Wizz Air - Flight cancelled in error

Adam_1999

Hoping someone can advise the best course of action before I raise a complaint via Wizz Air's ADR scheme. 

I booked return flights (19 June 2024 to 23 June 2024) but the outbound flight was subsequently cancelled by Wizz Air and I was offered a refund, credit or new outbound flight on 20 June 2024. I declined both options as an alternative carrier was flying the same route on 19 June 2024 and told Wizz Air over the phone I wanted them to put me on this instead. The agent said this was fine and that I would have to pay for this myself and claim it back from Wizz - all fine so far .

New one-way flight was bought and paid for and the claim was submitted via the Wizz website. Wizz then decided it was not going to reimburse the new outbound flight as I was given more than 14 days notice of cancellation. I don't think legally this is the correct position and in any event I have obtained the call recording from Wizz via a DSAR which corroborates my claim so I'll be pursuing this via the ADR - again not the crux of the issue and separate to the next point which is the one I don't know how to navigate.

Having seen that I have rebooked the outbound flight with an alternative carrier, Wizz has taken it up itself to cancel and refund my entire booking (including the INBOUND flight, which was not cancelled and is still available for sale) even though I expressly made clear I was not wishing to cancel the booking and I was only rebooking the outbound flight, and I have emails to corroborate this. Wizz say if I want to be on this flight I will need to purchase a new ticket and they won't budge - the cost has nearly trebled since booking. I will be pursuing this via the ADR as well, but my question for the forum is: as the ADR scheme can take several months to adjudicate claims, do I purchase the inbound ticket at the higher price and attempt to claim the difference between the original and the higher price from Wizz (although I'm concerned that Wizz will say I entered a contract at the higher price and agreed to pay this if I do so), or do I attempt to claim that Wizz should reinstate my original inbound booking (bearing in mind that the ADR can take up to 3 months to adjudicate and I don't have that long before I travel!). 

Grateful for any advice.

Thank you

eskbanker

It's common practice for full-service airlines to offer return flights, under which the inbound leg is cancelled if the outbound one isn't taken, but my understanding is that Wizz follow the norm for low-cost carriers in offering only single leg point-to-point bookings:

6.2. Point-to-point flights

6.2.1. Wizz Air is a point-to-point carrier and we do not operate connecting or ‘through tickets’ for our flights or the flights of other carriers in relation to our scheduled commercial flights.

6.2.2. If You have booked an onward flight with Us or another carrier, this represents a separate contract of carriage.

https://wizzair.com/static/docs/default-source/downloadable-documents/general-conditions-of-carriage/gcc-wuk/wam-wuk-final-compare_72e26162.pdf

(I'm conscious that there are a number of Wizz subsidiaries so those UK terms may not be those applicable to your booking but expect those of others to be similar)

In terms of which way to play it, as you say there's no prospect of ADR resolution prior to travel so I think I'd continue to challenge Wizz that they had no right to unilaterally cancel your inbound booking and demand its reinstatement.  Have they attempted to explain or justify their actions?