PHOENIX — Delays, cancellations and staff shortages, it's what frequent flyers faced last year.
Bad weather and high demand left passengers stranded, sometimes for days while searching for answers.
"Where are we going to stay? I'm not sleeping in the airport for three days," Randi Gopin said.
Randi and her husband Arnie were supposed to be headed back to Phoenix from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but the airline canceled their flight.
Frontier Airlines offered them seats on its next flight to Phoenix.
"He said, 'well the next flight is Tuesday.' This was Saturday," Randi explained.
Their options?
Travel three days later on Frontier or buy a new ticket at a different airline.
"He said 'well we sent you an email. You get a $50 voucher.' And I laughed and said no," Randi said.
So why couldn't Frontier just book them on another airline and get them home that day?
"That's not required by law. Not all airlines do it," explained Teresa Murray.
Murray is with the U.S. Public Interest Research Group or USPIRG. PIRG is fighting for more passenger protection.
Six U.S. airlines have reciprocity agreements and partnerships with other airlines to rebook passengers.
Frontier, Spirit, Allegiant and Southwest do not.
"And the consumers end up losing... Quite simply passengers have very few rights as they exist right now," Murray said.
As you try to get to your gate on time, you're probably not thinking about your rights if your flight doesn't take off. You really only have one.
If the airline cancels or there's a significant delay or change to your flight, for any reason, you're entitled to a full cash refund. That includes non-refundable tickets.
Murray says, however, even getting that may not be easy.
"The airline will say oh hey, here's a voucher and you know, a bottle of water and have a nice day. They are not obligated to tell a passenger that they are entitled to a cash refund," she said.
New proposed federal rules would force airlines to "proactively inform passengers of their right to receive a refund" instead of a voucher. Those rules would finally define "significant delay".
It would mean three hours or more for a domestic flight.
In November, the government fined Frontier for "extreme delays in providing refunds," forcing them to return $222 million to passengers.
With a three-day wait and Frontier not booking them on another airline, the Gopins decided to buy a last-minute ticket on another airline just to get home.
"Obviously it cost us a lot more money than the flight to Arizona," Randi said.
They say they were promised a refund for their unused tickets, but their credit card statement shows as of March 1, they only received $256, half of what they paid.
So what does the couple say about their whole experience?
"It was horrible. It was a sick feeling because we just wanted to get home and we were like 'what do we do?'" they said.
We asked the four airlines without rebooking partners for comment.
Southwest and Allegiant replied.
Southwest says it is larger than the other airlines without agreements, offering 4,000+ flights a day. Representatives say they had marketing agreements in the past with other carriers and are committed to exploring partnerships that benefit customers.
Allegiant Air representatives said, "Allegiant's business model is different from other airlines. We are an ultra-low cost carrier serving small to medium sized cities. The majority of our routes are non-competitive. In the event of a cancellation, we can't rebook passengers on other airlines because many of them don't fly the same routes we do."
Do you have a flight gripe?
File a complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation and weigh in on those new proposed flight regulations.
