1. the obvious: never fly sunwing again.
Sunwing succeeds by being cheap. They don't offer a quality product; they're just cheap. Their after travel customer service is next to non-existant as we experienced, demonstrating that they are only interested in making the sale...the very fact that they separate pre-sale and post-sale customer service says so much. We've learned this, as have countless travellers before (and likely after) us. It might cost a little bit more, but next time we'll use another company. Paying a little more up front can save a lot more later.
2. Once you find a good deal online, book it with a travel agent...who isn't online.
The travel agent has to make a commission, and companies like itravel2000.com aren't set up to help in complex situations. If we had a real travel agent...a person who needed the customer relationship and understood empathy, we would have been working towards actual resolution. itravel2000 helped until they were tired of the call, and told us to follow up back in Canada. They certainly were more helpful than Sunwing, but a smaller travel agency would have been more helpful.
3. bring your smartphones...you never know when you'll need them. bring two if you have them.
We almost left our smartphones at home; we knew that we didn't plan on using them while we travelled because the expense would be extreme. But we ended up needing them when we had no access to telecommunications and were stuck. And they came in very handy with the next point, which is....
4. document, document, document...and better yet, record.
When the airline was denying us boarding, we should have been recording. When the paramedic was speaking to us in Spanish and us to him in English, we should have been recording. When the other passengers were getting on the plane, we should have been recording. Because right now we have no proof that they wouldn't let us on the plane...Sunwing took everything (our boarding passes, our luggage claim tickets) and we were helpless. If we had been recording and they told us to turn it off, we could have switched to audio only mode.
When Sunwing was telling us on the phone that they weren't going to help, we could have put them on the speakerphone and recorded that conversation with our smartphone. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that's only a fraction of the value of a video recording. When you're stuck in an emotional situation that seems hopeless, your mind isn't thinking of evidence collection, so get yourself thinking before you go that if anything ever happens, you are going to start recording right away.
When Sunwing was telling us on the phone that they weren't going to help, we could have put them on the speakerphone and recorded that conversation with our smartphone. If a picture is worth a thousand words, that's only a fraction of the value of a video recording. When you're stuck in an emotional situation that seems hopeless, your mind isn't thinking of evidence collection, so get yourself thinking before you go that if anything ever happens, you are going to start recording right away.
5. don't leave home without a financial cushion available to you.
The whole time we kept incurring expenses, we would say to each other, "What if this was happening to someone else? What if this happened to someone without money in the bank available to them, or funds accessible on their credit card?" We were okay in this regard, but we saw lots of young 20-somethings on our travels, and we didn't think they would all be as fortunate if this happened to them.
6. never think that it can't happen to you.
We all see the headlines; we read of resort vacationers experiencing thefts, beatings, misadventures and even deaths...and we all think that it can't happen to us. We're a quiet couple...in our 30s, two small children, living in the suburbs, and we call going to the movies once a month entertaining. We spent our vacation reading and resting. There's nothing special about us...and there was nothing that we could have done to have prevented an ear infection from occurring, short of being clairvoyant. And who would ever think that an ear infection would lead to this? It could have happened to anyone.