Woman fighting weeks for nearly $4K in flight reimbursements repaid hours after News Center 7 story

A Montgomery County woman, who was having issues getting a nearly $4,000 reimbursement from Delta weeks after a global IT outage, says she finally heard from the airline after sharing her story.

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Kim Estess, of Washington Twp., has been dealing with Delta’s disruptions for nearly a month.

“It’s been very stressful,” she said.

Estess and her husband had their couples vacation to Scotland shortened by July’s global IT outage involving the cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike. With the impact on the airline, they had to cancel their Delta flights and book with other airlines.

“We got back at the end of July and I’ve been fighting with them ever since,” she said.

Estess said the airline told her she was eligible for the travel waiver they issued, but she saw her first reimbursement claim mostly denied. She only received $300 of the roughly $4,000 she was after.

A customer service representative at Delta told her to resubmit her claim. She did and then she talked to News Center 7.

>> PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Local woman fighting for nearly $4K in reimbursements for flights impacted by global IT outage

“I think it was on the 5:00 newscast, and I got a phone call from a Delta executive team member about 8:00,” she said.

As shown on News Center 7 at 5:30 , she said our reporting got results.

“And she said they were aware of my problem and she was looking into it,” Estess recalled.

Wednesday morning, she texted News Center 7′s John Bedell and told him she was getting nearly $3,700 back for the airfare.

“I think John saved me hours of my life by doing this story for sure, because I think that I probably would have eventually gotten there, but I think it would have been a very long time,” she said.

After making her case for the last month, this lawyer is finally resting her case after a big win.

“I think it’s really troubling, though, that it took going to this measure and talking to the news to get any kind of attention and get this pushed through,” Estess said. And I’m concerned about all the other people I know that are out there that are still trying to get properly reimbursed.”

She also has traveler’s insurance through the credit card she used to book the trip. She said she’s also looking into what she might be able to recoup through that.

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