Hurricane trouble with last minute.com

laurenbythesea · 16 October 2017 at 1:09PM

I recently had a flight booked to Havana, Cuba with lastminute.com

Two weeks before my flight the hurricane hit, causing nationwide devastation.

Upon hearing that our 'casa' had been permanently closed, my friends and I kept an eye on the latest and eventually decided not to go.

When I asked last minute if I could cancel or change my flight, they wouldn't let me go any where else, all they would offer me was £144 back from the original ticket price of £432 or 179 Euros as a travel voucher.

While I accept there would be administrative costs involved and they'd have to keep some money, I thought this was very unreasonable so I asked for a contact to make an official complaint.

Is this par for the course that I just need to accept or should I pursue the official complaint?

By the way yes I did have travel insurance but if i go this route I'd probably have to pay an excess anyway and there wouldn't be much point?!

Thanks in advance for any thoughts

Caz3121 · 16 October 2017 at 1:38PM

The situation is that unless the airline state anything to the contrary, the fare rules of the ticket purchased will apply if the flights are operating as planned. This will include the rules on cancellations and changes.
Any reroute rules are likely nothing to do with Lastminute, they will be dictated by the airline. If the airline is not offering cancellations or reroutes to their customers outside the fare rules then Lastminute are not going to give you this.
If the airline is offering cancellations for full refunds for the period of your flight then you would complain to Lastminute that they are holding back more than they should

leylandsunaddict · 16 October 2017 at 1:39PM

laurenbythesea wrote: »

I recently had a flight booked to Havana, Cuba with lastminute.com

Two weeks before my flight the hurricane hit, causing nationwide devastation.

Upon hearing that our 'casa' had been permanently closed, my friends and I kept an eye on the latest and eventually decided not to go.

When I asked last minute if I could cancel or change my flight, they wouldn't let me go any where else, all they would offer me was £144 back from the original ticket price of £432 or 179 Euros as a travel voucher.

While I accept there would be administrative costs involved and they'd have to keep some money, I thought this was very unreasonable so I asked for a contact to make an official complaint.

Is this par for the course that I just need to accept or should I pursue the official complaint?

By the way yes I did have travel insurance but if i go this route I'd probably have to pay an excess anyway and there wouldn't be much point?!

Thanks in advance for any thoughts

Unless the flight was cancelled it was your choice not to go.Unless you'd bought a fully refundable ticket then they only thing you are entitled to is some of the taxes, less any charge the airline and the agent make for refunding them.

If it was a non changeable ticket then it certainly wasn't refundable. What you can do with a ticket depends on the ticket fare rules and the airline involved.

It would have been so much easier to sort if you'd have booked direct instead of booking through a third party, and a very shonky one at that.

Whether travel insurance would cover you for cancelling would depend entirely on the cover you bought.

laurenbythesea · 17 October 2017 at 12:45PM

Thanks for your reply despite the condescending tone to it. I was just asking for opinions. I get that it was my choice, but its not really a choice when you have no where to stay and theres no electricity or clean water. Who wants to fly to a country devestated by hurricane? It didnt feel right. The flight SHOULD have been cancelled.

laurenbythesea · 17 October 2017 at 12:47PM

Thanks for your info. Last time I'll be booking third party!

Grumpelstiltskin · 17 October 2017 at 1:00PM

laurenbythesea wrote: »

Thanks for your reply despite the condescending tone to it. I was just asking for opinions. I get that it was my choice, but its not really a choice when you have no where to stay and theres no electricity or clean water. Who wants to fly to a country devestated by hurricane? It didnt feel right. The flight SHOULD have been cancelled.

Didn't you realize that Cuba was in the hurricane zone and you were travelling in the hurricane season?

You took a risk and it didn't pay off.

laurenbythesea · 17 October 2017 at 2:07PM

Yeah very helpful comment- NOT!:T

mattyprice4004 · 18 October 2017 at 9:56AM

Your attitude is shocking, people are giving up their free time to help you and all you can do is moan about people’s ‘tone’.

I don’t know why people bother if that’s the thanks they get.

laurenbythesea · 21 October 2017 at 11:09PM

I'm sorry Matt but I THANKED the first two comments it was just Grumpelstiltskin's I had issue with. He was certainly not giving up free time to help. It seemed more like it was more of an opportunity for him to make an insulting comment. How is "Didn't you realize that Cuba was in the hurricane zone" in any way trying to help? So you can talk about about my attitude if you like but the fact is I just lost a lot of money and was seeking some advice not for him to rub it in that I'd gone to a hurricane zone.

baza52 · 22 October 2017 at 1:15AM

You lost some money but the poor sods that live there have lost a lot more.
You asked for advice and thats what you got, you obviously dont like what you were told and that is fine.
Your rights however ramain the same.
Use your travel insurance if they will pay out. You knew the excess when you bought it and could have paid more for lessexcess, thats the risk you take.

Either take the hit on the price of your (cheap ticket) or go and stay somewhere else making up the shortfall.

Personally i would still go but only you can decide what you do.

bigadaj · 22 October 2017 at 8:53AM

laurenbythesea wrote: »

Thanks for your reply despite the condescending tone to it. I was just asking for opinions. I get that it was my choice, but its not really a choice when you have no where to stay and theres no electricity or clean water. Who wants to fly to a country devestated by hurricane? It didnt feel right. The flight SHOULD have been cancelled.

So the flights should have been cancelled for you only, whereas many other people on the flight would have been travelling for other reasons, potentially returning home, visiting relatives, independent travel, maybe business etc etc

Self obsessed snowflake millennial anyone?

Hurricane trouble with last minute.com

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