Air Canada and Chase Sapphire: Can't get no satisfaction (or refund!)

Good afternoon Travel Essential readers,

First, a hearty welcome to our new subscribers, with the biggest group coming from Washington, D.C. We’re glad you’re here. And if you’ve received this newsletter from a friend, please remember that it takes just three seconds to sign up for Travel Essential.

We hope you enjoyed your Labor Day weekend, which, thankfully, passed without any of the airport meltdowns that defined the summer of 2022. We're hoping that's a good omen for fall. But we're not going to bet on it.

If you didn’t catch the news over the weekend, the Transportation Security Administration screened nearly 8.8 million air passengers between Monday and Friday, surpassing the 8.6 million logged for the same period in 2019. That made it the first holiday weekend to beat pre-pandemic records. According to CNBC, only 0.6% of flights were canceled, compared to the average 2.1% between Memorial Day and Labor Day. And September is looking healthy, as far as airlines are concerned.

A United Airlines global network executive, for instance, told an industry audience that demand for flights to Mexico, the Caribbean and Europe remains steady for September, according to Travel Weekly.

"We're seeing a really strong September. It does not appear that summer has come to an end, it's that strong," United senior vice president of global network Patrick Quayle is quoted as saying.

So we’ve got our fingers crossed for a continued travel recovery.

Still, every crises brings change. And one of the biggest, and potentially permanent, pandemic hangovers continues to dog the hospitality sector.

By Jeri Clausing

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- As a resident of New Mexico, I was surprised to read that the number of people employed in the state's leisure and hospitality industries now exceeds pre-pandemic levels.

The Governor’s Office recently announced that 100.6 percent of the jobs are back, with a 2.9 percent increase in food service.

But those numbers – released by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham during a heated re-election campaign where she is being attacked for strict pandemic shutdowns – and the reality tell two very different stories.

Last week, for instance, I went to my favorite family owned New Mexican restaurant, Casa de Benavidez, and discovered that its hours won't be returning to "normal" anytime soon due to labor shortages. Since the pandemic, the restaurant's been closed on Sundays (bye, bye brunch) and it keeps rolling back other hours, including closing now at 1 p.m. on Saturday. When I asked the owner when my friend and I might be able to return for Sunday brunch, she said probably never.

That same week, I discovered my neighborhood Thai restaurant has reinvented itself as a "takeout-only" establishment because of its inability to find workers.

Likewise, a variety of Santa Fe hoteliers and restaurateurs told the local Santa Fe New Mexican paper that they, too, are still struggling to hire, despite what the jobs numbers say. And they say employee turnover rates are unprecedented.

All this in a state with one of the nation’s highest unemployment rates.

TE Takeaway: Get used to carry-out.

TE reader question: Are you having to reinvent some of your travel, dining or entertainment traditions due to labor shortages? Tell us your story. Emailing us at [email protected].

As has been widely reported, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) over Labor Day weekend rolled out its new dashboard that details airline policies for cancellations and delays.

The initial results are promising, with most major carriers vowing to cover hotels and meal expenses for delayed travelers. But the key to any real consumer protection boils down to a government's willingness to enforce the rules and hold airlines accountable to defining what issues are truly are within their control.

So Travel Essential looked north to ask if Canada’s more established and stringent consumer protection laws actually work.

Turns out, it's a very good question.

Nine months ago, we told you that Air Canada agreed to pay a whopping $4.5 million fine to the DOT's Aviation Consumer Protection office over charges that it didn’t properly refund U.S. fliers when they canceled or changed flights during COVID.

But it appears the airline is up its old tricks. And maybe even introducing a new one – a “security” excuse.

Our friend Gary Seidman says that Air Canada texted he and his wife, TE correspondent Stephanie Mehl, in July alerting them that their Athens-Seattle flight had a “security issue” that was causing a delay.

After their Athens flight was delayed, resulting in a missed connection, Seidman says an Air Canada agent told them they were eligible for “denied boarding compensation” of $1,850 (2,400CAD) plus expenses resulting from a missed connection.

Getting the money, however, has been another thing. With no response from Air Canada, Seidman has also filed a complaint with the Canadian government's aviation authority.

So far, no response from them either.

And thanks to the airline’s use of the so-called “security excuse,” he may or may not expense reimbursement from his Chase Sapphire credit card – you know, one of those expensive, $650-a-year cards that frequent travelers carry for that very reason.

“The tricky part, I have found, is nailing down the specific reason for a flight delay. If a delay is deemed to be out of the control of the airline, then it might not be covered,” Seidman told us. “But it is not unheard of that airlines provide arbitrary excuses for their delays. “‘Weather,’ is the most common. I’m still trying to find out if a 'security issue' that Air Canada said it knew about more than a day prior to my scheduled departure is a legitimate reason to delay a flight.”

And remember, that’s exactly the issue U.S. customers will be fighting over any cancellations or delays that fall into the undefined DOT category of “within an airline’s control.”

TE Takeaway: Don’t count on any government to help you out.

Woof! Check us out at https://www.insurednomads.com.

It’s Thursday, Sept. 8, so we’re all firmly in that back-to-school and back-to-business mode.

Back to business travel, however, is another story. As we mentioned in our last edition, industry data says that corporate travel booking volumes remain just 29% of 2019 levels.

So as we monitor the situation, yesterday's great scoop by The Information about Google telling its managers to discourage their employees' business travel (and even happy hours) really stood out. After all, Big Tech sets trends -- for better or for worse.

Based on the article, Google’s telling managers to restrict business travel to “business critical trips,” amid corporate belt tightening. Google’s even cracking down on social functions and team offsite meetings, so restaurants and meeting venues could join hotels and airlines on the list of losers. The news comes as CNBC reports that Google CEO Sundar Pichai's eager to make the tech giant operate “on fewer resources,” hinting at layoffs.

TE Takeaway: Slashed travel budgets are never a good sign. We'll be waiting for more "leaked" internal memos like Google's.

While Scotland is clearly the most-recognized home for single malt whisky from famed distilleries like Talisker (featured above) on the dramatic Isle of Skye, whisky connoisseurs soon may have other options when planning tasting trips. Turns out that a group of more than 70 American whisky distillers are getting closer to succeeding in their mission to create an official "American Single Malt Whisky" designation. If they truly win, you can skip Scotland and instead visit craft distilleries in states like Tennessee and Colorado. Wine Magazine has all the colorful details and industry drama.

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