Liat Airlines The Caribbean Airline Refused to honor paper tickets, demanded $900 cash to board return flight Coolidge, Antigua, Nationwide

We used Orbitz to purchase two tickets for a vacation in Dominica from Liat Airlines. The tickets were issued by Liat Airlines and operated by USAir (domestic segments) and Liat (Caribbean segments). The total price was ~$1750 and was to be billed to a credit card.

After making the purchase, papers tickets arrived in the mail within a few days, but when we looked at the next statement, our credit card had only been billed ~$850. We immediately called Orbitz (a month before the trip) to ask whether this was correct and they in turn contacted Liat, who said everything was fine and because of "their mutual billing agreement with USAir", "USAir won't charge us until the day of departure since it's a paper ticket."

The outbound legs of the trip were uneventful. During a stopover in San Juan, a Liat agent said that "in order to complete payment" they needed a physical impression of our credit card for their files, so they took an impression and gave us a charge slip that said "Pax already paid the agency" and "No additional charge", then told us everything was fine and sent us on our way.

On the return trip, we had a stopover in Antigua. While we were boarding the flight, we were pulled out of line and told we could not board because we owed the airline an additional ~$900.  We pointed out that this had been taken care of in San Juan, but the Liat agent said it hadn't. We offered several credit cards, but the Liat agent demanded payment in cash. We did not have $900 in cash and had no way of obtaining it in the few minutes before the flight departed, so we missed our flight.

At this point we went to the American Airlines counter to purchase one-way ticket from Antigua to San Juan so we could make our connection there. As we were discussing this with the AA agent, the Liat agent (who had been following us and talking on her phone) told the AA agent not to allow us to buy tickets because "our credit cards were bad". The AA agent continued discussing our reservation with us, at which point the Liat agent told us "[we] would not be permitted to leave the airport until we paid [her] (in cash) for the flight segments we had already utilized." She then escorted us to an Antigua immigration official and told him not to permit us to leave the airport. We were then escorted to an immigration holding area.

At this point, we contacted the US Consulate in Barbados and informed them that we were being held against our will at the Antigua airport and requested assistance. A consular agent spoke with the Liat agent. We also called US Bank (the issuing credit card), who said that everything was in order with the charges (the Liat agent was claiming that our payment for the reservation had been reversed), as well as Orbitz (who were unable to help). At some point an immigration supervisor came to tell us we were free to leave if we so desired - the US Embassy had contacted the airport station manager, and, since the immigration officials worked for the government and not the airline, they would not hold us because of a dispute between us and the airline.

At this point, the Liat agent became very friendly and offered to take us to the Western Union office so we could be wired the money.  She suggested we could spend the night in San Juan (we had already missed any chance of making our connection there) and then fly home the next morning, but indicated that she would not be able to fix our flights from San Juan back to the mainland.

We used a laptop to purchase new one-way tickets back to the US on American Airlines for $800 each and made it home that night.

This entire situation started because of an error on the part of Liat Airlines. Liat refused to honor the paper tickets they had issued and reneged on their contract of carriage (which obligates them to "use [their] best efforts to carry the passenger and baggage with reasonable dispatch"). Our repeated attempts to point out their error and repair the situation resulted only in assurances that everything was fine, until we were put in a situation where there was nothing more we could do. When Liat demanded immediate payment in cash, it was too late to possibly get cash in time to make our flight. Had they accepted credit card payment, as originally agreed upon, either when we made the initial reservation, when we called to inquire about the incorrect charge, when they took an impression of our card during the outbound legs, or when we were denied boarding on the return legs, there would have been no problem, but their insistence on immediate payment in cash created an unsolvable situation. Their actions created a hostile and threatening situation at the airport that would cause any reasonable person to feel intimidated and unwilling to continue international travel on Liat-operated flights (what if we had paid the agent in cash and were then abandoned again at our next stop-over in San Juan, something their agent had already suggested would happen).