Olympic holidays just changed our flights.....

bagand96

As many are about to discover, virtually every single booking with Olympic Holidays for summer 2011 is about to be changed. They appear to have a new relationship with Strategic Airlines, (no me neither) to fly a lot of their routes this year. This appears to be an airline registered in Luxembourg but owned by Australians that was registered in France but alledgedly had its licence to fly revoked.......Worryingly it appears to be only operating one aircraft in Europe...

Indeed. I guess this is a function of having to find your flying programme so late. It gets worse though...

A bigger partner to Olympic this summer is Tor Air. A Swedish airline with one 737; that is expanding to 3 aircraft for it's new charter work in the UK. They have an incredibly similar set up to Viking Airways, and a website that can only be described as a clone. Worryingly the similarities do not end there, it seems the same crowd behind the now defunct Viking are indeed involved in Tor Air.

Could be an interesting summer.

Alan_Bowen

Glad I'm not travelling with Olympic this year!

bagand96

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

Glad I'm not travelling with Olympic this year!

To be fair from a lot of airports on a lot of routes they are taking seats on Jet2, Thomson and Thomas Cook. Its the bigger airports where they can charter a whole aircraft themselves where Strategic and Tor Air are cropping up. I do hope Olympic know what they are doing being involved with Tor Air in particular.

RHYSDAD

HXDave wrote: »

Now as for the original question, Olympic booking conditions (in the brochure) state that any flight change over 12 hours is a significant change, however whilst a change of UK airport would be classed as a major change, the change of arrival airport (paphos - larnaca & vv) is not. So RHYSDAD, just check your original flight times against your new flight times. if there is a difference of more than 12 hours (as i expect there will be), you have the right to 'withdraw from the booking compleately in which case we will, as soon as possible, refund all money paid to you'. Not sure if the booking conditions in the brochure are identical to the online ones, however it is section headed in the brochure IF WE MAKE A CHANGE.

Reh=gards

HXDave

Well the devious gits have altered our flights within the terms of their conditions leaving us at a loss really. The outbound flight is only an hour later and they deem flying to the opposite side of the island 'not a significant change' meaning that as we are now cancelling, they keep our deposit AND want to charge an admin fee PER passenger!! Lovely doing business with this bunch of clowns eh!?! We've said we'll fight it but ABTA have just said that as it's in their T&C's, we're likely to lose the deposit. I guess most TA's are the same but really, think twice about using these chancers.....

magyar

RHYSDAD wrote: »

Well the devious gits have altered our flights within the terms of their conditions leaving us at a loss really. The outbound flight is only an hour later and they deem flying to the opposite side of the island 'not a significant change' meaning that as we are now cancelling, they keep our deposit AND want to charge an admin fee PER passenger!! Lovely doing business with this bunch of clowns eh!?! We've said we'll fight it but ABTA have just said that as it's in their T&C's, we're likely to lose the deposit. I guess most TA's are the same but really, think twice about using these chancers.....

Before you cancel and risk losing money you should perhaps consider whether or not the change isn't really that bad. Larnaca to Paphos isn't that far, the motorways in Cyprus are literally empty most of the time and so it shouldn't take 3 hrs to cross - I would think 1.5-2hrs max, especially at night. I know what you mean about wanting day flights when you have small kids, but maybe they'll cope better if they can sleep on the plane? I know my daughter (3) has often travelled better when going at night.

You don't say how you were planning to get from Paphos to your accommodation, but perhaps you could consider whether you could use the money you would have 'spent' on the lost deposit to upgrade to a nicer hire car, or book a taxi from Larnaca to at least make it a smooth journey?

RHYSDAD

magyar wrote: »

Before you cancel and risk losing money you should perhaps consider whether or not the change isn't really that bad. Larnaca to Paphos isn't that far, the motorways in Cyprus are literally empty most of the time and so it shouldn't take 3 hrs to cross - I would think 1.5-2hrs max, especially at night.

You don't say how you were planning to get from Paphos to your accommodation, but perhaps you could consider whether you could use the money you would have 'spent' on the lost deposit to upgrade to a nicer hire car, or book a taxi from Larnaca to at least make it a smooth journey?

Thanks for the suggestion Magyar. Hire cars booked at Paphos already i'm afraid which, if cancelled and rebooked would mean a similar pickle and admin fee's etc etc. The return leg has been shifted on to a 12:15 am departure (from 16:15) and, as we have two boys under 4, and we have to hand the villa keys back at 11am, we aren't prepared to wander around for nearly 13 hrs with them! Up a creek without a paddle really

bagand96

We've said we'll fight it but ABTA have just said that as it's in their T&C's,

Playing devils advocate here, but they are the T&Cs that you agreed to when booking?


Anyhow, setting that aside have you pursued them for your rights under the EU regulations that Cityboy has pointed out? Its Olympic you need to chase, not Monarch, as Monarch haven't cancelled anything. It seems Olympic were selling tickets on flights that they hadn't secured the contract for. I am not sure of the intricacies as to how the EU regs apply in this case as it is a tour operator not an airline, but maybe Cityboy will be able to enlighten you more?

magyar

bagand96 wrote: »

Playing devils advocate here, but they are the T&Cs that you agreed to when booking?

That doesn't necessarily mean they're valid. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act may apply here. According to OFT guidance, Regulation 13 of the Package Tour Regulations says that

Regulation 13 sets out the options available to the consumer when the supplier cancels or the consumer cancels following a significant change to an essential term of the contract. What is a significant change or an essential term will depend on the circumstances of the case but the following are examples that we have seen and that we would generally view as amounting to a significant change in holiday contracts: a reduction in the stay in resort of more than 12 hours, accommodation of lower standard, change to a different resort, change of UK airport, change of flight time by more than 12 hours, change of a day flight (unless very late in the day) to a flight the following night.

Since the OP only booked a flight rather than a package holiday, this probably doesn't specifically qualify, but it does suggest that it could be considered an unfair condition.

HXDave

RHYSDAY:

I guess most TA's are the same but really, think twice about using these chancers.....

Please Rhysdad, TA's are Travel Agents, TO's are Tour Operators, and i feel this had nothing to do with the Travel Agent, rather your Tour Operator - Olympic. Please, it's hard enough for us honest Travel Agents as it is, without being slated for something that isn't our fault. Can you please edit your post to correct please.

As far as your Car Hire goes, who is this booked with? i'm sure they'll have a depot LCA where you can change your pick up point to.

Regards.

HXDave

Becles

RHYSDAD wrote: »

Thanks for the suggestion Magyar. Hire cars booked at Paphos already i'm afraid which, if cancelled and rebooked would mean a similar pickle and admin fee's etc etc. The return leg has been shifted on to a 12:15 am departure (from 16:15) and, as we have two boys under 4, and we have to hand the villa keys back at 11am, we aren't prepared to wander around for nearly 13 hrs with them! Up a creek without a paddle really

Can you negotiate with Olympus? Ask them if you can either keep the villa for an extra day, or if they can accommodate you in another hotel.

When my boys were little (aged 3 and 1) we went to Spain and specifically picked day flights. At short notice, the flights were changed to night flights.

On the last day, the flight left at 5am, so we were collected from the hotel at 2am. However we'd have been kicked out of the apartment at 12 noon the previous day meaning 14 hours without facilities.

I negotiated with Portland and they agreed to keep our room on for us. The last day was normal with swimming and stuff, then showered and an early tea and an early night for the boys. They were able to get some sleep before I woke them to go home and the journey wasn't too bad.