Thomson airways complaint/compensation

allen3743

Im flying Thomson to Dominican on the 7th November 10 and ive just had a letter saying the premium seats ive booked over a year ago are now not availabe on return flight due to plane problems...do i have any claim on all my upgrade money and compensation as its too late to change plans:mad:

pattycake

We flew to the Dominican Republic last year with Thomson. We had booked premium seats but they were unavailable on the outward journey. We did not discover this until we arrived at the airport. We were handed a letter saying the original plane was unserviceable and the replacement had no premium cabin.

As compensation, we were given vouchers for £10 each to spend on board.

We got premium seats on the homeward flight.

We got a refund of half the cost of the premium upgrade. Nothing else.

HXDave

Interesting case here cityboy, and just wondered what yourview would be on this:

The Thomson flight to the dom rep is sold in economy class, however it is a 'supplement' that they pay to have premium seats, not actually a premium fare.

also, how would one go about determining the actual 'cost' of the flight, when the ticket is all part and parcel of the package?

after all, Thomson could turn round and say the flight element was only £100.00, thus only have to pay a percentage of that!

dont get me wrong, i'm not contradicting you, i'm just curious of how they would work it.

apt

That sort of argument is hardly likely to be believed by a district judge. If Thomson thought it had a good case it would not have settled out of court.

HXDave

Cityboy, like i say a difficult scenario, and difficult to judge.

would you think the same would apply if the passenger had booked a seat with extra leg room, and then failed to get it?

i suppose the only way to determine if in fact the passenger has indeed been 'downgraded' was to see what lever of APD had been paid by the airline for passengers travelling in 'Premium Seats' (as opposed to a 'Premium Cabin'). If the APD is the same for every single seat on the aircraft, then i guess it could be argued that he has not effectively been 'downgraded'. Alternatively, if it appears that Thomson Airways charge & pay a higher APD for sitting in the pointy end, then i guess that could be classed as a 'downgrade'.

Like i say, a bit of a grey area.

budgetflyer

I dont really see what is "grey" about it. They sold a package that included premium seats. They now can't offer the premium seats.Why should the customer just be expected to just accept the difference ?
If all that was available initially were economy seats then the holiday may not have been booked.

HXDave

Budgetflyer, the grey area relates to whether the non availability of a seat where a supplement has been been counts as a downgrade or not, and therefore covered under rule EU261/2004.

Relating to the OP possibly not booking if only the 'standard seats' had been available, well i ha, over the many years i have worked in travel, had a few occassions where due to one thing or another (usually aircraft changes) premium seats have been booked, but then told later that there are no longer that choice of seating on the aircraft. Where this has happened to me, there have been a number of times where the operator has offered a free cancellation as an option, so if the passenger did not want to travel in the 'normal seats', they could cancel free of charge and not have to travel.

malkie76

I agree with Cityboy; they market it as a separate cabin with enhanced products. It's similar to the BA Plus, and VS Premier products.

StuieUK34

Just being the normal passenger guy, the way i read the above and thinking of becoming a travel agent, i'll do this:
Sell 100 seats on Thomson planes, sell them all as premuim blah blah blah, get everyones monies, then write to them saying plane change, then offering them £10 food voucher
So say the original seat was £400 return, but the premuim was £700 return, i make £290 profit! wooohoooooooo ! Business to be in i reckon !
Just reading that post on tripadvisor, power to the people and all that i say, i'd be more than f**ked off if the above happens to me next year when i fly!

delwynshd

The passengers will be refunded the premium cabin upgrade cost

Del

StuieUK34 wrote: »

Just being the normal passenger guy, the way i read the above and thinking of becoming a travel agent, i'll do this:
Sell 100 seats on Thomson planes, sell them all as premuim blah blah blah, get everyones monies, then write to them saying plane change, then offering them £10 food voucher
So say the original seat was £400 return, but the premuim was £700 return, i make £290 profit! wooohoooooooo ! Business to be in i reckon !
Just reading that post on tripadvisor, power to the people and all that i say, i'd be more than f**ked off if the above happens to me next year when i fly!

delwynshd

I dont know the legal side of it Cityboy but good on them if this is what they get

I never knew these laws applied to package holidays with charter airlines

Del