Ryanair trying to change my flight

bagand96

If you have been moved to a new flight, then your has been cancelled, you're entitled to a refund.

They might try and claim that if they've put you on an equivalent flight within 3 hours they have met their obligation.  However that's not true, under the law EC261, the choice is the passengers of whether to get a refund or an alternative flight.  You need to get in touch with Ryanair and ask them for a refund (maybe easier said than done).

When I've had changes with Ryanair in the past, the schedule change email has had a link where you have options to accept, or decline the change.  They may not be doing that at the moment.

In any event, I would send an email to them ASAP stating you do not accept their reschedule, and that as your flight has been cancelled, you wish to cancel and receive a full refund as per EC261.  That way you can at least prove you notified them, before the flight took place, in case they start messing you around in future and saying you were a no-show.

They do have an EU261 compensation claim form which you could try https://eu261compensationclaims.ryanair.com/  However that form is more about compensation (which you can't get), so not sure if it would work or not.

avfc1982

MATL91 said:

I am having exactly the same experience. Made a group booking for 20 people for a choir trip we were supposed to go on from London Stansted to Portugal, departing May 29th. Our original flight (FR1884) has been cancelled but I have received an email from Ryanair stating there has been a change to my booking and the flight has been rescheduled. This isn't the case at all, we appear to have been automatically rebooked on FR1886.  No other options are offered. Surely this constitutes a cancellation, not a schedule change? As there is £1.8k at stake here I am very worried!

They've done exactly the same to my wife who was on that flight with her friend.

Wonder how many passengers they've moved onto that FR1886 flight, probabably overbooked multiple times over in another underhand attempt to avoid having to refund.

mattyprice4004

Shipster said:

MATL91 said: the 

I am having exactly the same experience. Made a group booking for 20 people for a choir trip we were supposed to go on from London Stansted to Portugal, departing May 29th. Our original flight (FR1884) has been cancelled but I have received an email from Ryanair stating there has been a change to my booking and the flight has been rescheduled. This isn't the case at all, we appear to have been automatically rebooked on FR1886.  No other options are offered. Surely this constitutes a cancellation, not a schedule change? As there is £1.8k at stake here I am very worried!

Mine is a group of 8 and cost me over £1k as well. Can’t really afford to lose that sort of money. 

I'd be checking with your travel insurance to see if you're covered - you might struggle with this one. 

MATL91

So, an update (sort of). I emailed the Group Bookings team along the lines of what @bagand96 advised (thanks for the help by the way!) and received a response stating that there should have been an option on my email to decline the change.  I advised that this wasn't the case but no reply was forthcoming (after 3pm on a Friday). This morning I received a further email which has confirmed that FR1886 has now been rescheduled, to within 1 hour of my original departure time. Worried, I called the customer service line and incredibly got answered within about 20 mins. The representative couldn't have been less helpful. Simply refused to accept that being moved onto another flight altogether comprised cancellation and initially they refused to even acknowledge that the flight number was different! I pushed for a supervisor who did admit that we were on a different flight, but still tried to claim that it was within their Ts and Cs and that EU law/CAA rules didn't override these.

They have asked me to write to customer services, but I am worried now that they won't respond within the next two weeks and we will be classed as no shows for the flight. I am pursuing chargeback via my credit card provider but any other advice on what we can do would be most appreciated. I just can't believe quite how inflexible/unfair Ryanair are being in the circumstances. I am so worried about losing the money completely that I would even be willing to consider a voucher at this stage, but that doesn't even seem to be part of their offer!

bagand96

MATL91 said:

So, an update (sort of). I emailed the Group Bookings team along the lines of what @bagand96 advised (thanks for the help by the way!) and received a response stating that there should have been an option on my email to decline the change.  I advised that this wasn't the case but no reply was forthcoming (after 3pm on a Friday). This morning I received a further email which has confirmed that FR1886 has now been rescheduled, to within 1 hour of my original departure time. Worried, I called the customer service line and incredibly got answered within about 20 mins. The representative couldn't have been less helpful. Simply refused to accept that being moved onto another flight altogether comprised cancellation and initially they refused to even acknowledge that the flight number was different! I pushed for a supervisor who did admit that we were on a different flight, but still tried to claim that it was within their Ts and Cs and that EU law/CAA rules didn't override these.

They have asked me to write to customer services, but I am worried now that they won't respond within the next two weeks and we will be classed as no shows for the flight. I am pursuing chargeback via my credit card provider but any other advice on what we can do would be most appreciated. I just can't believe quite how inflexible/unfair Ryanair are being in the circumstances. I am so worried about losing the money completely that I would even be willing to consider a voucher at this stage, but that doesn't even seem to be part of their offer!

Do as they asked and write to customer services with a short email just stating your booking reference and that as your flight has been cancelled, as per EC261/2014 you are requesting a refund and do not accept the alternative flight they are offering.  Do it by email so you can prove you sent it before the flight date.  You could also do it by snail mail signed for if you really wanted to be belt and braces.  The fact that they've rescheduled your replacement flight close to when you original flight departure time is not relevant.

MATL91

bagand96 said:

MATL91 said:

So, an update (sort of). I emailed the Group Bookings team along the lines of what @bagand96 advised (thanks for the help by the way!) and received a response stating that there should have been an option on my email to decline the change.  I advised that this wasn't the case but no reply was forthcoming (after 3pm on a Friday). This morning I received a further email which has confirmed that FR1886 has now been rescheduled, to within 1 hour of my original departure time. Worried, I called the customer service line and incredibly got answered within about 20 mins. The representative couldn't have been less helpful. Simply refused to accept that being moved onto another flight altogether comprised cancellation and initially they refused to even acknowledge that the flight number was different! I pushed for a supervisor who did admit that we were on a different flight, but still tried to claim that it was within their Ts and Cs and that EU law/CAA rules didn't override these.

They have asked me to write to customer services, but I am worried now that they won't respond within the next two weeks and we will be classed as no shows for the flight. I am pursuing chargeback via my credit card provider but any other advice on what we can do would be most appreciated. I just can't believe quite how inflexible/unfair Ryanair are being in the circumstances. I am so worried about losing the money completely that I would even be willing to consider a voucher at this stage, but that doesn't even seem to be part of their offer!

Do as they asked and write to customer services with a short email just stating your booking reference and that as your flight has been cancelled, as per EC261/2014 you are requesting a refund and do not accept the alternative flight they are offering.  Do it by email so you can prove you sent it before the flight date.  You could also do it by snail mail signed for if you really wanted to be belt and braces.  The fact that they've rescheduled your replacement flight close to when you original flight departure time is not relevant.

Thanks, I have done just this and have an email acknowledgement of the complaint. While I am not hopeful at all, at least there is an audit trail.

Life__Goes__On

MATL91 said:

I am so worried about losing the money completely

Don't be, bagand   has given you excellent advice.

MATL91

Just a little update on my situation - I sent a formal complaint to Ryanair but have still not received a reply. I have concurrently opened up a chargeback claim against Ryanair through my card supplier but similarly haven't had a decision yet. I am starting to get quite nervous given we are now only a couple of days out from the original flight time and we are now being invited to check in for the flight I have rejected three times (seems Ryanair have just unilaterally changed the booking now despite me rejecting the change). What happens if they fail to respond before the flight departs and we are classed as no shows?