Olympic Holidays have changed my airport by 300 miles!!!

treviglas

Having booked my holiday to KOS in January from Bristol airport on 2nd June for one week I received a letter yesterday from Olympic Holidays telling me due to 'operational reasons' my original flight from Bristol has been cancelled. They are offering me Gatwick instead. As I live in Cornwall this is not a conveinient airport for us. They have offered a refund as well.
I have visited a travel agent today and contacted Thomas Cook Airline and both tell me the flight has not been cancelled!!!! So what are Olympic up to? I could rebook with Thomas Cook but the holiday is £300 more...surely Olympic can't do this?
Any advise would be appreciated.....of course the customer service centre is only open from Mon -Fri 10am -4pm so i am unable to contact them until Monday.:mad:

Alan_Bowen

Most operators reserve the right to make major changes up to 8 weeks before departure and so long as they offer a full refund they may be able to get away with it. As to what Olympic Holidays are doing no one knows, most of the airlines they used last year, Tor Air, Viking Hellas for example have gone bust since then, Monarch refused to do business with them and it may be Thomas Cook Airlines have done the same, although with their own financial issues it seems rather short sighted. I would talk to Olympic and ask for them to pay for your travel to Gatwick from Bristol, if you paid a very low price, the cost may be more than the profit lost in cancelling and they may refuse but it's worth a try. I assume you haven't paid in full as yet, if you had they might try a bit harder but if all they are losing is the deposit, they may stick to take it or leave it.

bagand96

I don't think Thomas Cook have refused to do business with them....

Olympic charter their own flights from the larger airports such as Gatwick, Birmingham and Manchester, where a whole aircraft will operate for Olympic (typically with much smaller random airlines). However, at smaller regional airports such as Bristol, Cardiff etc they just buy seats from other operators as and when required.

I suspect they've worked out that its much cheaper for them to book you on their own chartered flight rather than buy seats from someone else.

Unfortunately I doubt there's anything you can do as it will be well within the terms and conditions you booked under. Take the full refund and try and find something more suited to your needs.

treviglas

Thank-you everyone for your replies. I will be contacting ustomer services tomorrow and will let you know the outcome.

Maharg8

Three of us booked a holiday to Crete (Malia) with Olympic Holidays last August 2011 to depart from Belfast to Crete on the 29 May 2012 till 12 June 2012 and paid a deposit of £50. We paid the balance on at the start of March 2012. Next a letter arrived from olympic Holidays stating that our holiday was cancelled and they offered us a flight from Gatwick to Crete. I rang them and this is all they could offer us or a full refund. As we had arranged to have time off from our jobs for the 2 weeks and we liked where we were staying we had no alternative. We excepted to fly from Gatwich. We were given £20 compensation. We had to book return flights from Belfast to Gatwick with Easyjet at £76. I am really alloyed. Apparently Olympic Holidays have pulled out of Belfast this year but can anyone confirm this.

Gloomendoom

Maharg8 wrote: »

Apparently Olympic Holidays have pulled out of Belfast this year but can anyone confirm this.

They certainly aren't offering flights from Belfast to Heraklion at the moment.

LancasterRam

I booked for Corfu with Olympic in December and chose a flight with TOR air.
On 19th March I receive a one pager telling me my flight times have changed from morning out, afternoon return to late afternoon out and nightime return!
It was due to TOR air going out of business, so they switched carrier.
When I dug around TOR air lost their licence with the CAA 10 DAYS BEFORE I BOOKED a flight with them!!!! That was 20th December. But they still put me on that carrier with no warning! And it still costs the same even though I'm coming back at night.
Plus I get booted out my room 5 hours before return and have to take extra days holiday the following day!
How much do I feel cheated????? First time with Olympic - NEVER again.
Customer Services not even interested!
I would avoid them!:mad: