Changed Flight will cost us £275

KMK

Booked a holiday in June to St Kitts for next Easter to celebrate my retirement. We have to go in the school holidays because of husband's job. Two days ago informed by Golden Caribbean holidays that the flight has now been delayed by 2 days departure/return so we can no longer go. I had already booked connecting flights from Newcastle but of course in the very small print GC are not liable for the cost of this cancellation. I also took out an annual world wide policy which we no longer need, another £150. So their belated flight change has cost us dear. Am absolutely fuming. Why publish flights and allow people to book them with all the other on costs if they are not guaranteed? I can understand a few hours' difference but 2 days? So we have no holiday and are out of pocket by about £275, which we can ill afford.

dmg24

At least you have a valid holiday complaint.

Have you read the Ryanair thread? Your complaint really puts his complaint into context ... he wants compensation because he didn't get a bottle of water!!!

Am really sorry about your holiday being messed up. Nightmare. Hopefully you'll find an alternative that will be a great holiday.

Enjoy your retirement! x

IvanOpinion

This is a real pain and St Kitts is lovely (hopefully you will get the opportunity to go some other time). Unfortunately this is the sort of world we live in now that uses low cost budget airlines that sell non-refundable tickets ... it highlights why paying a little bit more for a 'package deal' can sometimes be better. In the past I have been highly tempted to buy our holidays in America because it can work out significantly cheaper ... however once you pay for a hotel, transfers etc. the difference is diminished and you still have the stress of a flight possibly being late.

Can you not claim the cost of your connections back from the travel insurance? As a minimum you should be able to claim back taxes etc. from the airline (although they have a habit of making their 'administration fees' eat up the entire amount).

Ivan

Becles

You have my sympathies.

We booked a First Choice holiday with Gatwick flights. We should have arrived back mid afternoon, so I booked the evening flight from Gatwick to Newcastle.

At the last minute First Choice changed both the outgoing and return flights. Outgoing was ok as we'd planned on travelling down the day before and staying in an airport hotel over night. We just had to get up a bit earlier than planned!

Coming back we landed at Gatwick early morning, after flying through the night, and were unable to get an earlier flight to Newcastle.

Ended up spending a whole day in Gatwick airport. None of us slept well on the main flight, so we ended our honeymoon dealing with 2 ratty bored children, while having little patience ourselves as we were so tired!

It's frustrating to make plans based around brochure details, only to find they change them at the last minute for "operational reasons".

Little_John

Did you book the connecting flights on your own or at the same time as the holiday kind of as a package? if you did then go the the travelagent that made the booking.

If you booked it all on your own then you have just discovered a real advantage to paying a travel agent a few £'s more to book a holiday than doing things yourself. I have booked stuff myself and been lucky that nothing has gone wrong but they have been weekend breaks ect but I always go the the travel agency for longer trips.

Your option really is to claim against your insurence for any money that you have lost due to Golden Carribean making the changes. as they made the changes they should refund everything that you paid them.

Paul1_2

If your flights were paid for by credit card you may be able to claim against the card company?

Paul1