Cancelled flight - Complicated Insurance Claim

baker69

I was due to fly to Bucharest at 10am on Wednesday 1st December returning on Friday 3rd with BlueAir, to visit friends. The flight was the day before Liverpool were playing in Bucharest so 90% of the passengers were fans traveling over for the football.

After several delays, the flight was eventually cancelled at 2pm. All passengers were told to return to the ticket desk in the main terminal to arrange either a refund or to transfer our flight.

When I arrived at the ticket desk it was chaotic to say the least; there was only 1 girl working for BlueAir and as most people on the flight were traveling out for the football, there was a mad rush to try and get transfered onto the Thursday morning flight.

As I was meant to be visiting my friends, traveling out on the Thursday and returning on the Friday wasn't long enough for me so I wanted to know if it was possible to also transfer my return flight and then contact my friends (who I was going to stay with) to see if those dates were ok for them.

When I finally got to the front of the line, I asked the BlueAir girl if it was possible to transfer my return flight to the Saturday if I transfered my outbound flight. She said it would be possible however there was no flight back to the UK on the Saturday and the next flight was on the Sunday. I got straight on the phone to my friend to see if those dates were ok for him but unfortunately he had family visiting on the Friday afternoon. We decided that it wasn't worth me going over for just the day so it was best for me to get a refund and rebook for another time.

When I returned to the ticket desk to ask for my refund, the BlueAir girl told me that she couldn't give me the refund because she'd already transfered my flights (out: Thrusday, in: Sunday). I explained that I didn't ask her to do that and that I was just seeing if it was possible before deciding. She apologised and said she assumed I wanted the transfer onto the Thurday flight, like all the football fans.

She said there was nothing she could do now that the transfer was done, but she gave me a telephone number to call. I phoned the number and it was an recorded message saying the airline is a web-based carrier and to email 'info@blue-air.ro' or if I spoke Romanian to call their head office number. I've sent several e-mails without any reply and yesterday I decided to try calling their head office but I can't speak Romanian and nobody their spoke English so no luck again.

I did manage to get in contact with some sort of BlueAir agent by email. The first reply I got simply told me that they're just an agent and to contact BlueAir directly. I then got a 2nd reply to the same email but from a different person saying that as the flight was transfered they can't issue a refund.

As it happens, because of the weather, I would have never been able to make it to the airport on the Thursday to catch the transfered flight (that I never asked for). I've got my travel insurance with HSBC, so I wondered whether I should just make a claim based on not being able to catch the transfered flight because of the weather, or to make a claim based on exactly what's happened, or simply to keep pursuing BlueAir.

Hope this isn't too confusing and appreciate any advice anybody can give.

Thanks