FLIGHT DISRUPTIONS: Volcano ash from Iceland hits UK flight plans

debbiefletcher

We were due to fly home from Orlando to London last Thursday but our flights with BA were cancelled, it cost us around £100 in telephone costs to BA to rebook flights for next Tuesday 20th.

We booked our flights through Thomas Cook and the hotel through Walt Disney World .com. It is costing us around £1000 extra in hotel costs, which we don't have and then more for food etc.

We are due back at work on Monday. We have travel insurance through Thomas Cook. We have been unable to get through to anyone to help us and don't know if we can claim. We could at least relax a little if we knew we could claim.
Can anyone help?

debbiefletcher

debbiefletcher wrote: »

We were due to fly home from Orlando to London last Thursday but our flights with BA were cancelled, it cost us around £100 in telephone costs to BA to rebook flights for next Tuesday 20th.

We booked our flights through Thomas Cook and the hotel through Walt Disney World .com. It is costing us around £1000 extra in hotel costs, which we don't have and then more for food etc.

We are due back at work on Monday. We have travel insurance through Thomas Cook. We have been unable to get through to anyone to help us and don't know if we can claim. We could at least relax a little if we knew we could claim.
Can anyone help?

When we phoned Thomas Cook we were told it wasn't their responsibility and to contact BA. BA phone message was to contact website, website said to phone.

Frustrated and stranded.

vein

elvis1 wrote: »

Has anyone tried redeming there Euros back, the travel agents are giving a crap rate and my son has lost nearly £100 of his holiday money :mad: and has not even gone anywhere. Should they be giving back the rate they was bought at due to circumstances, he put half on one of those money passport cards in euros and half in cash. Think the travel agents are now profiting from this.

I got my euros from M&S and my father in law tells me that if you have the receipt from when you purchased them they will exchange back to GBP at the same rate. He got this info today when exchanging euros he had unfortunatley not got from M&S so lost about £100 too. i'll be going there tomorrow to change mine back.

Not much use to your son but hopefully will help someone else reading on here.

Incapuppy

debbiefletcher wrote: »

We booked our flights through Thomas Cook and the hotel through Walt Disney World .com. It is costing us around £1000 extra in hotel costs, which we don't have and then more for food etc.

Is it a Disney hotel? If so, I'm sure you could move elsewhere and it would cost you a good deal less.

genieuk

Only hearing what they say on the news that if you are within the EU the airline are supposed to look after you. We live in Cyprus and were due to fly back tomorrow, luckily got back from New York last Friday as OH and I went on our own and left kids with grandparents.

We contacted our insurer and were told not covered they won't cover extra cost of hire cars, luckily staying with a relative who is glad of the company. Finally got through to airline who say they will rebook us on to next available flight and will phone us I am not sure if I trust that, they don't even have anything on their website and had to trawl the internet to find a uk number. Hire car company were good said that we could keep the cars at the rate we hired them for.

Just a case of waiting and seeing and keeping fingers crossed.

[Deleted User]

shellybelle wrote: »

Can anyone give some advice on the following? We were due to go on a package holiday today booked with Holiday Gems . They called to confirm that holiday was cancelled and that the airline had agreed to refund them the value of our flights which would be refunded to us. However the booking agent they had used refused to refund them the money for our accomodation as this situation was an 'act of God' therefore they would not be refunding our money, nor could they offer us an alternative holiday, and that they were not liable.

Holiday Insurance is not covering us , an 'act of God'

Visa is not covering us , 'an act of God '

We took the 3 steps we believed would protect us
1. ATOL protection
2. Insurance
3. Booking by Visa

Can anyone help?

If it does fall into the definition of a Package

"package" means the pre-arranged combination of at least two of the following components when sold or offered for sale at an inclusive price and when the service covers a period of more than twenty-four hours or includes overnight accommodation:—

• (a) transport;

• (b) accommodation;

• (c) other tourist services not ancillary to transport or accommodation and accounting for a significant proportion of the package,

Then you are due a full refund of all monies paid under the contract - see my earlier post for the relevant article/section. Can you give more details about what was booked and how?

