News

Alaska Airlines employee pays for stranded Vancouver woman's flight home

DH Vancouver Staff
DH Vancouver Staff
|
Dec 19 2017, 10:30 pm
Alaska Airlines employee pays for stranded Vancouver woman's flight home

An Alaska Airlines employee likely built up her ‘karma points’ significantly by paying for a stranded stranger’s flight home.

At 6 a.m. on Friday, Vancouver resident Miriam Thomas was trying to return home from a business meeting in Ontario, California when her Delta Airlines flight ticket to Seattle was canceled without her knowledge.

According to the Consumerist, she had arrived at the airport early and passed through security but was unable to receive an assigned seat at the gate – something agents at the ticket counter told her she would be able to do.

When she returned to the ticket counter, Thomas was told that her ticket was canceled because of the issues her first flight out of Vancouver incurred.

Her Delta Airlines plane was grounded at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport after experiencing mechanical issues and she had to spend a night in a hotel in Seattle. But what she did not know was that the airline had used the rest of the value of her ticket – her return ticket home – on her rescheduled flight.

Thomas assumed the airline had given her a free rescheduled flight as the daylong delay was the company’s fault.

Delta Airlines then told her the best day could do was put her on a flight scheduled for the next day (Saturday), meaning she would have to spend a full day in California.

That is when Alaska Airlines employee Judy Reid stepped up and paid for Thomas’ flight home that morning.

“Using her voucher, it was so kind of her. She’s filling it out and I thought she just had these free passes,” Thomas told News 1130.

“At one point her coworkers were standing behind her saying ‘Judy! Judy! You don’t have to do that.’ And she says ‘You know what, I’m paying it forward, it’s OK.’ At this point I realize something is up and she pulls out her credit card and starts putting in her credit card information.”

As Thomas was waiting at the gate for her flight home, Reid came by to check up on her and even provided her with money for coffee.

The only thing Reid asked Thomas to do in exchange was to ‘pay it forward’ for another stranger when she returns to Vancouver.

Here is Thomas’ tweet exchanges with both airlines and followers during the ordeal at the airport:

ADVERTISEMENT

SUBSCRIBE TO THE HIVE

Get the latest news sent to your inbox and stay in the loop