Travel Troubleshooter: I never received a flight confirmation from Frontier

Q: I booked a flight from Dallas to Denver on Frontier Airlines. Frontier charged my wife’s credit card $583 on the same day.

I never received a confirmation email. Frontier does not have a way to call anyone, so I emailed the airline. I received a message from a reservations specialist the next day, asking for my flight details. I provided them, but I never heard from her again.

I found a phone number that I thought was for Frontier, but when I called it, a person said they were in the “queue” with Frontier and needed my credit card number because they “knew Frontier would need that information.” That’s when I knew it was a scam, and I hung up.

I decided to drive to the airport to speak with a ticket agent. But there were no Frontier agents at the airport.

As a last-ditch effort, I disputed the charges on my wife’s credit card. But her bank sided with Frontier.

I would like to be refunded $583. Can you help?

A: Frontier should have sent you a flight confirmation after charging your wife’s credit card. If it didn’t, it should have at least responded to your emails by sending you a confirmation. I think a credit card dispute made perfect sense. Your airline charged you but didn’t send you a ticket.

But in the upside-down world of the airline industry, it didn’t make sense.

I checked with Frontier, and it says it sent you a confirmation. The email probably just went to your spam folder — you might want to check that. But a Frontier representative also noted that you had online access to your itinerary, so you could have retrieved the reservation through Frontier.com.

You had quite an adventure trying to get the confirmation. Frontier is one of only a few airlines that offer no phone support. It’s much easier to ignore a customer when they’re just sending emails or chat messages. I doubt this would have happened with a full-service airline.

By the way, good job on spotting that scam. Many people have fallen for the airline call center scam, particularly Frontier customers who want to talk to someone. Never give your credit card number to a third party like that.

My advocacy organization reached out to Frontier, and it came back with some good news.

“They should have been provided with the original confirmation number when they requested it via our online chat function,” a representative for Frontier told me. “We sincerely apologize for the difficulty they experienced trying to retrieve the original confirmation number and in attempting to resolve this matter.”

Frontier agreed to refund your airfare.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of the nonprofit Elliott Advocacy. Contact him at chris@elliott.org or on his site.