match my wife's maiden name passport, and made us think our trip was dead for 10 minutes, before abruptly doing it.
Incident 3: As above, they refused to seat us together, and refused even to call YYZ and ask about it. Until I threatened to seat baby alone, and then abruptly again "figured it out."
Incident 4: They lost our stroller on way to TLV. Wait.
Incident 5: In TLV for flight back, the check in agent attached an extra baggage claim to our ticket not connected to any bag. As a result, when we got to YYZ, we couldn't clear customs because there was a "missing bag," and we missed our connection. As part of this story, (i) the first agent said she couldn't do anything because she didn't know which bag it was, and let us just go wait for our names to show on the screen, knowing all the while it would never happen, (ii) the second agent told us to go talk to customs, when the customs people were the ones who had just brought us over to them, (iii) not one person apologized, while we missed our connection because of them and my overtired baby kvetched away, (iv) the person in charge of rebooking refused to rebook us while the baggage person sorted out the baggage, pretending that the baggage person would do so, knowing that the baggage people don't do rebooking.
Incident 6: The FA in TLV decided that we aren't allowed to wheel my baby onto the plane by pulling his car seat on a little luggage wheelie. No, we need to carry it all on. When I tried to argue, she ignored me. Well, since she was ignoring me, I ignored her and just wheeled him right on, while she protested to my wife.
Incident 7: They lost our stroller again. So both ways. The person in BOS wouldn't even put in a claim, because she said she didn't see the bag even in the system. When we called in morning, it was right there in the system, but they have no idea where it is, even though I had seen the picture of it in YYZ that customs takes. They also can't contact the people in YYZ who have the picture. We call several times that day, and they have no idea where it is, right until it shows up at our house delivered a day later. They're still calling me because they have no idea where it is.
My review:
We did ORD -> YYZ -> TLV on 02-07. 6 Hour layover at YYZ provided plenty of opportunity to rent a minivan, go to DT Toronto (CN Tower, a stroll in High Park / Zoo, pick up pizza at Lawrence & Bathurst and back to the airport). Our YYZ->TLV flight had a significant percentage of those with glitch tickets, but was not full (if that makes anyone feel better about taking advantage of the deal). First time flying in a 787 was an overall good experience. Food was relatively decent and they even announced the Super Bowl score during breakfast service.
On the way back there was an issue. Key takeaway -
Allow 3 hours min for YYZ back to USA connections. The real issue was that at TLV our gate-checked stroller was put in the system as checked in. So with an hour before our flight, we go to customs and were told to wait on our names to show up on the board. After 30 min or so, we started inquiring and some very helpful Air Canada folks figured out the issue. They pushed us through customs and to the front of the line at security but we still missed our connection. We were very fortunate to get standby on the next flight. Another
key takeaway - carefully check the # of checked in luggage when you get to YYZ. If there is a discrepancy - notify the Air Canada people right away.
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