In what may be the strangest airline Catch-22 I’ve ever head, an American Airlines passenger can’t get a refund that they’re entitled to, because of an ongoing murder investigation.
- The passenger can’t get refunded unless their sister was murdered.
- But because their sister was murdered, they can’t get a refund.
It’s almost like Joseph Heller is working the refunds department at an airline.
Non-refundable tickets can be refunded in the event of “Death of the passenger, immediate family member, or traveling companion.” To obtain a refund, the person making the request will have to submit a death certificate.
- As I understand it, death certificates are typically required to be filed within a certain timeframe following a death, which varies by jurisdiction. If the cause of death is not yet determined, the certificate may be issued with a provisional or pending cause of death. This can be updated later when the final cause of death is established, usually after an autopsy or further investigation.
- However, here because the passenger’s sister was apparently murdered, there’s been a delay in issuing her death certificate pending the investigation. So because the passenger’s sister may have been murdered, American Airlines is holding onto their refund.
@AmericanAir shame on you! pic.twitter.com/h5Ry808nmA
— yassie (@yassie088) January 3, 2024
I certainly understand an airline wanting documentation for an exception to policy in providing a refund. At the same time, I highly doubt there are requests at scale for refunds based on alleged murders that would materially affect an airline’s bottom line. And it seems like this is a time for compassion? Perhaps they would make an exception to the formal requirement for a death certificate, and accept a police report or local news coverage of the possible crime in order to substantiate the death of an immediate family member?
Silly Gary,
All that matters is hitting D0, you should know that.
In these situations, casting a lot of sunlight onto the ridiculous policy in question is almost always the right answer. If you take a look at the Twitter Comment History in your post above, it appears that American is suddenly eager to get this resolved (as they should be).
If American Airlines allowed for a refund without a death certificate in a case such as this, they would be paying out a lot of refunds to the people falsely claiming a close family member died. I don’t see that they are doing anything wrong as long as AA doesn’t have time limits on filing when the relevant authorities do not provide the documentation in a timely manner. AA should have a preliminary filing option for cases such as this with the refund provided when the death certificate is filed, provided that AA doesn’t go bankrupt in the meantime.
My MIL died peacefully at home in CA in 2016, and it was my job to close out accounts and such. The coroner’s office in her county told me it would be seven to ten weeks for a death certificate, probably longer. I can’t tell how long OP has already been waiting, but I wonder if the murder story is a red herring to distract attention from a hopelessly overworked coroner’s office.
Sorry, folks – this isn’t AA’s fault. (There are too many other faults of AA to get riled up about.) This is the fault of the Coroner in delaying the death certificate. There should be no problem issuing a death certificate listing “homicide” as the cause of death. Then the passenger could get the refund, AA could follow its admittedly valid policy, and all is well. He should be calling the County Coroner to get the death certificate issued.
Haviing said that, it is possible the Coroner is hanging onto the death certificate to avoid releasing the body for burial or cremation. Or, as @sammons suggests, the Coroner is overworked.
Of course, the passenger could sue for release of the body and the death certificate by claiming he (or the decedent) is Jewish. Jewish law generally requires burial within several days of death, because the body may not be embalmed. Buth then the passenger might be kicked off the plane by the FA.
@Retired Lawyer…reading your comment and then I get to the last sentence. What?
In CA, it’ll be at least 45 days after death before the county would issue a death certificate. That’s just the law. However, I think the OP can take the matter to Small Claims Court where the evidentiary standard is lower than that of AA’s I think. As someone who serves as a Small Claims Court judge in CA, I can say that based on what I’ve read, I would have awarded the OP the amount that AA is refusing to refund. This is how low the evidentiary standard is.
Her sister was murdered and she’s worried about an airline ticket?
AA isn’t saying no refund. They’re saying refund when the required documentation is available.
@Patti: “Her sister was murdered and she’s worried about an airline ticket?”
Strange that, her sister is murdered and she has things made worse by the airline not giving the money back and instead giving her the run around for something not her fault. And yes, with death often comes bills that money is useful for.
AA is the Hertz of the airline industry. They have no ability to contextualize. They have corporate Asperger’s.
And here I was just super frustrated because I have AA System-wides that are WORTHLESS. There’s nothing confirmable on any AA flights in the US in the next 6 months. I looked thru aa.com today and nothing shows for SWU use. Come on @Americanairlines @gary (good post topic)
As air cargo companies are required to “know the shipper” before accepting a shipment, besides earning valuable American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flyer miles, when you ship human remains somewhere by American Airlines cargo, would the freight bill be sufficient proof that the passenger died?
Unless this person and the victim is/was super poor and cannot afford to front the money for a funeral, I don’t really see why a delay in getting the refund is such a big deal. They’ll eventually get the death certificate and eventually get a refund. Everything else in probate takes forever, not sure why getting a couple hundred or thousand dollars back from AA is something that needs to happen Right Now(!!!)
@Flyer1 – A bit of snark relating back to Gary’s column about the 3 Orthodox Jews who were kicked off an AA flight because they were religiously unable to sit next to a woman to whom they were not married.
I see no problem with AA requiring a death certificate. Without one, they’d be throwing away a lot of money to dead pax scams.
According to “Ask a funeral director,” if the person dies of natural causes it takes about 5 business for states to issue a death certificate once they get the doctor’s or hospital’s death certificate. On the other hand, if there is an investigation of the death, it typically takes about 4-6 weeks for a medical examiner or coroners office to issue a death certificate to the state which then generates the official death certificate in about 5 business days.
Considering this is a murder investigation, it’s not unreasonable to have to wait almost two months to get a death certificate and it’s not unreasonable on the part of AA to require a death certificate to issue a refund, in my opinion.
In some states, to get all kinds of paperwork going, you can obtain a provisional death certificate where the cause of death has not been determined. It proves the person has died which is all companies and authorities need to file a will, obtain refunds, close financial accounts, get insurance benefits, etc. I’m going to guess that the family of the dead woman has not tried to get a provisional death certificate nor if the state in which she died issues them.
Regardless, I don’t see the AA policy as “ridiculous” or that AA is giving the family a “run around” or that they have “corporate Asperger’s.” AA’s policy is sound and it sounds like they tried to stick to it as kindly as possible, but the family demands the refund with no reasonable legal documentation of death. I feel bad for the family of the dead woman, but I think AA is handling the refund correctly.
Way too much concern for legality in above comments and far too little compassion. Too many lawyers and lawyer wannabes commenting. Everyone knows airlines could care less about their passengers. This is exactly why I stopped flying.