CP Brain trust - Travel Advice needed
Hi all,
So my wife, myself, and our 4 kids (10, 8, 3.5, 1.5) were to be attending my sister-in-law's wedding in Mexico May 7-14th. Puerto Vallarta to be exact. Grooms' family is from Ontario, bride's from BC/AB. They used a travel agent out of BC, who arranged flights from BC and ON to Calgary, so that everyone could travel on the same Air Canada flight down to the all-inclusive resort. I believe there were approximately 40 ppl going on this flight for this wedding.
Approximate cost per person is $1,180, and our 1.5 year old was free. So with that, we had paid the full ~$6,000 in full a couple months ago.
Fast forward to this past Friday, when the bride and groom were informed that Air Canada had cancelled all flights for that time frame. Apparently they can do this as long as it's 3 months prior to the actual booking. Perhaps our local CP Travel Agent FFR can confirm? I would assume they did so due to little demand during that time?
The travel agent went ahead and made alternate arrangements through West Jet (I assume), but it's going to cost $500 extra per person!
Speaking for our family, I am not prepared to pay an extra $2,500 for this, as the $6,000 was already more than we wanted to pay and was definitely outside of our budget. We decided to go ahead and book it for all 6 of us however, as our kids are very close with their "aunty" and uncle, and she is definitely the most involved family member in their lives. Now we are considering not taking the youngest two, which for the 1.5 year old it's not like he would remember it anyways, but I know our 3.5 year old (see my avatar) would have an absolute riot there even if he most likely wouldn't remember it down the road either. I know I would be pretty sad if they couldn't come with us.
Needless to say, the bride and groom are absolutely devastated. Times are tough as is in today's economy, and asking people to come to a destination wedding is tough enough up-front, let alone having to tell them it's going to be an extra $500 per person later on. Bride and groom are also only 23 years old, so most of their friends are as well. That means a lot of them are either still in school, or just finishing. Needless to say, $500 is a lot to them. They are worried that a lot of ppl. are going to cancel.
Is there anything we can do here? I'm quite livid, I can only imagine how the bride and groom are feeling. I understand Air Canada is technically within their rights here, but would it be worth creating some negative PR here for them? It just seems like such an Air Canada thing to do, as they don't exactly have the best track record when it comes to customer service. Any ideas as to who we could contact? Business reporters or something?
Any advice would be appreciated. I would love to help out the married couple to be, as like I said, the "aunty" is one of the best mentors we could ask for for our kids, and one of the nicest persons you'd ever meet.
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