A Hollywood actress who raised the alarm on social media after Air Canada denied her children boarding simply drew attention to a strict airline policy that has prevented some legitimate travelers from flying for years, says an advocate for the airline rights.
Holly Robinson Peete, the 21 Jump Street actress, has been in BC this month filming an upcoming Hallmark Christmas movie. in a mail On Instagram, she said her children had come to visit her in Vancouver from Los Angeles, but ran into unexpected problems on the way home.
Robinson Peete had reserved business class seats for his two sons on Air Canada. But, he said in the post, the children, one of whom is a minor, he added, were denied boarding because the credit card interaction had been flagged for additional security screening, and they would have to show the credit card used to reserve. flights in person.
But at the time, Robinson Peete was too far from the airport to show the card and said the ticket agent refused to speak to her on the phone.
“When you’re a mom, you have your mama bear, and if it had been closer to that airport, I would have rolled over and handled it,” Robinson Peete said in a video posted on Instagram.
“I was very, very upset, very disappointed and I didn’t like the way they were treated.”
Air Canada’s fraud prevention policy allows the airline to require additional security screening when its automated system marks a seat purchase as possibly fraudulent, especially when done at the last minute, according to the airline.
“Unfortunately, the purchase was not validated in time for customers to travel,” Air Canada wrote in a statement provided to the Star. “We have followed up with the customer as we recognize this caused inconvenience.”
Credit card fraud, the company said, can cost Air Canada “tens of millions of dollars each year.”
But Gabor Lukacs, a Halifax air passenger rights advocate, says that enforcing its anti-fraud rules like this inevitably ends up preventing legitimate travelers from boarding its flights.
“This happens quite often and not just with regards to parents buying tickets for their children,” Lukacs said. “I’ve seen this also happen with adults where one person buys a ticket for someone else.”
He said Air Canada has the right to try to protect itself from credit card fraud, but that it should have another way of verifying purchases that doesn’t leave customers stranded, such as contacting them in advance and letting them know that they have. to verify your purchase.
“The effort to prevent credit card fraud should not get to the point where legitimate travelers are prevented from traveling,” he said.
A similar scenario happened to Jackson Clark about 10 years ago. Clark’s mother had booked him a flight from Vancouver to South Korea and dropped him off at the airport. When they asked for her credit card for verification, he says he was lucky, she was still at the airport shopping for Starbucks at the time.
“Luckily she was close and she was able to show it to him, and I was able to get on the flight,” Clark said.
Lukacs said that even close calls like this should be a wake-up call for airlines to change their policies on credit card checks.
“People should be concerned that this can happen to everyone,” he said.
Reference-www.thestar.com