Alternate flight not suitable

Aravis84

Hello!
I booked flights to New Zealand in Jan next year via Lastminute a couple of months ago.  They've now contacted me to say my outgoing flight has been cancelled and offering me an alternative I'm not happy with.  They say there is nothing else they can offer and my options are to accept or cancel and they will 'request' a refund from the airline.
My issue is they will only cancel the outgoing, so I'm faced booking a new outgoing flight at a vastly inflated cost.  I would like them to cancel and refund both legs but they say they won't.  For comparison, booking direct with the airline one way is £1500, return is £1800.
I've got no idea what my rights are, or if what they are say about not being eligible for a refund on the return is true and I have 48 hrs to make decision...
Any thoughts?

Caz3121

are both outbound and return on a single booking or are these two separate tickets? If you look on the airline website do you see both legs?

Aravis84

I'm not totally sure what you mean (sorry!) - when I log onto Lastminute I can see both legs under the same 'trip'.  I can see the proposed flights on the airlines website.  I think the issue is that outbound is three seperate flights and its original last flight that has been cancelled.

Caz3121

sometimes travel agents/ticket sellers combine separate tickets to create a journey. If a 'separate' flight is cancelled there is a refund due for that flight only. Which airlines are involved? which flight is cancelled?

Westin

The more information you can supply on the airlines and routing the better the quality help you are likely to receive from forum posters.

To offer cheap fares, some online ticket sellers will cobble together flights.  The problem is, as it seems you have found, if one sector is cancelled the other non-linked flights remain active. 

sambalina

This has just happened to me, i found out last week and we leave next week. There was no alternate options for us to but to refund the whole trip and i have had to book new flights at an extra cost of 1k. 
Can you claim on insurance? 

Hoenir

Claim for what ? Amongst other factors, Boeings inability to manufacture aircraft quick enough is rippling far and wide. 

ThorOdinson

MSE needs to get on top of this and do a campaign to publicise the extremely important advice: NEVER BOOK WITH A MIDDLE MAN!

Always book with the airline direct. It might cost a little more, but given how frequently issues come up, it's well worth it.

Westin

Perhaps the focus of any campaign you are calling for should more be to highlight the need to carefully read and understand what you are buying.  Buying 'cheap' often is a fools game.  Unconnected, cobbled together flights sold via an online ticket seller can lead to more problems than any saving made over buying a direct or connected flight.

bagand96

ThorOdinson said:

MSE needs to get on top of this and do a campaign to publicise the extremely important advice: NEVER BOOK WITH A MIDDLE MAN!

Always book with the airline direct. It might cost a little more, but given how frequently issues come up, it's well worth it.

Can't agree.  For a start, this is a money saving website!

Twice in the past 12 months I have booked flights via a third party agent.  I saved around 20% both times over booking direct with the airlines.  I understood what I was booking, who with and the potential issues.  But in my case it was worth it - because I understood everything and was happy with it for the price saving. On the second occasion when logging into the airline I could see exactly what the agent had paid them - the agent sold to me at a loss!