Nightmare journey

wendy_and_damian

Any advice on how we can get some sort of compensation would be appreciated,
Our first flight was Denver to Toronto with Air Canada leaving at 11.15am on arriving at the airport we were told the flight had been cancelled due to bad weather, meaning that we would miss our connection in Toronto to Heathrow, we were put on standby for the Toronto to Heathrow flight, not a problem or so we thought, the next available flight to Heathrow would be at 9am the following morning, Denver check-in staff assured us we would be put in hotel, food provided, taxi to airport etc.
The Denver to Toronto flight eventually left at 5.30pm, we proceeded to the check-in at Toronto after waiting for our bags to be off loaded for 40mins, to be told there is no guarantee that we would get the 9am flight and no hotel would be offered, spoke to the customer service manager who assured us we would be on the 9am flight, we were top priority and would even get a executive seat on the plane - waited in Toronto airport with $8 each to buy breakfast - $7.99 for a sandwich!!!! - went to checkin for 9am flight - told we were number 20 and 21 on standby list and there was no way we would get the 9am flight or the 6.10pm flight the same day.
Eventually booked on the 8.10pm flight arriving back at Heathrow 26 hours later than expected to find that our bags had not got the same plane. We were travelling with two other people who had a later connecting flight, so we had to get a taxi costing 135 pounds, what are we entitled to claim, we have holiday insurance and i have sent for a claim form, but should i write to the air canada who all the flights were booked with.
Thank you

dmg24

Were the flights all part of the same ticket i.e. connecting flights?

wendy_and_damian

Yes they were all part of the same ticket all with air canada

dzug

You were delayed by bad weather - the airline has no responsibility to pay compensation. They are supposed to look after you - it sounds as though they made a bit of a hash of this

You might get an ex gratia payment if you write (more likely vouchers off a future flight), but there is no entitlement.

You MAY get something for delayed luggage, depending on how long it took to catch up with you and whether you had to buy emergency clothing/toiletries - bit unlikely on your way home maybe.

Alan_Bowen

Sorry to have to agree, if the flight was delayed due to bad weather, there is no entitlement to compensation and EU rules on compensation don't apply to flights on non EU airlines flights into the UK. Regretably Denver is one of the worst US airports for weather delays. It seems that if your bags caught up with you shortly afterwards, there will be no claim as of right at all. If airlines had to pay compensation for every weather related delay they would have to put the fares up or go out of business, so by all means plead to their better nature, but don't be waiting for the postman to arrive with a cheque