From: RHUer

I went home to America from France last summer for my Dad's funeral. I had bought the ticket online for a [USA Airline] flight through a third party vendor the night before the trip (it's a funeral. Of course it's last-minute). I had very little money and it was the only way I could afford to go on such short notice.

When I got to the CDG airport, [USA Airline] told me they didn't have a ticket for me. We called up the third-party vendor who said that online ticket orders had a three-day waiting period. Fantastic. That's our fault, though, but it definitely left me stressed, as my flight was in two hours and I was afraid of missing it with having to go through security, etc.

I cancelled the third-party ticket over the phone and tried to buy a ticket at the counter. The first guy who helped me was very kind and tried to find a ticket for me. He found one at around 1050 euros, which I could just afford (by completely depleting my bank account).

For some reason, he was instructed to take a family whose lap-infant didn't have a ticket, while I was moved over to another desk where the employee couldn't find the same ticket. The only ticket she could find was 1400 euros. The only way I could afford that was by depleting my American bank account (which had just enough) and incurring several fees for using it on a transaction outside the USA (conversion rate fees, etc.)

So I'm standing there, crying my eyes out because my Dad's dead and I'm stressed, and I'm being charged 1.5 times what I was originally quoted. I'm going broke just trying to go to his funeral (literally $15 was left in my account afterward).

On the way home, all of my flights were delayed, and my poor sister and her husband had to wait around about three hours at the airport for me to show up.

On the way back to France after the funeral and everything, the airline lost my luggage. They sent it on a plane to Philadelphia instead of Charlotte, where my connecting flight was. I got to Paris and didn't have my luggage.

I filled out the forms and such and headed home on the 2-hour train ride.

I kept calling throughout the week to find out where my luggage was, but they said they hadn't found it yet, or that it was in transit, but they couldn't specify where.

My family was scheduled to come to France the next week and ended up making the trip (as a means of kind of clearing our heads after Daddy's passing). They came, I went off without my contacts and without a good number of my summer clothes.

I kept calling [USA Airline] and Paris CDG throughout my week-long trip to find out where my luggage was. A week after getting back from the trip in France (so about three weeks after my Dad's funeral), I was fed up and told them to stay on the phone with me until the bag was found.

They located the third-party shipping company that dealt with my bag. They said it had been left at a relais, which is a store that can receive and sign for packages for you if you aren't home. I had not been informed that it was at a relais, that they were attempting to deliver it to one, or that it had been delivered. I was furious.

I went to the relais to get my bag, and the handle had been snapped off. There was nothing I could sign stating the condition in which I found the bag.

I contacted the transport company but have not yet received a response. [USA Airline] claimed it was the transport company's problem. My husband (whose French is better than mine) called the airline's France office and the transport company himself to find out what had happened. They claimed they had tried to deliver it twice to the house but that we weren't home.

For one, my husband and his mother had never left the house during my trip because they knew the bag was coming. No one ever stopped.

Second, if the company actually did try to deliver it and we weren't home, they were required to leave documentation to that effect, but none was ever left in the mailbox or at the door.

I contacted [USA Airline] several times to find out 1) why I was given two different employees, 2) why I was quoted two different prices, 3) why I hadn't been contacted about my luggage being delivered at a relais, 4) why my bag was broken, and 5) what they intended to do about it.

This was in July 2014. I still haven't gotten an answer from them, aside from "We're looking into it."

I know that I was under the influence of some pretty serious stress and sadness, but that doesn't mean you can throw me to the side like I don't matter.

--RHUer