Lodging a complaint

By Jamie McKenzie (about author)

From time to time, most of us confront a serious consumer issue that requires a fighting response. While this is rarely a concern for elementary or middle school students, as they enter high school, move on to college or technical school and become adults, the likelihood increases dramatically.

Does one surrender, acquiesce and capitulate in the face of poor treatment or abuse, or does one open the laptop and start a campaign to win justice?

It must be said that:

• "One wins some and loses some."

• "Not all battles are worth fighting."

• "One must know when to hold them and when to fold them."

I have been fortunate to win some victories against large corporations and bureaucracies that have done me wrong. But I have also failed to win in some cases.

The Lufthansa Disaster

Imagine arriving at the airport with five bags, a guitar and two cats as well as confirmed seats on a flight home from Bucharest in Romania to Denver and being told by the desk agent that you may not fly!



This happened to me in September of 2017 and I am still fighting with Lufthansa because the desk agent wrongly applied a "one pet per person" Swissair policy to our Lufthansa flights. I tried all of the strategies mentioned in this article to no avail. It cost me an extra $1446 and a four day 1500 km train journey to Munich to fly home on United, but Lufthansa has refused to accept blame, apologize or make amends.

You can see my campaign against Lufthansa here.



I will continue fighting them until I get an apology and compensation, going on national TV if necessary to plead my case.

But there have been other times when I have used the strategies in this article to win satisfaction. One airline paid me for a speech I missed because their staff wrongly blocked me from flying due to a credit card error on their part.

You can download the chapter as a PDF file by clicking here or by clicking on the image below.