Easyjet, delayed flight and Mondial travel insurance claims: Beware

AldoT

Easyjet, delayed flight and Mondial travel insurance delay claims: deliberate money-ripping inefficiency or just second-rate customer care?

Easyjet refuses to provide the insurance documents its very own travel insurance (Mondial Assistance Limited) , promoted and offered as standard on their very own site, require to claim for flight delay

Also a tale of humorously bad Easyjet customer care (they just don't care:) I honestly find the thing amusing even if the joke ultimately was, well, on me, the customer ::) )

What follow is partially a rant about the shocking lows Easyjet customer care management can get to,
however, it is mainly meant as a simple warning to fellow travelers:

If you are traveling with Easyjet and considering buying their very own insurance, as promoted on their very own website, you might want to consider this before opting in:

1) Easyjet will refuse providing documents (i.e. confirmation of flight cancellation and relative dealy) in the form requested by their very own insurance (if you request the documents at the airport, you will be reassured there's actually no need for any documents, printouts from your tickets will do just fine; be likewise reassured that this is not the case)

2) Request the documents via email (after all why paying extra for calling their 0871 customer care) might require a slightly longer time to process than the claimed 24h, more like 20 days or more (not sure, 2wks and I am still waiting).
However be ressured you will soon receive a mail requesting you to stop sending further emails as this increases their workload and your waiting time (didn't send any, but thanks for letting me know).
NOTE: NO MATTER HOW LONG YOU WAIT, THE CONTENT OF THE DOCUMENT WILL NOT EXACTLY BE WHAT THEIR INSURANCE REQUIRED FOR CLAIMING

3) Call their call-center in the hope they will help and you are up for an interesting experience.
They will deny service on the ground that preparing the letter is too time consuming (?) and they have other customers to serve (??) (with "serving" meaning providing them with the same service they are giving you, one should hope.)
You might be excused if you thought you actually were a customer too and that having already waited 15 minutes in the cue and spent in excess of £10 would give you a right to be served and priority over others that called after you.
However, if you insist that you should be served, staff will happily spend further expensive (for you) minutes opposing your request and certainly confirming that they will never provide anything exactly like what their insurance request (sadly, the could spend that minutes doing what you ask they do, but such is life..).

This is the worst customer care I have *ever* received, completely unfair and shameless.

Interestingly enough, you might first be told that Easyjet is only able to confirm in written that "because many flights were canceled on the day, it is likely that your flight was canceled too"
Just firmly suggest that this sounds like a bad joke and EZ staff will actually reword to "a letter confirming that the flight was canceled and you actually moved to another flight, name and number of passengers, but no mention of the fact that this was the first flight available to your destination".

Obviously Easyjet have technical means to retrieve the necessary information from their databases, however they are simply not bothered doing it and you have no way to force them acting fairly to their customers.
It should be noticed that the amount of compensation offered by the insurance for delay is calculated on the base of how long you *had* to wait, therefore the fact that you have booked the first available flight is not an unimportant bit.

Now, I will be waiting for a reply from Easyjet, if it ever comes and in the hope this will be on time for me to submit my claim (out of fairness, I would love them to give me back my £10 of customer care call too, if not my 25 minutes, but this really is wishful thinking ).

I did not find anything on the internet on insurance claims for delays due to cancellation of an Easyjet flight.
I am posting this in a few forums hoping it helps fellow travellers and, who knows, maybe encourages Easyjet to offer a fairer service (well, at least *some* kind of service at all, wishful thinking probably).


Here follows my mail of the 6th January 2010 to Easyjet (today, 21st of Jan 2010, I am still waiting for a reply of some kind), I have only removed some personal details:




" My flight London Luton to Cagliari, Italy, of the 22nd of December 2009 was canceled due to adverse weather conditions.
As advised by your customer care via Twitter, I transferred the ticket for me, my wife and our child to the first available Easyjet flight, on the 26th Dec 2009.

For me to claim travel delay, Mondial Assistance (UK) Limited is requesting a letter from Easyjet confirming that:

1) The flight on the 22nd Dec 2009 was actually canceled
2) That the first available Easyjet flight to Cagliari, at the moment it was offered via your site to transfer the ticket (around 2am on the 22nd Dec), was the one I actually booked (on the 26th of December)

On the 26th of December I have requested the letter to your check-in in Luton and I have been reassured that printouts of the booking confirmations would be sufficient.
Following a phone call to Mondial Assistance customer care, it appears that this is not the case and a letter is actually needed.

I would be grateful if you could send me a letter detailing what listed above to my UK address (as currently registered on my account with you):

[ADDRESS DELETED]

If this was not possible to you for any reason, I would appreciate a reply.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,
Aldo [DELETED]"