US couple charged $8K to change flight after wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer during trip: ‘I was shocked’

A vacationing New Hampshire couple was charged $8,000 to change their flight home on a New Zealand airline in the wake of learning the wife had roughly four months to live.

Todd and Patricia Kerekes, 60 and 75, had flown business class from New York to Auckland in January and were excited to start a 4-month long vacation.

She, however, fell ill six weeks in and was subsequently diagnosed with terminal gallbladder cancer.

Todd Kerekes followed the recommendation of their doctor and looked to change their return flight, calling Air New Zealand to help make the switch months for the first available flight.

“Right away on the first call I told them my wife was gravely ill, and we were on holiday and we needed to go back home,” Todd Kerekes told Radio New Zealand.

The frantic husband claimed there was little help from customer service and was required to pay roughly $8,000 to return to the US.

“It was a whole series of long pauses, and I couldn’t tell whether they were conferring with co-workers or working at it on the computer, or what it was,” Kerekes added. “Sometimes the people would come back and basically tell me something I didn’t want to hear, like it was gonna cost me $8,000 to change my flight.”

The charge was nearly half of what the couple had paid for the original return flight in Business Premium, which cost $23,000, even though he stated it was an emergency and didn’t care where they sat on the plane.

“I was expecting a change fee,” Kerekes told the New Zealand Herald, “I was shocked.”

Todd Kerekes spent four hours on the phone with the airline while getting cut off three times.

He was frustrated with the representatives as they never gave “compassionate options” nor asked for proof of his wife’s diagnosis.

“They weren’t rude or unkind, but they were simply like, ‘Look, this is the way it is and there’s nothing we can do about it.’ And I was like, it was surprising to me that in a situation where I was that they couldn’t be more helpful,” Kerekes told RNZ.

Kerekes was surprised by the interaction because up until that point every other person he’s talked to while in New Zealand had been nice, far different than the people he was used to back in America.

“I grew up in New York, outside of New York City, and New Yorkers are unfriendly. We just tend to be brusque,” Todd Kerekes said. “But Kiwis are downright nice to the point where people were arguing with us that people aren’t really as nice as we thought they were.”

“It’s not right by any standards, and it’s definitely not right by Kiwi standards.”

Todd Kerekes says he was annoyed by how long it took to get the new seats, as every second with his wife is now more valuable.

“I resent having that four hours taken away from whatever time I would have spent [with] her, and I do not appreciate the aggravation that my wife had to go through for this.”

The couple eventually agreed to pay for the seat changes to fly back to New York on Feb. 26.

The airline has since apologized for the inconveniences the Kerekes faced and even gave a full refund to the couple.

“It’s clear we fell short of expectations and our compassionate care policy was not followed in this case,” Air New Zealand general manager Alisha Armstrong said in a statement obtained by RNZ. “We have reached out to Kerekes to apologize and issue a full refund for the additional costs incurred to change their original flights.”

“Our compassionate fare policy is in place to support our customers in times of unexpected medical emergency or bereavement to book a last-minute flight or provide flexibility to easily make changes to existing bookings.

“Once again we apologize for how this case was handled and our thoughts are with Mrs Kerekes at this time.”