When an airline company wanted to give a flight credit to a man after he died, NBC CT Responds stepped in to help.
His daughter, Jen Vinci, reached out to NBC CT Responds when she wasn’t getting answers from Volaris, a Mexican low-cost airline.
In December, Vinci booked tickets for her, her husband, her dad and his girlfriend to visit loved ones in El Salvador in March.
“We were planning to go see my grandmother and the rest of my family in El Salvador for my grandmother’s 90th birthday,” said Vinci.
Get Connecticut local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC Connecticut newsletters.
But she had to cancel when their father suddenly fell ill and diagnosed with stage-four cancer in February.
“He didn’t come home. He spent the remainder of his days, two weeks, in the hospital,” she said.
While Vinci says she understands Volaris didn’t have to do anything, she hoped the airline may make an exception under these dire circumstances.
Local
“If there was any way to transfer the tickets over to his family from El Salvador and have them come here instead, so that they could kind of say goodbye,” said Vinci.
Vinci waited and waited for a response and when she did hear back from the company, a flight credit was suggested, but she says they were adamant the ticket had to stay in her father’s name.
“And I said, ‘How can it be in his name if he doesn’t exist anymore?’ So yeah, that was a bit frustrating,” she said.
Her dad had passed away. Vinci reached out to NBC CT Responds.
“So that’s where I found you and what you provide, and the services that you give folks like me to help resolve these situations. Within 24 hours of you contacting the company, they got back to me right away and resolved the issue,” said Vinci.
Vinci received future credit for the tickets for anyone to use.
Afterwards, a spokesperson for Volaris told NBC CT Responds that they connected with Vinci and came to a solution “considering the delicate situation they are going through…”
Now, Vinci, who is pregnant with her first child, will one day take her son to meet his Salvadorian family.
“My dad’s first grandchild, so yeah it’s really special,” she said.
