Last minute flight schedule change

TheHappyFerret

I booked a flight from London to Athens on Wizz, leaving Gatwick 14.00. I live two hours away from the airport, north of London, but there were no good alternatives available from a nearer one (plus I have a direct train on Thameslink, at least in theory, but that's a different complaint)

Only when I went to check in online the evening before did I find the flight rescheduled **earlier** to 07.00, and with no train due to arrive early enough, I had to pack and run for a very late train, and booked a room in the on-site hotel at Gatwick while on my way (arrive 2am, get out of bed 5am!!). It was definitely a schedule change and not a re-booking as the flight number was the same - checking flightaware.com it appears the flight has permanently moved to 07.00 and this was the first day that it operated at that time. Am I entitled to compensation to cover the hotel cost? I haven't had a response to my complaint yet... 

Caz3121

How long ago did you book the flight and did you book direct with the airline.
i suspect the change relates to winter to summer timetable but these changes would have been known a few weeks ago.
how long (before checking in) did you view your booking on the airline website? It is possible the notification of the schedule change went into spam mail

TheHappyFerret

It was via booking.com - I do check my spam daily and nothing appeared there.

la531983

TheHappyFerret said:

It was via booking.com - I do check my spam daily and nothing appeared there.

As an aside, why did you use a third party to book a flight only (I assume?) with Wizz? That may have complicated the issue, as Wizz would have sent the email to Booking.com as the bookers of the flight, more than likely.

Always book direct with the likes of Wizz, Ryanair, Easyjet etc.

Westin

Is there a chance that you had been looking at the arrival time in ATH?

WUK5745 has been operating a morning schedule since 30 March.  Prior to that it was a 15:00-15:15 departure schedule from LGW.

Caz3121

TheHappyFerret said:

It was via booking.com - I do check my spam daily and nothing appeared there.

Were you checking your booking on the wizz website? I would have expected the change to show on the website over a month ago

bagand96

TheHappyFerret said:

It was via booking.com - I do check my spam daily and nothing appeared there.

If Wizzair changed the schedule then they will nornally have sent notification to the email address provided on the reservation.

In your case that might be a booking.com/GoToGate email address rather than your own. It's then the responsibility of the agent to pass that info on to you. If your agent failed that's not the responsibility of Wizzair.