Love Holidays Transfer and Ryanair Reserved Seating Refund

MrsBSaver

Hi All,

Recently booked a holiday with Love Holidays using our credit card. Have raised a dispute with the credit card company and Love Holidays are refusing to take any ownership. Does anyone have any advice as to how I can get my money back??

We paid £64.00 for a shuttle transfer to and from the airport. Prior to boarding the shuttle bus we confirmed THREE times with the driver and his colleague that we needed to be dropped off at the Riu Palace OASIS and he assured us that he knew where it was despite appearing to be unsure and asking his colleagues. We were the last family to be dropped off despite having two young kids (4 &5) one of our children was actually sick on the coach due to his driving. He dumped us at a random RIU palace hotel and drove off, upon entering the reception we were advised that we not booked into that particular RIU palace hotel PLUS the fact it was an ADULTS only hotel. Which meant we then had to go through the inconvenience of looking for a taxi with two young kids one of which was feeling very ill along with our luggage. We spoke to the transfer company who assured us that we would re imbursed by love holidays.

We paid £52.00 in total for reserved seating for all four of us to sit together as a family ( 35B, 35C, 35D and 35E) on our inbound flight from Las Palmas Gran Canaria Canaria to Stanstead. When it came to board the flight we were advised that our seats had been changed by the airline to completely random seats (4E, 8E, 18F and 28F) which was completely ridiculous given that we our 4 and 5 year olds would have been seated on their own with complete strangers! After explaining the situation the cabin manager 'Tony' told us to sit in row 8 even though the other seats had been allocated to other passengers which then caused a disagreement with them. When we called the flight attendants over to ask them AGAIN to rectify the situation they were VERY unhelpful saying 'its a full flight and we would just have to sit on the seats they had randomly selected'...at this point our child was getting very upset by having to keep moving seats several times!! When we asked one of the flight attendants to put out an announcement to check whether there were any 'two sets of seats' so we could sit next to our children he walked away...frankly they didnt seem too bothered that a 4 and 5 year old would be sitting alone!

ButterCheese

I would just persevere with Love Holidays.  My advice would be to stick to the facts only i.e.

We were dropped off at the wrong hotel and incurred a cost of £x to relocate to the correct Hotel, for which we are seeking reimbursement.

Leave out all the stuff about your kids feeling ill on the bus, that is irrelevent.  The seating situation on the plane was also outside the control of Love Holidays and they cannot over-rule the decisions made by the flight operator and/or cabin crew.  If you paid extra to secure seats all together then you could approach the airline with this complaint, but as you all took the flight and arrived safely, it will be a hard struggle to claim any financial loss incurred by not sitting together

la531983

MrsBSaver said:

When we called the flight attendants over to ask them AGAIN to rectify the situation they were VERY unhelpful saying 'its a full flight and we would just have to sit on the seats they had randomly selected'...at this point our child was getting very upset by having to keep moving seats several times!! When we asked one of the flight attendants to put out an announcement to check whether there were any 'two sets of seats' so we could sit next to our children he walked away..

Be pointless if the flight was full.

MeteredOut

ButterCheese said:

I would just persevere with Love Holidays.  My advice would be to stick to the facts only i.e.

We were dropped off at the wrong hotel and incurred a cost of £x to relocate to the correct Hotel, for which we are seeking reimbursement.

Leave out all the stuff about your kids feeling ill on the bus, that is irrelevent.  The seating situation on the plane was also outside the control of Love Holidays and they cannot over-rule the decisions made by the flight operator and/or cabin crew.  If you paid extra to secure seats all together then you could approach the airline with this complaint, but as you all took the flight and arrived safely, it will be a hard struggle to claim any financial loss incurred by not sitting together

I completely disagree with this. Of course they suffered financial loss. 

If the OP paid for seats together and did not get that, they are due a refund of the seat booking fee. I'd be pushing LH and Ryanair on this, and then going via S75 or chargeback.

la531983

The thing to have done is i would have plonked your children in the E seats at the front and told the people either side they have to look after them, and walked off.

They soon would have tried to have done something to deal with it.

silvercar

MeteredOut said:

ButterCheese said:

I would just persevere with Love Holidays.  My advice would be to stick to the facts only i.e.

We were dropped off at the wrong hotel and incurred a cost of £x to relocate to the correct Hotel, for which we are seeking reimbursement.

