Q: My wife and I booked a cruise on American Queen Voyages two years ago, departing from Chattanooga, Tenn., on the American Countess. Four days before our departure, American Queen changed our final destination from Memphis to Louisville, Ky., because of low water levels in the Mississippi River.
Since we had made our original flights on Delta using SkyMiles, we did the same for the flight change. American Queen asked us to submit documentation for the flight change costs, and I sent it.
Two months went by with nothing but an automated reply, so I attempted to reach someone at American Queen by phone. But it's impossible to contact anyone there regarding refunds by phone. I reached out to one of the executive contacts that you publish, and a few weeks later, I got a reply from a woman in sales who promised a refund. She said it would take 60 days to process.
It has now been over one year, and they no longer answer my emails. Can you help me get the $930 back?
A: American Queen should have paid you promptly for the rescheduled flight. You made polite inquiries by phone and email, but nothing seemed to work.
Your refund misadventure is more complicated than it appears. You had booked your tickets using your Delta SkyMiles. When you asked American Queen for a refund, you included copies of your old and new itinerary. You explained that you had to redeem another 62,000 miles for the new trip. You asked American Queen for $930 by calculating the value of a mile at1.5 cents.
No one agrees on the value of a mile. Some say a Delta SkyMile is worth 1 cent, some say 1.2 cents, and some say it may be as high as 1.5 cents. But the American Queen Voyages system was set up to give cash refunds for actual money spent. The mile valuations may have confused it.
If that's true, then American Queen should have said something to you. Maybe they could have made a counteroffer on the mileage or explain the company's policy about reimbursing passengers for their miles? A $930 reimbursement is essentially the cost of a new plane ticket, so it might have made more sense to just buy a new ticket. All of those things should have been worked out first.
I contacted the company, and after several inquiries, I received an email that American Queen was "currently expediting this reimbursement." You finally received your $930 refund.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of it. A few weeks after I resolved this case, American Queen Voyages ceased operations.
Christopher Elliott is the founder of the nonprofit Elliott Advocacy (elliottadvocacy.org), which helps consumers solve their problems. Contact him at chris@elliott.org or elliottadvocacy.org/help.
