Copa Airlines review by #38054

We booked a roundtrip from Atlanta to Lima (CM881 & CM263), and Lima to Atlanta (CM338 & CM880). Both flights included a brief layover in Panama City. We also booked flights from Quito to Lima (Booking No. SP6MHI, Flights CM158 and CM337). This flight also included a brief layover in Panama City. The scheduled itinerary would’ve had us fly from Quito to Panama City, then from Panama City to Lima, then from Lima back to Panama City, then Panama City to Atlanta. It occurred to us that the flights from Panama City to Lima and Lima back to Panama City might be able to be skipped, so when we entered the Quito airport we spoke with a Copa Airlines desk agent about that possibility. She worked on the computer with another agent for about 15 minutes and printed our boarding passes only for Quito to Panama city and ASSURED US that we could stay the night in Panama City and board our flight from Panama City to Atlanta in the morning. We stayed the night in Panama City as planned but when we arrived in Panama City airport this morning to board our flight to Atlanta, we were shocked to find that because we didn’t board the flight from Lima to Panama City our tickets from Panama City to Atlanta had been cancelled. We had been given assurances by Copa representatives in the Quito airport the previous day that this would not happen. We spent about an hour talking with Copa representatives in Panama City about this but they were unwilling to help or honor the assurance that we were given in Quito. We were forced to pay a $535 penalty fee to re-instate our cancelled tickets to Atlanta. This is frustrating in the extreme and totally unacceptable given that we sought and were given permission and assurances in Quito that everything was in order.