Help! Air Canada Got Me to Europe, Then Stranded Me There.

Dear Tripped Up,Last Feb.18, I headed to Toronto Pearson International Airport with a reservation to fly on Air Canada to Frankfurt and then on its Star Alliance partner Lufthansa to Málaga, Spain, for a two-week vacation.

(My return would basically follow the reverse route on the same airlines but leave from Barcelona.) My Toronto-to-Frankfurt flight was delayed about two hours, meaning I would miss my connection.So I was relieved that before I even landed in Frankfurt, Air Canada had rebooked me to Málaga via Lisbon on TAP Air Portugal, another Star Alliance member.

I had a great trip — that is, until I got to the Barcelona airport at 3:50 a.m.for my return flight and an agent at the Lufthansa counter told me that Air Canada had “suspended” my flight to Frankfurt because I missed my original connection two weeks earlier.

They told me to call Air Canada, which I did — repeatedly — starting at around 5:30 a.m.Alas, an automated message told me that I should try later “due to high call volume.” By noon, I had given up and purchased my own flight home (on TAP) for 1,138 Canadian dollars, about $830 at the time.

I filed a reimbursement request with Air Canada but received a flurry of confusing emails, including one that said I was ineligible for compensation, another that said I would receive “the refundable portion of the taxes for the segment of your trip that you didn’t fly” and two follow-up emails with entirely different calculations (842 and 212 Canadian dollars, neither of which I got).Can you help? Carol, TorontoDear Carol,You were the victim of a double whammy: a frustrating rule (no-show for one leg of an itinerary and lose the rest) that was enforced on someone who did not even break it (because Air Canada should have canceled your Lufthansa leg when it rerouted you).Actually, let’s add a third whammy: the comically bad customer service you received.I got in touch with Angela Mah, an Air Canada spokeswoman, whose email response n...