The Barshack family's trip to San Francisco went well until it was time to go home.
That's when Evan Barshack went online to print out the family's boarding passes for the flight, booked months earlier through Orbitz, an online travel service.
He found out that the Sun Country Airlines flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis-St. Paul had been canceled and rescheduled several weeks earlier. Their return flight actually had left the night before. Barshack had to find something else.
"We were staying with my brothers, and we had just moved (to the Twin Cities) from San Francisco, so we had plenty of people to hang out with," Barshack said. But that was about the only thing Barshack, his wife, Jennifer, and their then-3-year-old son, Mikey, had going for them.
Their trip home ended up taking two days longer than planned. Ultimately, the adventure didn't reach some resolution until earlier this month, when a referee in Ramsey County Conciliation Court sided with Barshack in his claim against Orbitz and the travel service sent him a check for $1,628.51.
Barshack is a law school graduate but doesn't practice. He teaches business law at Century College in White Bear Lake and said the trip through conciliation — or small claims — court "was pretty fun, actually."
His experience also is a lesson for travelers to check their flights in advance, and what to do when one is rescheduled at the last minute.
On the Saturday morning in March 2008, when Barshack found out the family's return flight had been rescheduled, he called Sun Country. The airline didn't offer a flight from San Francisco to MinneapolisSt. Paul airport until the following Thursday, five days away. And it didn't have agreements with other airlines the family could tap to fly home.
"So I had (Sun Country) get Orbitz on the line," Barshack said. For flights booked through an agent, such as Orbitz, airlines commonly say it's the agent's responsibility to notify fliers of the change.
The Orbitz representative said the online travel service wasn't notified of the schedule change by Sun Country, Barshack said. When Sun Country noted two dates on which it had notified Orbitz, Barshack said the Orbitz representative hung up.
"Probably if Orbitz hadn't hung up on me, I probably wouldn't have gone through with this," Barshack said.
Orbitz is a 9-year-old online travel service based in Chicago. It generated $870 million in revenue last year but lost $299 million. Losses are continuing, hitting $336 million in the first three months of this year alone as revenue declined.
Barshack now has the check in hand from Orbitz for $1,628, but said he isn't cashing it and is asking the court to take another look. He thinks the amount awarded doesn't match what the judgment's language intended.
Because the case is still technically open, Orbitz declined to comment specifically on Barshack's case.
"We went through the judicial process; we agreed to pay," said Brian Hoyt, an Orbitz spokesman. "If there was a breakdown of some sort," Hoyt added, "it's unfortunate, and we're willing to agree to the judge's decision and move on."
Barshack said the Sun Country representative on the phone was helpful and came up with a plan to get the Barshacks home. They found a $99 one-way flight on Southwest Airlines between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and then got on a Sun Country red-eye from Los Angeles to the Twin Cities.
Back in St. Paul, Barshack filed his case in conciliation court, listing the cost of the airline tickets and expenses, with an out-of-pocket total of $2,034.71. Orbitz contacted him and offered to settle, he said, but the two couldn't agree on a figure.
That led to an appearance in front of the court referee late last month. Orbitz claimed the Ramsey County court didn't have jurisdiction in the case. But the referee disagreed, noting that the lengthy customer agreement on Orbitz's Web site is "wildly disproportionate to the amount of time any consumer user might reasonably be expected to expend" in reading the terms.
The referee, Daniel Kleinberger, who is also a professor at William Mitchell College of Law, wrote that Orbitz "had a contractual obligation to notify Mr. Barshack of the schedule change." He wrote that evidence showed Sun Country did notify Orbitz of the change.
Ultimately, the referee awarded Barshack the $1,628.51. That was the total of Barshack's claim, minus half the cost of the three Sun Country tickets, or $466.
Barshack said he normally visits second-party travel Web sites, such as Orbitz, to find the lowest fares. But then he books the flights at the carriers' own Web sites.
For consumers who want to avoid the dilemma the Barshacks encountered, Bob Jones, a Michigan-based travel expert, advises checking a flight's status every four to five days, particularly if you booked far in advance.
Schedule changes are less common in the days just prior to a flight, unless weather or mechanical problems come into play, he said.
Another tip experts offer: If you're online, confirm the schedule of your return flight as you print a boarding pass for the initial flight.
Source:TwinCities.com
John Welbes: jwelbes@pioneerpress.com