Primera Air Cancellation Nightmare

vc0302

We booked flights around a couple of months ago to travel to Newark from Birmingham on 29th June and then return on 6th July.

We then got stung with the cancellation of all transatlantic flights from Birmingham until next year and opted to be rerouted from stansted to Newark, this time travelling on 30th June and returning on 7th July, again operated by Primera Air.

The outbound flight was fine if a little delayed and they had previously confirmed to cover our travel costs to go from stansted.

Then on the day of our return flight they cancelled by text/email and gave the following options -

“We can offer you the following options:
1. Full refund;
2. Rebook on any other date or flight operated by Primera Air;
3. Purchase new flight ticket on your own and we will reimburse the costs up to 1500 EUR per passenger;”

We opted for the third option and booked new flights with Thomas Cook for the same day which cost about $600 for both of us.

I emailed upon arrival back to the UK and received an email on the 18th saying they would refund our travel costs to stansted and back from Manchester (our replacement return flights) and also our Thomas Cook flights (converted into euros and rounded down I noted) and asked for my bank details (even though I’d already provided them). I’ve since provided bank details, asked for an update, and asked for an update again and been stonewalled.

Does anyone know best process to get an answer? I’ve read elsewhere to start a dispute with the credit card company but I don’t know which charge to dispute, would this be the charge to Thomas Cook for the replacement flights or our original booking with Primera?

Just want an answer and money back in my account as the credit card bill is due soon and we shouldn’t have to be $600 out of pocket! Apparently a lot of passengers are experiencing similar stonewalling and not getting any responses or refunds.

What should I do??

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

jpsartre

vc0302 wrote: »

I’ve read elsewhere to start a dispute with the credit card company but I don’t know which charge to dispute, would this be the charge to Thomas Cook for the replacement flights or our original booking with Primera?

You cannot dispute the charge from TC, they've done nothing wrong. Presumably the replacement flight was more expensive than what you originally paid? If so, you'll be better off pursuing reimbursement from Primera.

mattyprice4004

As above, why would you dispute the TC charge if they got you home?
Your fight with Primera is nothing to do with them.

bagand96

As others have said you need to claim back from Primera the costs of your Thomas Cook flights. If you still get no joy from Primera you could try a section 75 claim on your credit card. But it would be against the original Primera transaction as they are the ones in breach of contract - claim the cost of the TC flights against that section 75 claim. Your card company are likely to try and persuade you to wait for Primera though.

In addition to this you may be able to claim €600 per passenger for the cancellation under EU261/204 regulations (although it may depend on when you arrived back on your TC flight compared to your original Primera time)

Good luck though - youll probably have a fight on your hands - Primer are a complete bunch of cowboys. Use the Compensation advice on this board on this forum to help with any eventual EU261 claim.

Alan_Bowen

I regrettably have to agree with the comments above, getting any response, let alone money, from Primera seems to be almost impossible. I would send one final demand and on the basis you do not get a response, and I am certain you won't, then go to your card issuer. They should refund your loss but probably not the 600 Euros each EU261 claim. Looking at reviews from last year, from customers who did not fly from the UK since the joy only began here a few months ago, they still haven't received compensation a year after being delayed or cancelled. I suspect despite their promise to return to Birmingham next year, they will not do so, after cancelling the transatlantic routes after only a few weeks, they have announced the end of flights to Spain in a weeks time

Tyzap

Alan_Bowen wrote: »

I regrettably have to agree with the comments above, getting any response, let alone money, from Primera seems to be almost impossible. I would send one final demand and on the basis you do not get a response, and I am certain you won't, then go to your card issuer. They should refund your loss but probably not the 600 Euros each EU261 claim. Looking at reviews from last year, from customers who did not fly from the UK since the joy only began here a few months ago, they still haven't received compensation a year after being delayed or cancelled. I suspect despite their promise to return to Birmingham next year, they will not do so, after cancelling the transatlantic routes after only a few weeks, they have announced the end of flights to Spain in a weeks time

I don't think I'd be letting them off the hook so easily.

I would go down the MCOL or ESCP route first.

JPears

Of course it depends if it was Primera Nordic or Scandanavia. The former in Latvia making legal action difficult, the latter being in Denmark making it slightly less difficult.

bagand96

I suspect despite their promise to return to Birmingham next year, they will not do so, after cancelling the transatlantic routes after only a few weeks, they have announced the end of flights to Spain in a weeks time

Worse than that, they haven't actually announced the end of much of the Spanish flying. Flights are off sale from September, but they've not yet advised the thousands of passengers that hold bookings, despite many of those passengers asking them (and BHX) directly on twitter etc...

They are shambolic and have been since the flights launched. It's like the good old days of the 80's and 90's with the one season wonder charter airlines!

vc0302

Thanks for the responses everyone!

I don’t think I made it very clear in my original post, I wasn’t going to dispute against Thomas Cook, but didn’t know if there was a way I could dispute the Thomas Cook charge back to Primera. Also the original flight costs are on my credit card, but the replacement flights are on my travel partner’s, so I don’t know how that works or how to request from the card issuers, can anyone advise best way forward?

They have emailed me today saying my bank details are wrong and I need to provide SWIFT and IBAN numbers in order for the refund to be processed, and that I need to request these from my bank.

I’ll provide these and see how that goes :-/

vc0302

Tyzap wrote: »

I don't think I'd be letting them off the hook so easily.

I would go down the MCOL or ESCP route first.

Might be showing myself to be really thick here but what is MCOL and ESCP??

JPears

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