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Recently, my son and I went on a round the world trip, booked with Air Canada Aeroplan miles. The trip was amazing as well as being an amazing deal on miles and points (especially with a 30% bonus transferring from Chase Ultimate Rewards to Aeroplan miles). It included 3 long flights in business class, along with a few shorter flights in economy

on a sign in a plastic bag

A Broken Seat

You can read my full Air Canada Boeing Dreamliner Business Class review linked above, but it was a great flight. The service was excellent, the food was solid and I was able to get about 6 hours of uninterrupted shuteye. There were only 2 problems. The first is that a volcano eruption delayed our flight, which made me had to sprint through the Toronto airport to make a tight connection. The other was that the seat controls at my seat (5D) did not work (see picture above). Thankfully, it did recline to the fully-flat position, as well as the fully upright position, but you couldn’t make it do anything else.

Asking for Compensation

The lead business class flight attendant was outstanding, and probably one of the best and friendliest flight attendants that I have ever had. He mentioned proactively that he was filling out a “compensation report” for me, but it wasn’t quite clear what that meant exactly. I didn’t know if he was just marking that it was broken or if he was actually contacting Air Canada on my behalf. But after I didn’t hear anything after a few weeks, I went ahead and contacted Air Canada directly. I shared what happened (including the image above) and mentioned that I thought something like 10,000 Aeroplan miles would be sufficient (I usually specify how much compensation I am looking for when I contact a company).

Air Canada’s Surprising Reply

It was only a few days later that Air Canada replied back.

Dear Daniel Miller,

Thank you for flying Air Canada on 2023/04/13.

We make every effort to ensure that all of our customers enjoy a comfortable flight with us and we regret the service shortcoming you experienced. Please accept this Air Canada eCoupon offer with our apologies.

We appreciate your support and hope to welcome you on board with us again soon.

At first, I was actually a bit bummed to get a voucher rather than miles, and I couldn’t even find the amount of the coupon at first. Then I scrolled down and saw that they had given me a voucher for ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS!! Well, granted it is $1,000 CANADIAN dollars :-), but that’s still way more than I thought was merited. I mean I’m not complaining and I’ll definitely use it – it was just unexpected.

I guess that given how much the seats sell for maybe this is realistic. I mean, if the seat hadn’t reclined at all, then that would have been reasonable (maybe not even enough), but it really wasn’t that much of an inconvenience.

Anyways, time to plan my next trip!

The Bottom Line

I flew Air Canada business class from Tokyo to Toronto and the seat controls were broken. The seat reclined and went fully upright, but nowhere in between. When I asked for compensation, I was shocked when they proactively offered a voucher for CAD$1,000.

What do you think about this Air Canada compensation for a broken seat? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.


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