How to submit formal complaint to Vueling about wrongfully being denied boarding & subsequent stress

Springequinox

Hello, please can someone advise how to submit a formal complaint to Vueling?

I sent my complaint via the link on the website that says: "If you want to file a complaint, use this link. This chat is intended for the sole purpose of sending us comments about aspects related to your flight or to any of our services that you didn't like. We'll use your comments internally to improve. If you need to submit a query or claim or manage something that requires a response from us, please use the relevant section on our website." I used the given link (which I'm not sure is right or just gives them feedback) and received the following response, which clearly shows they haven't even read my complaint properly. How should I proceed please?

My complaint

For the attention of Vueling complaints team

On 19 April at 7am I tried to check-in to my flight (Removed by Forum Team). However, I was wrongly told my passport wasn’t valid so I could not fly with my three-year-old daughter.

First, the lady checking passports before dropping bags said although my passport had over three months left to expire, it needed to have at least 3 months left based on the issue date. (This statement was confusing.) She also questioned the compliance of my partner’s passport and sent us all to desk where young man checked our passports (incl. daughter’s). He said none of us could fly. He didn’t put our passport details into the system and he didn’t explain what the rules were in the process.

We decided to travel up to the passport office in London by train (and left our bags in Gatwick car park) to see if we could get same day emergency passports. Once there, they told us they couldn’t let us in and that we would have to pay to book an urgent passport appointment online, which we both did in Newport, Wales on Tuesday.

We then bought breakfast at Costa and were constantly on our phones trying to arrange alternative travel plans for flights and hire car, all while trying to look after our young daughter. We then travelled back to Gatwick airport by train. It was now late afternoon and were about to leave the airport by car to go home when I said, let me just double check the passport rules for travel to EU. 

I’m glad I did that as my passport was valid afterall and staff could have saved myself and daughter a great deal of stress by letting us check-in that morning. (It was only my partner’s passport that didn’t comply due to being issued in Feb 2015 - though he had travelled to Lisbon and back without issue in March 2025.)  We first tried phoning Vueling customer service but they were very unsympathetic and said we would have to pay over £400 for me to get on the evening flight but only with hand luggage.

I went to the vueling desk and explained to (Removed by Forum Team) (a GGS employee) what happened and he agreed my passport was valid and my daughter and I could have flown that morning. He was very helpful and called his manager (surname: Hussain). The manager apologised and booked my daughter and I onto the evening flight departing at 7.50pm. He also advised us to submit a written complaint.

I got out of Florence airport about 11pm at which time Avis car hire closed (plus I didn’t think it was safe to drive after day I had), so my brother (who arrived in Florence airport at lunch time) had to drive back over 1 hour 30 mins from the Anghiari villa we’d booked to collect me. We finally arrived at the villa at 1am in the morning and my daughter was so overly tired, she wouldn’t settle until 4am. I couldn’t cancel the car hire booking so arranged to collect it on the Tuesday evening (22nd April), which meant another additional journey back and forth. I was exhausted due to this that we hardly did anything the first two days (of our one week holiday to celebrate my 40th).

I would like the usual compensation for my daughter and I are entitled to for wrongfully being denied boarding and the subsequent flight delay. Plus expenses incurred due to vueling’s errors covered (listed below), plus an additional amount for the significant stress and disruption caused.

• Train travel to London return on Sat 19th = £37.80
• Costa coffee breakfast for myself & daughter near passport office (we were planning to have a free breakfast in airport lounge with my priority passes) = £21 - two thirds of receipt)
• Gatwick airport food - WH Smith (while conplaing to vueling about what happened & they were sorting putting us on evening flight) = £13 (two thirds of receipt)
• Mileage to and from Florence airport (from Casa Leana Tuscany in Anghiari) covered on 19 & 22 April = 468km ‎= £130.95. 
• Cancellation fee for urgent passport appnt = £32.

If I do not receive a response within eight weeks of 27 April 2025, I will submit a complaint with CAA and/or an ADR.

