Hollywood Actor Filming in British Columbia Says His Children Were Denied Boarding an Air Canada Flight | The Canadian News

A Hollywood actress in British Columbia for a movie set is expressing concern about how her children were treated when they tried to board a plane with tickets she bought for them.

Holly Robinson Peete is in British Columbia filming a Hallmark Christmas movie, where her two teenage sons joined her for a visit earlier this month.

But when the boys, who are black, left to fly home in business class Monday night, an Air Canada ticket clerk denied them boarding.

“They weren’t allowed to board the plane because they couldn’t present the credit card, which was their parents’ credit card, that paid for the ticket,” Peete said in a video posted on Instagram.

“I was very, very upset, very disappointed, I didn’t like the way they were treated, especially by that ticket agent, and even some of the customer service people were unnecessarily rude and disrespectful.”

Peete, who appeared decades ago in the film shot in Vancouver, 21 Jump Street, says he has been flying with Air Canada ever since and “has never had to present the credit card that paid for the ticket.”

However, her children were “flagged,” she said, and were left stranded at the airport without either parent. They ended up spending the night at a nearby hotel.

“I feel like this is a policy that is selective and really needs to be revised and they need to do a lot better,” he said in his Instagram post.

In a statement, Air Canada described the incident as “an unfortunate situation” that arose from the security process of your credit card.

“Sometimes legitimate transactions require additional verification when the booking is made in an unusual way, such as foreign purchases made outside of Canada for last minute travel, and these are identified by our automated anti-fraud systems,” said a spokesperson.

“In this case, our fraud prevention team, which is not located at the airport and therefore operates impartially reviewing only the purchase transaction, had a concern about the way tickets were purchased for these customers and alerted the airport agent. “

Air Canada said it had followed up with Peete “as we recognize this caused inconvenience.”

Travel expert Claire Newell said credit card fraud costs airlines millions of dollars a year, and situations like the one Peete’s children faced are not uncommon.

“It is like your credit card. If you buy something that is not normal. It may mark it once and it may not another and the system marked it this time, ”he said.

“Very often it is within a period of 24 or 48 hours from the time the tickets were purchased and it is usually for business class and of course it is not in the passenger’s name, that is, the credit card being used “.

Newell said she makes her children buy tickets in her name for this reason and recommends that parents contact the airline in advance if they are purchasing youth tickets on behalf of the children.

But Peete says the airline didn’t seem interested in solving the problem at the gate.

“One of the things that really bothered me was that when the guys were talking to the ticket agent, we were talking on the phone and I kept saying, ‘I want to talk to him,’ and he wasn’t talking to me, I didn’t want to talk to the parents. ”He said in the video.