Easyjet cancelled flight - costs of changed flights

Ptpenry

A friend and I were stuck in Lisbon earlier this week when Bristol airport was closed due to the snow and easyjet had to cancel the flight. I approved an alternative pair of flights that their app suggested (Lisbon-Edinburgh-Bristol a day later) I appreciate that it wasn't easyjet's fault and I'm not looking for any compensation from them. However, I am puzzled that they have charged me extra to change our return flight.

The return flights cost £125.98 for 2 of us. The payment breakdown from easyjet shows that they cancelled the £125.98, then charged £125.98 for Lisbon-Edinburgh plus £274.98 from Edinburgh-Bristol. Is this appropriate? ABTA say "your airline must offer you the choice of a replacement flight at the earliest opportunity or a refund" but it doesn't say whether the replacement flight(s) can cost more.

Where it gets messier is that the following morning we noticed that there were actually seats available on the direct flight from Lisbon to Bristol that morning. I don't know why we weren't offered those on the day of the cancellation. We tried to change the flights but the app and website both gave errors so I had to ring their call centre. The operative eventually (51 minutes later) changed our flight from Lisbon to Edinburgh to be Lisbon to Bristol. She said that the other part of the return journey (Edinburgh to Bristol) would remain on the system and we would be shown as no-shows. I was pretty stressed out as we needed to get to the airport quickly and with dealing with someone who didn't seem to know what she was doing, so just decided to accept it, get home, then sort it out later. I can see that the £125.98 Lisbon to Edinburgh portion has been refunded and replaced by £197.98 for Lisbon to Bristol. However, we were still charged the £274.98.

We also had golf bags with us, and we appear to have been charged for those on 3 flights (presumably the outbound plus Lisbon to Bristol plus the unrequired Edinburgh to Bristol flight)

The difference between our original booking and what we received is simply that we flew back one day earlier, plus we ended up losing our extra legroom seats. What should have cost us £125.98 has now apparently cost us £274.98+£197.98+£98 golf bags for an extra flight+£108 change flight fee.

My questions are:
Should we have been charged extra for the revised post-cancellation flights or were we entitled to changed flights at no cost?
Should the call centre staff have cancelled the Edinburgh to Bristol flight rather than marking us as no-shows?
If not, should we at least have been refunded for the golf bags never travelling from Edinburgh to Bristol? Plus there are some "APD&Carbon tax" entries for that flight.
Should we have been charged for the call centre staff changing our flights when we had tried and failed with the app and website, leaving us with the call centre as our only option? I took a screenshot of the website error so I can use that in any complaint/claim

Thank you for reading and any help you can give

Ptpenry

By the way, I meant "The difference between our original booking and what we received is simply that we flew back one day later" not "earlier"

Voyager2002

You are right: the law gives you a right to rerouting at no additional charge. Easyjet is also obliged to pay for your hotel and reasonable costs during the time you were delayed.

bagand96

When your flight was cancelled you are entitled to re-routing to your destination.  You should not have to pay any more for this, it is the airline's responsibility to get you back to Bristol, at no charge to yourself.

easyJet don't normally sell connecting flights, so maybe this has caused the issue.  Did you definitely rebook on easyJet's cancellation hub, you didn't just click through to change your flights as a customer change?

Ptpenry

Thanks both. I got a notification from Easyjet's app on my phone to say that the flight had been cancelled. I then followed the steps from that. I had the option of a refund or changed flights and chose changed flights.

They did pay for a hotel for us. I figured if I selected refund we would have had to do it all ourselves and pay for a hotel? The irony being that if I had chosen a refund I should have been able to pick the direct flights myself - unless they had been locked by other people perhaps who then decided not to book?

Voyager2002

Ptpenry said:

Thanks both. I got a notification from Easyjet's app on my phone to say that the flight had been cancelled. I then followed the steps from that. I had the option of a refund or changed flights and chose changed flights.

They did pay for a hotel for us. I figured if I selected refund we would have had to do it all ourselves and pay for a hotel? The irony being that if I had chosen a refund I should have been able to pick the direct flights myself - unless they had been locked by other people perhaps who then decided not to book?

If you had chosen a refund you would then have been buying the direct flights at last-minute prices, which are generally very high.

fifeken

Has your bank/credit card actually been debited the amounts mentioned?  I've had similar before and the emails showed various amounts for flights but they were all internal easyJet accounting stuff and I didn't pay anything extra.

Ptpenry

@fifeken, you are right. Most of the money is covered by an easyjet internal voucher that wasn't clear on the first email that they sent me. Thanks.
The only problem now is that we were charged £118 for contacting the call centre to change our flights from indirect flights to direct flights. The first operative I spoke to said that we should be able to do that through the app or website. I tried but we weren't able to do so (I have a screenshot of the website error and have sent it to easyjet), so my only option was to ring the call centre. It seems unfair to charge the £118 when I tried to do it online as they had advised me. Has anyone ever managed to get easyjet to refund call centre charges due to technical issues with their app and website? Thanks

eDicky

I remember easyJet call centre waiving fees for using them for something that I was unable to succeed doing online, they believed me.