SWISS AIR TERRIBLE - HELP

Noelman105

In February we booked 3 return flight from the UK to the Phillipines with Swiss Air. One started in Birmingham and 2 in London so there were 2 separate bookings.

Quite soon after booking one of the flights legs was cancelled which meant an additional 8 hours in Zurich Airport. Annoying but as frequent flyers we know these things happen so accepted it.

However almost every month we have received an email stating "Please call us urgently" due to a change in our flight. They then offer us insane alternatives, one include an ADDITIONAL (to the layovers already) 21 hours in layovers. We reject them as we have found better alternatives on their website, they claim the flights are full, we argue they are not and eventually they relent and say the booking is confirmed.

However then a few weeks (or sometimes hours) later we receive another email and they say the flight is no longer available.

Between us we have spent 25+ hours with Swiss and they have shown no sympathy or remorse. When we call they think we have only just purchased the ticket as the 'new' tickets have only just been reissued and we have to convince them we booked in February and have had numerous changes.

Last night my partner spent an hour on the phone and we were told the return flights were confirmed however this morning we woke up to a "Please call us urgently" and we're told the flights were no longer available.

They say we have to fly a day before or after or a refund.....but alternative flights are much more expensive now.

The flights they say are no longer available are with a partner airline and our current status is that we have no return flights.

Does anyone have any advice? Is there anything we can do. 

eskbanker

While I can sympathise with the poor customer experience angle of much of your post, the focus presumably needs to be on ascertaining exactly what your current rights are under the regulations, so when did you last have a confirmed and documented or ticketed reservation?

For that booking, are you challenging that the flights are unavailable, or recognising that they are and simply trying to find acceptable alternatives?

bagand96

Odd situation.  Almost sounds like an IT glitch generating the loop of booking/cancellation emails.  What does the booking show when you log into the Swiss website? Are you booked on your requested flights or does it show cancelled?

Noelman105 said:

They say we have to fly a day before or after or a refund.....but alternative flights are much more expensive now.

The flights they say are no longer available are with a partner airline and our current status is that we have no return flights.

Does anyone have any advice? Is there anything we can do. 

Your rights under EC261 are for your choice of refund or re-routing.  If the re-routing options Swiss provide are not acceptable you can request rerouting on other airlines on the same travel date.  Swiss are part of Lufthansa group so it might be worth searching on Lufthansa.com to see if there's any acceptable alternatives on your travel date (you're not limited to Lufthansa group either - but it might be easier to persuade them to rebook you on codeshare flights)

Noelman105

Hello. It currently only shows the outbound flight and no return is showing.....as though we never booked it.
One of the flights they rebooked us on was with Lufthansa....but a a few days later ai received an email saying "Please call us urgently" and they they said it was no longer available. We have also been booked onto a Singapore airways flight twice but the same thing happens again.