N.L. couple forced to pay nearly $1,700 for a night in a Montreal hotel after Air Canada delay

An eastern Newfoundland couple who were charged nearly $1,700 for one night in a Laval, Que. motel say Air Canada refused to give them hotel vouchers after their flight was delayed leaving the pair to pay the hefty bill out of their own pocket.

Craig Sharpe of Bay Roberts told CBC News he and his husband were travelling back from Newark Liberty International Airport on Saturday when theirflight to Montreal was delayed due to the aircraft experiencing an earlier delay.

Sharpe says an Air Canada employee in Newark reassured the couple thattheir now 50-minute layover would be enough to clear customs and board their flight to St. John's.

It wasn't.

Sharpe recalled thinking, "Surely we misses the flight,"noting an additional delay on the runway atPierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Sharpe says Air Canada didn't have any hotel rooms for passengers who missed their St. John's connection and who were now stranded in Montreal overnight,forced to wait nearly 12 hours for the next eastbound flight.

Sharpe says the couple called a hotel that had30 rooms set aside for Air Canada passengers carryingvouchers, but the employee handling their delay said she didn't have any vouchersto give them.

"She was like, 'There's no hotel, all the hotels are gone,'" Sharpe said.

"She said ... 'You need to just look for a room,and then when you get a room [Air Canada] will reimburse you.'"

Air Canada saidthe flight from Newark to Montreal was delayed because of"a maintenance issue" with the original aircraft, forcing them to switch planes.

"We do provide rooms to customers we determine are eligible at the time in certain circumstances, however we also invite customers to submit a claim and we will evaluate it, which is what we have done here,"the airline said in an email to CBC News.

City had had flooding

Montreal had just had a one-day hotel strike two days earlier, and the region experienced severe flooding over the weekend.

The hotel crunch meant the only room the couple could find was in Laval and it cost them $1,455.63 for one night, plus a $200 deposit, according to a receipt viewed by CBC News.

They paid for the room out of pocketand are nowgathering evidence to send in a claim to Air Canada.

"You've got to write a bunch of different claims just to even see if you can get compensation for the 12-hour delay. They say it takes three days for them to come to a decision if you can get it," he said.

Rooms listed on OluxHotel Motel and Suites's website were priced between$104.30 and$250when checked Tuesday afternoon.

CBC News has also asked for comment fromOlux Hotels and Quebec's Office of Consumer Protection about the hotel pricing surge.

Air passenger protection law requires airlinesto provide passengers with hotel accommodation when the delay is within their control and passengers are delayed overnight.

Sharpe says he would normally have slept at the airport before paying that much for a hotel room, but his husband put his foot down, arguing Sharpe had to work the next day and couldn't afford to stay up all night.

Sharpe says Air Canada told him it could take two months to see reimbursement.

"It was a horrible, horrible situation," he said. "It's just so careless, for a big company to be like that. It's insane."

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