SnowWhiterThanWhite

Cityboy wrote: »

I have posted the information below in a separate thread called Care and assistance for airline passengers but thought it useful to reproduce here.

As there has been much misinformation or no information from some airlines (and some of the media reports) during the current air traffic control closure of European airspace, I thought it useful to give passengers information on the care and assistance they are due by airlines.

If the airline doesn't volunteer this 'care' then passengers should make their own arrangements and keep all receipts as without these their claims will not be paid. Claims should be submittted to the airline using recorded delivery/signed for post with copies only of your receipts on your return home.

The regulations apply to all EU airlines and to all non-EU airlines departing from the EU. It does not apply to non-EU airlines flying to the EU.

Essentially, the airline should pay for or reimburse the following under Article 9 of the regulation:


Meals in relation to the time up to the new departure;
Accommodation where an overnight stay or stays of more than one night are involved;
Transfers to/from airport
2 telephone calls/emails/faxes

The airline should also offer the passenger the choice of refund or re-route of the flight under Article 8. There should be no additional cost of the re-route to the passenger.

Airlines have no choice but to offer this care and assistance or pay receipted claims for such. There are no circumstances under which airlines cannot be liable for these receipted expenses. References to acts of God or extraordinary circumstances or outside of the airline's control do not apply to the 'care' element under Article 9, whatever the airline may say or do to the contrary.

Full regulation EC 261/2004 here: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/...4R0261:EN:HTML

Trust this helps put stranded passengers more at ease and is a useful guide.

Thanks for the info - Currently in Las Vegas, flights booked with Delta. When the regs state 'non-EU airlines departing flying from EU', do you think this covers us as we departed from the UK? Or, does it mean that we aren't covered as we have already taken our departing flight and are trying to return to the UK?

Thanks (Delta have stated they cannot help with additional expenses only getting us re-booked on alternate flights)

vein

vein wrote: »

I got my euros from M&S and my father in law tells me that if you have the receipt from when you purchased them they will exchange back to GBP at the same rate. He got this info today when exchanging euros he had unfortunatley not got from M&S so lost about £100 too. i'll be going there tomorrow to change mine back.

Not much use to your son but hopefully will help someone else reading on here.

Forgot to say that you must also take some documentation to prove you were booked to go on holiday but flights have been cancelled. I'll be taking along my boarding passes I printed out which should be enough proof.

SnowWhiterThanWhite

gemmacarolyn wrote: »

Hi,
Have been reading this thread with interest-thank you to those helpful people who have been posting! I was booked to fly out of California today, obviously my flight was cancelled. Luckily, I managed to get through to Delta Airlines last night, who changed my flights to Thursday. My question is this: I booked my flight through STA Travel, and am travelling predominantly on KLM flights (with a short Delta flight to LA-hence being able to call them to change my flight.) Since KLM are a European Airline, am I entitled to any assistance? I have free accomidation, as I'm staying with someone, but what about meals etc?
Should I try and phone KLM, or leave the lines free for those more needy than myself and try and claim when I get home?

Thanks for any advice

Hi,
I have been trying to get through to Delta since yesterday and all I get is a recorded message saying that they can't take calls, not even the option of hanging on-I did manage to get through to their domestic flight service but they couldn't help and tried to transfer me where I was on hold for over an hour and gave up. My hotel also charges for 1800 numbers after half an hour!

Do you have an alternative no. for them? The no I have is 1800 241 4141

thanks

shellybelle

harbordm wrote: »

If it does fall into the definition of a Package

"package" means the pre-arranged combination of at least two of the following components when sold or offered for sale at an inclusive price and when the service covers a period of more than twenty-four hours or includes overnight accommodation:—

• (a) transport;

• (b) accommodation;

• (c) other tourist services not ancillary to transport or accommodation and accounting for a significant proportion of the package,

Then you are due a full refund of all monies paid under the contract - see my earlier post for the relevant article/section. Can you give more details about what was booked and how?

Thanks for responding.
went to holiday gems web site, given only one flight option , then had to choose accomodation. Given a total price, booked on credit card. We then recieved an ATOL reciept from them listing flights and accomodation. The holiday was for 10 days.