Some of you may remember my blog post about why I missed the Vikinger Unconference. KLM failed to fly me to Norway in time, instead they left me stranded in Amsterdam for a night. Well I dropped of a letter with my complaint a week later when I was in Amsterdam for the Dutch PHP Conference. What then happened was a nightmare with a happy end.

Weeks past and no reply on my complaint. Asking the email support for when a letter would usually get processed always got me a reply along the lines of "we have not received your letter yet", which is obviously not a reply to my question. After 2 months or so I decided that I should send another letter. This one I send via certified mail. I included a threat that I would leverage my legal insurance if needs be. I also noted that KLM has to refund me as required by EU law.

Well after a bit I got a confirmation letter, followed by another letter that they would graciously refund me their internal price. They still did not admit that they had a legal obligation to refund me nor did they ask me to tell them the actual amount I had to pay for the flight. After another angry email they finally now accepted to refund the full amount. They still have not directly accepted that they are obligated to do so, but they also did not attempt to state otherwise in this last email. So finally, after 2 letters, countless emails, browsing the web to learn about my rights and way too much aggravation KLM is finally refunding me the cost of the flight.

Of course the time wasted (including that in Amsterdam) will not be made up. The lesson learned is that I will not step on a delayed flight that requires a connecting flight unless I am quite sure I will make the connection. Instead I will bug the hell out of the officials until they triple check that I can make the connection so that the purpose of my trip can be maintained. So all airline officials can thank KLM for turning me into an annoying bastard from the previously friendly and cooperative passenger I was before.