anyone else had monarch sell your seat

pennyocs

heres my story
went to Benidorm for a week on wednesday 14th april arrived lunch time as volcanic ash news spread thursday morning, so concerned our flight would be cancelled made arrangements for an apartment to stay if we were cancelled,
got on with the rest of our holiday checking the monarch website every day to check if our flight was cancelled.
on wednesday 21st april checked the website our flight was on time no problem. on so went to apartments and cancelled booking, the very helpfull and friendly man even gave us the deposit back so all good,
our transfer bus picked us up on time and we all made our way to the airport arrived in plenty of time and queued to check in,
only to here a fuss in the queue when i asked what was going on i was told our flight was fully booked and no-one else could check in,
how could the flight be full when it was our original booked flight? only to be told that was it the flight was full. monarch sold our seats to other people spoke to one lady who had booked the flight that morning.
there were lots of us whos tickets were booked and didnt get on the flight.

monarch were no help at all we were told to book accomodation as there were no flights going for a week.
how do we stand now ?


if anyone else was on the same flight i would like to hear from you
flight was ZB677 ALICANTE-MANCHESTER 21ST APRIL 20.50 :mad:

shellsuit

Crikey, that's awful!

So the flight wasn't cancelled? The actually sold all the seats to other passengers, and left everyone who was booked on that flight to fend for themselves???

Are you still out there now, or home?

Did Monarch offer to pay for your accomodation/food etc??


ETA ~ Just had a thought, the people who got put onto your flight, were probably people who were meant to go home a few days before when all the flights stopped.

Maybe they were getting people home in order like that?

DKLS

I have been voluntarily bumped off a flight with monarch before and benefitted hugely , but not in the way that's happened to the OP. Thats terrible.

Pollycat

I may be wrong but I thought passengers who had seats booked on a particular flight (i.e. the OP) took priority.

Maybe the unusual circumstances caused by the volcano changed things.

pennyocs
on Holidaytruths, there's a specific 'complaints' forum with some pretty clued-up people who may be able to offer you advice.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/

pennyocs

we got home yesterday 27th . it was more a matter of first come first served i think it was a mixture of people left stranded there were people like us who was originally booked on that flight and people who had re scheduled their flights,
they had 2 flights that night we were first told our flight number was fully booked then they said it was cancelled. on the board in the airport our flight number was saying checking in then boarding then it came up cancelled, but everyone who was there said they had swapped numbers the other flight that was going went as planned.
they offered us a coach to calais but then we would have to make our own way back to manchester.they said they would refund accomodation and food costs on return to england.
so then we were stuck 7 of us at alicante airport with nowhere to sleep so another 80 euros for taxi back to benidorm at 10.30pm.
i understand that people were stranded but why not let us know that before we left for airport.
i would say that there were 300 people at the airport that night that didnt get on the plane who had all bought tickets either original booking or rescheduled.

pennyocs

Pollycat wrote: »

I may be wrong but I thought passengers who had seats booked on a particular flight (i.e. the OP) took priority.

Maybe the unusual circumstances caused by the volcano changed things.

pennyocs
on Holidaytruths, there's a specific 'complaints' forum with some pretty clued-up people who may be able to offer you advice.

http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/

thats what we thought aswell untill we got to the airport:eek:

pennyocs

ive just checked on flightsats.com and as i thought the flight i should have been on wasnt cancelled even though after they told us it was fully booked,and after seeing on the board it said boarding it then changed to cancelled. it wasnt cancelled it arrived on time at manchester.
they put cancelled to cover that they sold our tickets:mad::mad:

pennyocs

i phoned Monarch yesterday who told me yes my flight was cancelled even though according to flightstats.com it landed on time in manchester.
i am waiting now for confirmation of my flight being cancelled by monarch.......

pennyocs

just bumping because cant seem to get anyway with monarch or my insurance.
just wish i had taken some of the other people at the airport email addresses or phone numbers as all i keep getting told is it was because of the volcanic ash.
we were left stranded because of monarch being greedy nothing else !!!!

flight number ZB677 Alicante - Manchester 21st April leaving Alicante at 20.50

stoneman

pennyocs

You go get them, conning barstuards. You have all the proof you need, send them a "letter before action" stating that unless they play ball you will take them to the small claims court. You can file a claim online so no need to wait more than 7 days. Copy all the relevant info you have and send it recorded delivery, don't waste your time on them any longer

pennyocs

well i received a letter this morning from Monarch but it stated the wrong time and flight number, after checking there was no such flight or flight number on that day.
are they just trying to hold things up or just totally incompetent!!