Leave out all the stuff about your kids feeling ill on the bus, that is irrelevent.  The seating situation on the plane was also outside the control of Love Holidays and they cannot over-rule the decisions made by the flight operator and/or cabin crew.  If you paid extra to secure seats all together then you could approach the airline with this complaint, but as you all took the flight and arrived safely, it will be a hard struggle to claim any financial loss incurred by not sitting together

I completely disagree with this. If the OP paid for seats together and did not get that, they are due a refund of the seat booking fee. I'd be pushing LH and Ryanair on this, and then going via S75 or chargeback.

Agreed. The OP paid for particular seats and should have go them. The contract is with love holidays, if you paid them, so it’s them you should pursue.

As for the actual flight, the cabin crew should have been more active and ensured two young children weren’t seated alone as it’s against flight regulations.

personally, if the cabin manager had told me to sit as a family in row 8 that’s what I would have done; any passenger or other crew who had a problem with it could be directed back to the cabin manager.

Westin

la531983 said:

The thing to have done is i would have plonked your children in the E seats at the front and told the people either side they have to look after them, and walked off.

They soon would have tried to have done something to deal with it.

Yep. Probably off load you. Far easier solution if the passenger has attitude like that at the start of the flight.


To the OP's issue:-

1. Mess up with the transfer - fair to expect Love Holidays to either refund the initial transfer cost, or to pay for the taxi to the correct hotel.  I believe the two hotels are about 10 minutes drive apart.   Initial complaint to Love Holidays following process on their website. Wait up to 28 days for a response.  Doing a S75 prior to this is jumping the gun.

2. Flight seat issue - likely the OP had been booked to fly on a RyanAir 737 Max 8200.  Row 35 being the last row of this aircraft type.  If a smaller B737-800 was used then seating would need to be changed. This should have been picked up at bag-drop or the gate. OP may find that the flight charge is direct with RyanAir rather than Love Holidays (credit card statement will show).  Whilst a refund may be due on the pre-booked seats it might be something to take up with RyanAir. Much will depend on where the party were finally seated.  If separated then I agree that RyanAir should return the seat assignment fees.  If allocated together elsewhere on the plane in the end then RyanAir might consider that as being a suitable alternative. Again a process to first follow rather than straight to S75.

bagand96

silvercar said:

As for the actual flight, the cabin crew should have been more active and ensured two young children weren’t seated alone as it’s against flight regulations.

Which regulations? There's no UK law requiring minors to be sat with their guardians.  Don't think there's any EU law either (flight departed Spain and may have been a UK, Irish, Maltese or Polish registered aircraft).  Although regulators all advise against splitting up families due to obvious safety concerns.  Any decent cabin manager should be able to resolve this situation though (OP hasn't said what seats were actually traveled in)

As for the rest I agree with @Westin's advice.

silvercar

bagand96 said:

silvercar said:

As for the actual flight, the cabin crew should have been more active and ensured two young children weren’t seated alone as it’s against flight regulations.

Which regulations? There's no UK law requiring minors to be sat with their guardians.  Don't think there's any EU law either (flight departed Spain and may have been a UK, Irish, Maltese or Polish registered aircraft).  Although regulators all advise against splitting up families due to obvious safety concerns.  Any decent cabin manager should be able to resolve this situation though (OP hasn't said what seats were actually traveled in)

As for the rest I agree with @Westin's advice.

Ryan air’s own policy:

”What is Ryanair’s Family Seat Policy?

For safety reasons, children under the age of 12 must sit beside an accompanying adult, and infants (aged 8 days to 23 months inclusive) must sit on an accompanying adult’s lap. It is mandatory for an adult travelling with children under 12 (excl. infants) to reserve a seat. A maximum of four children for every one adult on the same booking will receive a reserved seat free of charge. This ensures parents of young children sit together during the flight. This will also allow you to check-in for your flight 60 days before departure. It is not mandatory for any other adults or teenagers in the booking to reserve a seat, however they may choose to do so if they wish to seat with the rest of the family.”

So the flight attendant who did nothing and ignored the cabin managers directive that they should all sit in the row, breached their own company policy.

Reading this policy, it looks like OP should only have been charged for the adults and the children should have had reserved seats for free.

daveyjp

With an aircraft change all seating should be reallocated at check in. 

 The problem is check in is now online weeks before the flight and 20-30 minute turnaround sorting it out quickly isn't possible.

Be thankful it wasn't Wizzair who once swapped for a larger aircraft and didn't reallocate seats.  As no one was sat in the rear rows the aircraft ended up being so unbalanced it almost ended in disaster.