Tripped Up: I Gave Up My Seat for $800, but Frontier Forgot to Pay Me.

Dear tropez

In March 2024, I was waiting for my Frontier Airlines flight of $ 96 from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to Trenton, NJ, when the door agents announced that they were looking for 20 volunteers to fly the next day, the load of the plane. The sacrifice: a loan of $ 800 for a future flight. (Or were multiple future flights? This was the issue of debate among passengers). Do a step forward and asked me to write my email address on a sheet of paper, which passed so that the other volunters did the same. The door agent was patient and polite, but did not provide me with any receipt. When I returned the next day for my makeup flight, he was there again, so I asked why I had recovered an email with the credit, as did other passengers. Hey, I don’t know. Later, I contacted Frontier, but the carrier made it very difficult to communicate with a human on the phone and sent me emails that really made no sense. I obtain a payment of $ 384, not a coupon, a few days after the flight, but as Frontier still owns me around $ 300 of a cancellation the previous year, I thought it was for that. Can you help? Linda, Princeton, NJ

Dear Linda,

Allow me to be right: the frontier method to monitor volunteers with the coupons of $ 800 was to make their email addresses a piece of paper.

That is a rhetorical question, because you sent me the photo of the photo that took that sheet, which showed a list of 10 email addresses in a wide variety or handwriting. That’s where I started when I fell into his problem, writing to the other nine email addresses to ask if they had their credits, in some cases for the multiple travelers at their party.

Eight responded to tell his stories. All (except you) had recovered coupons, Alloth Three complained, they did not complain, about the mail award system, and several grumbers that the coupons turn out to be for a unique use. One, Dino or Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, managed to persuade Frontier to divide the four coupons of $ 800 of his family into eight coupons of $ 400.

With the help of the documentation he sent, the responses of his passenger companions and a useful round -trip email with Jennifer de la Cruz, a border spokeswoman, I have discovered what happened and returns so much tea.

Asking passengers to write their email addresses, Mrs. La Cruz wrote, “is not a standard procedure.” On the other hand, the door agents are instructed to find the customer reservation in the system, confirm that the contact information is correct and noted as a voluntary or involuntarily denied approach.

The difference is important. Compensation for involuntary approach, the coup, is governed by the rules of the United States Department of Transportation, Waseas Airlines can offer what they want to look for volunteers. His name somehow found that he is in the involuntary list, which in this case meant that he would receive four times the amount of his original ticket of $ 96, or $ 384. That explains the $ 384 that Frontier reimbursed his credit card two days after the original flight. (It had nothing to do with cancellation 2023). Frontier has now sent him a coupon of $ 450 to take the amount to a little more than the $ 800 they promised him.

Mrs. De la Cruz also looked for money, $ 302 to be exactly, you say that this cancellation of 2023 was owed. She said that her local travel agent made a mistake in what and how much she owed to him. It was not a refund, said the spokeswoman, but a coupon, and was worth only $ 54 after the rates were deduced. That coupon was broadcast in 2023 and expired three months later. (You say you never received it).

As courtesy, Mrs. De la Cruz said Frontier would send you $ 302, and you told you that you recovered an email that promised $ 302, in a check -shaped. (For a company that charges it more if it is not registered through its application, Frontier surely uses a lot of paper!)

You and several other passengers, by the way, gave congratulations to the door agent. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt that he did not know the border system, as it turns out that he did not work directly for Frontier, but for Tego Dugan Aviation, a contractor. It is a very common disposition these days, likewise, door agents who use the airline brand uniforms are often contractors. This agent was just a child enough to write down his work email address so he could track. Unfortunately, his message for him recovered, not the first time in this story that an email address written by hand took someone on a bad way.

So what is the lesson for someone who thinks of giving up a seat for a coupon? Varying from anything that a door agent promises that I am visible, and always tries to obtain a recite or other written evidence. Request to see how the agent enters his information and takes a photo of the screen and the agent, with his consent. Favor the cash on coupons, which are almost always limited in time, and request a courtesy hotel room if your substitute flight is not the next day.

Some positive news for the possible border volunteers: Mrs. De la Cruz said (regardless of this article) that Frontier has since changed its policies to make the coupons good for more than one flight. That is a good thing, because as Megan de DoyLutown, Pennsylvania, one of the volunteers in that handwritten list, wrote to me: “Spending $ 800 on a border flight is not easy.”

I will say, at least if you are only reserving a seat. I played with the border reservation page and the northern Dakotans of the North Dakotans. At the time of writing this article, you can get a last -and -round round flight from Fargo to Cancun, Mexico, with extra legs and reviewed luggage, for just under $.

If you need advice on a better -made travel plan that went wrong, Send an email to trippedup@nytimes.com.