Snow & Cancellations

[pollensa]

Snow & Cancellations

.. or how our 2p flights cost us nearly £600

Some of you may remember how pleased I was to get Ryanair flights for 2p (plus £16 CC charges) for 2 people. The flight out was fine & well worth 1p! Unfortunately it all went to pot last Monday when we tried to fly home. On Sunday night we'd heard of the impending snow & prepared ourselves to pay for the easyjet flight to Stansted which left at 2pm (instead of 4 pm with Ryanair), if necessary. My husband needed to get back for work.

Monday morning we sat glued to the various websites showing flight status. NB we now know that the most accurate is the airport site BAA/Stansted. This showed all the Ryanair outgoing flights as cancelled & eventually our return flight from Palma. But the Ryanair supposedly live status flight showed those flights as still flying. I called the Spanish Help Desk (chargeable of course) & they insisted the flights were NOT cancelled but as they only seemed to be checking the Ryanair site, we were sceptical.

The easyjet flight was supposed to leave the UK at 10am. The easyjet flight status showed it as 'on time'. On the Stansted site, at first it just showed as 'Scheduled' but then showed as 'Gate Open', so we assumed it was running & we paid £194 to book 2 flights & left PP for the airport. By the time we arrived at PMI (Palma Airport), the boards showed our departing fight as 'delayed'. Then we hear the 'Cancelled' announcement (although the lady at the info desk denied it!). The Ryanair flight at 4pm was already showing as 'Cancelled'.

We went down to the Check-In desks - no-one at Ryanair & at the time couldn't find an office for them (it's on the far left, we now know!).

At the EasyJet check-ins passengers for Stansted & Luton were being told that all flights were cancelled & to queue up at the Easyjet ticket office. We stood in line whilst a woman in Easyjet orange spoke to each passenger. She explained that we could either wait & hope to get transferred to the next day's flight or, if we had internet access it would be easier & probably quicker to do the transfer online. She handed out a sheet showing that if we logged on to myEasyjet our flight booking would show as 'Disrupted' & there would be an option to 'Amend' & get a free transfer to another date.

So we left the queue, telephoned our son & asked him to logon on for us. But the flight did not show as Disrupted (& wasn't showing as Cancelled on the Easyjet flight status). I went back to their office & told them it wasn't working. The woman at the counter insisted that it was & said that other people had used it.

By then the queue was massive & we heard mutterings of 'next day's flights nearly full...' So we called our son again & got him to purchase 2 flights for Tuesday at around 400 EUR!

We did wander over to the Ryanair checkin where we finally found their office but the airline rep there didn't yet have the authority to transfer people's flights even though it was cancelled. So we gave up. Apparently I can claim a refund for the 2p!

We then hired another car for 30 EUR & went back to PP. When we got in, I logged into to Easyjet but our booking was still not showing as disrupted or the flight cancelled. In fact it didn't change until around 6pm. Out of interest I tried out the transfer option to the next available flight & now it was only offering Wednesday. BUT you could still book the Tuesday flight as a new booking. So my guess is that they limit the number of 'free' transfers.

We got home on Tuesday with only an hours delay & then I was prepared to do battle to get the 400 EUR back. I read loads on the net of people having problems & even sending the bailiffs to Eayjet when they didn't pay up after being taken to court. But in fact it was fairly painless. I did send an email via their contact us system - & never got a reply. Then I managed to find the non-charging telephone number on SAYNOTO0870.COM - Non-Geographical Alternative Telephone Numbers & my husband called. He hang on a few times in the morning & gave up but someone answered pretty quickly in the afternoon. They agreed to refund the 400 EUR & it now shows on the original booking, so I hope it's through on my Credit Card. So we're pretty relieved at not having to take them to court.

But whilst reading up on all of this, I did learn that we learn that we were entitled to a lot more help, even if the cause is out of their control. I've posted this separately - see http://www.forum.puertopollensa.com/...ur-rights.html (both Easyjet & Ryanair gave the impression that they were providing flight transfers or refunds out of goodwill) but all things considered it could have been a lot worse. We've now been flying out several times a year with both Easyjet & Ryanair & we rarely get a problem. Such a shame it ended up costing more than 2p!

[whaleywanderer]

Sorry that your bargain worked out pricey in the end but hopefully you will be refunded. Had it not been for the snow in the UK I'm sure everything would have gone without a hitch and the unusual thing was the snow was in the south where it rarely causes much disruption. When reading of your experiences all I could picture was the TV series 'Airline' where somebody was having a rant with the queue building behind them

You got home in the end (stressed) but was it worth it for a nice quicky in PP?

It was good to meet you and Mr Pollensa

[Belladonna]

Thank you so much for the information. I think it is something to print off and keep for future reference, although hopefully never needed!

[pollensa]

As q quick update to this sorry tale, we did receive the Credit Card refund straightaway & I did eventually receive a very apologetic email response noting that the matter had already been dealt with. So that although it was all rather a mess & we wre bot aware that we could have claimed for meals, accommodation etc., we did get the refund we requested pretty easily & promptly.