Compensation for cancelled return flight without notice

littlecutiepie

Hello Moneysavers, I'm looking for some advice regarding my query please.

Please note that the destinations' details in this post have been changed for confidentiality purposes, but everything else is 100% correct.

We booked a flight from Manchester to Luxor with TAP portugal: the departure was on (8/04/17) with 2 hours stop in Lisbon & the return on (20/04/17) with another 4 hours stop in Lisbon. The flights were booked since September 2016 through Omegaflightstore.com and we received the final booking confirmation email on the same day and no any other email regarding this flight at all.

We did the biggest mistake of our life (for the first time ever!) of not checking everything before the travel day on the airline's website.

The outbound flight was generally fine, even though when booking we selected the vegetarian meal option, but all what they had on the plane was chicken sandwiches, but we said it's ok as we did not pay for it.

The return flight was scheduled at 5:00 am, we left our hotel (which was in another city) at 9pm and we got to the airport at 2:30 am, only to be told that the ticket that we have is not valid as there is no flight in the morning to Lisbon. We went to TAP's office in the airport who couldn't have been more unhelpful, all what they kept saying was that we have to purchase another flight if we "really" wanted to go back to Manchester. They said that the flight was changed in February and that we should have known this through the flight agency. Half an hour later, another TAP representative came in and said that they will do their best to help resolve the issue, he locked the office and disappeared! We stayed in the airport until 6am without chairs or an appropriate place to sit in and wait. You cannot imagine the amount of stress that we went through, especially that my wife suffers from shoulder pain and our 4 years old daughter cried a lot because of the tiredness before giving up and sleeping on the floor!

We rang Omegaflightstore several times but they only open after 9am. We rang TAP's customer service who consistently refused to admit that they must have informed us about the flight change, and finally accepted to book us for the next flight to Manchester which was at 4pm with an overnight stay in Lisbon until 2pm of the next day and a final arrival to Manchester on the 21st at 5pm. Upon arriving, we have been charged an additional £15 parking fee.

Both my wife and I are teachers and we had huge piles of exams that needed to be marked and tracked, with all what happened we had only two days to finish off everything before the start of the term, and this left us absolutely shattered as we didn't get some time to relax as we planned ahead.

Last week, my wife and I made several calls to the flight agency and we have spoken to several agents and here are the outcomes:

- They refused to take any sort of blame and said that it is the airline that should advise passengers on any flight change and it is not the agency's duty.
- They were completely rude and refused to listen to our questions. In fact, one of them made a sexist comment to my wife and when she confronted him about it he hung up on her.
- They said that the status of our ticket shows "Utilised" on their system and therefore we have used our ticket so why complain?
- Finally the last agent said that the flight was changed and that they sent us an email about it which is not true at all.

I apologise for this long post but we are very serious about taking this further, but who is really responsible about informing the passengers of flight changes or cancellations? is it the airline or the booking agency? Any more advice will be much appreciated.

Many thanks

littlecutiepie

I forgot to add that the total number of hours that we stayed in Luxor's airport is 26 hours.

We arrived to Lisbon at 7pm and we were given a coupon to stay in a nearby hotel overnight (we were told that this is TAP's policy for passengers with children and not because of the flight change).

richardw

Ask TAP to provide details regarding when they advised omegaflighthaventheardofthemOta of the flight change.

Caz3121

When you choose to book with an agent rather than direct with the airline, they are the ones what would be notified. As suggested, just get TAP to advise when they advised Omega. TAP did not have to advise you as you were not their customer.
The other problem you will have is that in the Omega T&Cs it states
Carriers reserve the right to change the flight schedule at any time prior to departure. Reconfirmation 72 hours prior to departure applies to both to outward and homeward journeys as per carrier instructions.
I think you will have a battle for any compensation
on top of that, your chosen agent does not have the best reputation...long thread here https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k6485993-Omegaflightstore-Air_Travel.html

jpsartre

Airline should inform agent, agent should inform you, you should confirm times prior to travelling. Emails can get overlooked, caught in spamfolders, etc.

JPears

And has been said before, hindsight being a wonderful thing, always book direct with airline. Agents are rarely cheaper these days.
If you paid by credit card and get no joy from agent, perhaps a section 75 claim for breach of contract?

Alan_Bowen

The reviews of Omega suggest this is not an isolated case and they probably deserve all they get but their booking conditions may well get them off the hook. Nevertheless they have an absolute duty to advise of changes and if they cannot produce a copy email ( I feel one being typed now, so do the usual checks) then I think you have a case of a failure to provide a reasonable standard of service.

littlecutiepie

richardw wrote: »

Ask TAP to provide details regarding when they advised omegaflighthaventheardofthemOta of the flight change.

Thank you for your reply, we have emailed TAP last week asking for another clarification but they did not respond yet.

littlecutiepie

Caz3121 wrote: »

When you choose to book with an agent rather than direct with the airline, they are the ones what would be notified. As suggested, just get TAP to advise when they advised Omega. TAP did not have to advise you as you were not their customer.
The other problem you will have is that in the Omega T&Cs it states
Carriers reserve the right to change the flight schedule at any time prior to departure. Reconfirmation 72 hours prior to departure applies to both to outward and homeward journeys as per carrier instructions.
I think you will have a battle for any compensation
on top of that, your chosen agent does not have the best reputation...long thread here https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g1-i10702-k6485993-Omegaflightstore-Air_Travel.html

Thank you for your reply. I really want to think that I can win a court case against them (fingers crossed!). The reviews are horrifying and I will definitely check reviews for future bookings. We booked several times before with a company called Omega (no longer on the market) and we never had any problem, and when we booked for this flight we thought it is the same, but hey lesson learnt!

littlecutiepie

jpsartre wrote: »

Airline should inform agent, agent should inform you, you should confirm times prior to travelling. Emails can get overlooked, caught in spamfolders, etc.

Thank you for your reply. The email used is a personal email that is checked daily including the spam folders, I can assure you that they didn't email us at all! In fact, they only said that they emailed us after several calls.

littlecutiepie

JPears wrote: »

And has been said before, hindsight being a wonderful thing, always book direct with airline. Agents are rarely cheaper these days.
If you paid by credit card and get no joy from agent, perhaps a section 75 claim for breach of contract?

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately we paid using a debit card.