Regards

Vueling response

Hola: We are writing to inform you that, according to our Transport Conditions available on our website, it is the passenger's responsibility to present the correct and valid documentation necessary to board your flight.  In case of doubt, we advise our passengers to contact the Embassy or Consulate of their country.  If the necessary documentation is not presented, our staff will be forced to deny boarding, without any compensation or refund of the amount paid. We hope that the information provided is helpful to you. We appreciate your trust and look forward to having you on board our future flights. Best regards, Team Vueling Your reference number is: (Removed by Forum Team) Please use this reference for future inquiries about this case or respond to this same email.

eskbanker

I suspect that you'll struggle to get more than the statutory compensation of £220 per person plus the airport food, via their standard claim process, so would focus on recovering that - if Vueling fail to stump up then you could indeed try the CAA (Vueling aren't part of an ADR scheme), but they have limited enforcement powers so you might ultimately need to pursue them (Vueling) via small claims if you locate a UK address for them.

No harm in proceeding with the complaint about the experience as well, but IMHO it'll be more productive to distinguish what you're legally entitled to from what might be considered an appropriate customer service response to an avoidable error by the airline.

saajan_12

Very long and detailed complaint, so I'm not surprised they didn't read it properly. 

Ultimately sounds like you're saying you + daughter could have travelled and so were incorrectly denied boarding. If correct, and you ended up arriving more than 3 hours late, then you'd be entitled to £220 compensation each, based on UK261. That compensation is instead of any and all resulting damages and aggravation. 

So nothing extra for your mileage. Besides the train and cancelled fee could have been avoided by you checking the rules before going to the location, and you'd have a duty to mitigate damages. You might be able to argue for normal care during the delay, ie food & drink though this is usually capped at a low amount. 

bagand96

You should be entitled to denied boarding compensation for you and your daughter. The entitlements as per UK regs are available here https://www.caa.co.uk/passengers-and-public/resolving-travel-problems/delays-and-cancellations/denied-boarding/

You could also claim for food and drinks during the delay for yourself and your daughter as per the regulations. 

I think claiming for your wasted journey to the Passport Office in London is harder claim as you made the choice to go. You say you checked the rules later in the day, that could have been done before leaving Gatwick. 

Claiming mileage in Florence is also going to be harder. The regulations give no entitlement for this and your contract with Vueling is for transport to Florence Airport.

You may have be able to persuade them to give a goodwill gesture on the journey expenses at both ends, but Vueling aren't known for meeting their legal obligations let alone over and above. 

Stress and disruption is a very hard thing to put a number on (and I see you haven't). No entitlement in the regulations so you'd again be relying on goodwill. But even if it ended up in court, it would be a very difficult claim to make. 

MattMattMattUK

(Removed by Forum Team)

When was your passport issued and what was it's expiry date?

Nearlyold

Is this related to the EU rule that the expiry date of a passport is 10 years from the issue date with no allowance for the extra months of validity that the Passport Office may have added on issue (due to the previous Passport being replaced before its expiry date)

Caz3121

Nearlyold said:

Is this related to the EU rule that the expiry date of a passport is 10 years from the issue date with no allowance for the extra months of validity that the Passport Office may have added on issue (due to the previous Passport being replaced before its expiry date)

I would have thought by now most airlines would have been clear on the rules. Many initially denied boarding due to believing (incorrectly) that the expiry date printed on the passport was to be ignored and instead assumed it should be 10 years from issue is the expiry!

The rules are pretty clear...there are 2 separate tests and you need to pass both...

• have a ‘date of issue’ less than 10 years before the date you arrive – if you renewed your passport before 1 October 2018, it may have a date of issue that is more than 10 years ago
• have an ‘expiry date’ at least 3 months after the day you plan to leave the Schengen area (the expiry date does not need to be within 10 years of the date of issue)

It appears OPs partner did not pass both tests,  so no complaint there - denied boarding was correct
OP and daughter were incorrectly denied boarding so should be due compensation at the fixed amount (and hopefully the Vueling desk staff education in the correct interpretation of the rules)

jimi_man

OP

A definite case of IDB however you need to amend your complaint to around 2-3 sentences. Something along the lines of ‘On xxxx my daughter and I checked in for flight xxxx, booked on PNR xxxx and presented valid and in date passports. They had issue date of xxxx and exp date of xxxx which is compliant with the rules. We were both denied boarding after the check in agent incorrectly stated our passports were not valid.’  

Keeping it really simple is the key here. As others have said you’re going to struggle to get anything beyond the IDB compensation. 

At least you know who not to fly with in future.