Turned down for expenses on a non-refundable hotel stay after Easyjet flights cancelled

Flipjango

lisyloo said:

Flipjango said:

Caz3121 said:

Flipjango said:

Why should this be the insurance company's responsibility, 

that is what your insurance is for. Had you booked a package with EasyJet then they would have been responsible but as separate components one has no bearing on the other.
There is still lots of uncertainty in travel industry. I have future bookings but I am still choosing to pay the extra for refundable rates for accommodation and booking packages when previously I would have done diy.

Our accommodation was refundable up to 24 hours prior so we did also follow that route. They cancelled the flight with 12 hours notice and therefore that deadline had passed. Packages are a nice idea but rarely cater for the kind of travel we were booking and have generally poor options for accommodation so don't really work for how we holiday. 

I get that.
so you need good insurance.
were there no other flights from any other airports available? 

Last time it happened to me I travelled from a different airport at a different time and charged all the extras (accom, increase in flights, parking, travel) to the insurance.
It inconvenient and we had to pay excess x 2 but that was better than missing a wedding.

We were only going for 2 days - flying out early Friday and back Sunday. There were no other flights available from London (this was to Venice, so its not somewhere with several flights leaving every day) and travelling from anywhere else by that late point would have got us there with so little time before we'd have had to come back again that it wouldn't have made sense to go at all. We were also by that point very concerned that even if we got there, we then might not have been able to get back as both easyjet and BA were cancelling so many flights that weekend. 

lisyloo

I sympathise but what is relevant is what the law and your contract says not what you feel morally entitled to.

I completely get your arguments and agree with them but they are not the same as what you are entitled to.

Short notice may have been an issue, but it’s worth noting for the future that your insurer may expect you to mitigate losses.
I found 5 flights from London and 4 from Birmingham on a single day and that’s without looking any further afield.
if I decided not to go I’d want evidence that I’d attempted to mitigate my losses e.g. checked all the possible flights.

my insurer was great and accepted the arrangements we chose and paid all the costs, but cheap/bad insurers will expect you to do what’s cheapest and not necessarily what you prefer or are concerned about. My personal experience would lead me to recommend getting a good insurer because they’ll be much more reasonable about that kind of thing.

Do you have legal insurance on your home insurance? Does it have a legal helpline?

onashoestring

The legal position is that when a flight is cancelled you are entitled to a refund from the airline- you say that Easyjet have refunded you for both outgoing and return flights . 

There is a difference between expenses and losses. As other posters have already advised you , the non- refundable missed hotel stay is called a consequential loss - You are not entitled to claim for consequential losses from your airline. 

You can claim for losses from your travel insurance.

A valid expense claim would be if for example you had been stranded in Venice because your return flight was cancelled and there was no alternative flight available and no hotel provided by airline . In this case,  if you had to pay out for an extra nights hotel stay at your own expense . In the situation you would be entitled to claim for this additional expense. 

To note with flight only bookings your entitlement to claim for losses would be exactly the same if another airline (e.g BA ) had cancelled your flights .

400ixl

I didn't think Easyjet did return tickets? Aren't they one of the airlines who do two separate tickets (outbound and inbound) just under the same booking number.

This means they can cancel one flight without the other and the protections are different to a return ticket.

Caz3121

400ixl said:

I didn't think Easyjet did return tickets? Aren't they one of the airlines who do two separate tickets (outbound and inbound) just under the same booking number.

This means they can cancel one flight without the other and the protections are different to a return ticket.

that is correct however they will refund both flights if one is cancelled by them

JPears

IMHO, if you have a screen grab that shows your return flight was also cancelled, even if briefly, then you have a case for compensation.  You, like any reasonable person would have looked at alternatives given the outward AND inbound cancellation.

No one in their right mind is going to re-book an outbound flight without also getting their retrun flight sorted.

NMany years ago, I had a not dissimilar case where I was informed by EJ that a flight was being cancelled due to proposed industrial action at Marseille. We re-booked on a different airline, to Marseille. The industrial action didn't happen but I won my case.  I think it might have gone to CEDR though, with the back up of small claims court to follow,.

I don't think CEDR exist now or handle EJ complaints. It looks as though ADR handle this.

https://www.aviationadr.org.uk/how-to-complain-about-an-easyjet-flight/

Try them. Its a slows process and you have to keep hassling them for progress. Small claims if unsucessful.

lisyloo

JPears said:

IMHO, if you have a screen grab that shows your return flight was also cancelled, even if briefly, then you have a case for compensation.  You, like any reasonable person would have looked at alternatives given the outward AND inbound cancellation.

No one in their right mind is going to re-book an outbound flight without also getting their retrun flight sorted.

NMany years ago, I had a not dissimilar case where I was informed by EJ that a flight was being cancelled due to proposed industrial action at Marseille. We re-booked on a different airline, to Marseille. The industrial action didn't happen but I won my case.  I think it might have gone to CEDR though, with the back up of small claims court to follow,.

I don't think CEDR exist now or handle EJ complaints. It looks as though ADR handle this.

https://www.aviationadr.org.uk/how-to-complain-about-an-easyjet-flight/

Try them. Its a slows process and you have to keep hassling them for progress. Small claims if unsucessful.

 Can you point us to what compensation you think the OP is entitled to? As I would like to learn.
i don’t think consequential loss is ever covered (unless a package is booked).

JPears

261/2004 Compensation for the cancelled (briefly) return flight.

lisyloo

Thanks.
so the question is would the Op win a case if the flight was never cancelled, but they saw it briefly on the internet before it was reinstated, but was never officially cancelled.

id say they were wrong to rely on information that was never communicated to them (and they got checkin emails), but maybe that’s harsh?

Flipjango

id say they were wrong to rely on information that was never communicated to them (and they got checkin emails), but maybe that’s harsh?

It really made no difference in the end as it was the return flight this applies to and as we couldn't get there when the outbound flight was cancelled, it wasn't like we'd have been able to use it. It was communicated to me, in that it was on my login page, where my flights were listed (with wording something like "we are sorry that your flight has been cancelled), it was just never sent to me in an email.