Easyjet rejected claim - overbooked flight
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venom6868
Posts: 7 Forumite
Hello I really need some assistance with an issue I am having with easyjet.
At the end of July my Wife and I planned a last minute trip to Portugal from Gatwick with easyjet, my wife is expecting our first child so this was an important trip for us and she was was quite heavily pregnant at the time.
Upon arriving at gatwick we were told the flight was overbooked and we did not have SEATS!!! we were told to go to the gate and wait to see if nobody showed for their flights, a terrible experience, we were made to feel like it was our fault this had happened!
To cut the story short after returning to check in I was told to wait in the que for customer services 3 hours of queuing no offer of a seat for my wife, I was told there were no flights available for 5 days, from any airport in England or Scotland with easyjet and I was on my own. I was told I could pay for my own flights with another airline and easyjet would refund the costs as long as I kept the invoices.
I spoke to a travel agent at Gatwick and they advised of a flight from Heathrow leaving in 3 hours with a 4 hour stop off in cork total journey time of some 8 hours, a lot more than the original planned 2 hours. this would be at a cost of £600 each.
Not wanting to miss out on the holiday, and my wife being adamant she wanted to go as our lives are about to change forever we bought the tickets, I checked all comparison websites for flight are there were none available for at least 5 days.
We got a cab to LHR from LGW, paid for flights, bought food during our wait, and paid for new transfers all of which I claimed back from easyjet on my return.
Today I received an email from easyjet after some back and forth of them saying they cant find my flight details, stating they are going to pay me the expenses minus the flights (almost £1200) as there was alternative flight within 48 hours.
This is not what I was told at "customer Services" at LGW, I was offered a flight after my return date 5 days later, nothing else at all. nothing in writing, I was told all the notes had been put in the system.
I am so mad that this can happen.
Please can someone give some advise on how to progress this, I am considering the Small Claims route as I have had enough of this faffing around.
At the end of July my Wife and I planned a last minute trip to Portugal from Gatwick with easyjet, my wife is expecting our first child so this was an important trip for us and she was was quite heavily pregnant at the time.
Upon arriving at gatwick we were told the flight was overbooked and we did not have SEATS!!! we were told to go to the gate and wait to see if nobody showed for their flights, a terrible experience, we were made to feel like it was our fault this had happened!
To cut the story short after returning to check in I was told to wait in the que for customer services 3 hours of queuing no offer of a seat for my wife, I was told there were no flights available for 5 days, from any airport in England or Scotland with easyjet and I was on my own. I was told I could pay for my own flights with another airline and easyjet would refund the costs as long as I kept the invoices.
I spoke to a travel agent at Gatwick and they advised of a flight from Heathrow leaving in 3 hours with a 4 hour stop off in cork total journey time of some 8 hours, a lot more than the original planned 2 hours. this would be at a cost of £600 each.
Not wanting to miss out on the holiday, and my wife being adamant she wanted to go as our lives are about to change forever we bought the tickets, I checked all comparison websites for flight are there were none available for at least 5 days.
We got a cab to LHR from LGW, paid for flights, bought food during our wait, and paid for new transfers all of which I claimed back from easyjet on my return.
Today I received an email from easyjet after some back and forth of them saying they cant find my flight details, stating they are going to pay me the expenses minus the flights (almost £1200) as there was alternative flight within 48 hours.
This is not what I was told at "customer Services" at LGW, I was offered a flight after my return date 5 days later, nothing else at all. nothing in writing, I was told all the notes had been put in the system.
I am so mad that this can happen.
Please can someone give some advise on how to progress this, I am considering the Small Claims route as I have had enough of this faffing around.
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Comments
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Sounds like you will be able to make a claim under EU261 for denied boarding compensation. They should have given you details of this at Gatwick but you can also Google for more details.
Not sure why the mix up over the new flight option. Sounds like you might need to get back in touch with them to explain why you ended up taking the LHR/ORK/FAO routing especially if you had been told that they could not offer alternatives for so long (not the within 48 hours that they are now saying which btw I would also see as unacceptable as a wait).
When EZY oversell flights they would normally send passengers to the gate to be (hopefully) seated by the gate team. Your boarding card has SAG printed on it - Seat At Gate. The handling agent should also ask for volunteers to come off the flight when the service is oversold but in reality given their quick turn around and a general drive to board flights quickly, this seems to rarely happen. You should certainly not have been made to feel that it was your fault if you could not be boarded due to the overbooking.
You also mention that they can not find your flights details. Rather strange given that they must of linked these up to pay for your delayed expenses, but contact them again with your full names, original flight number, routing, date of travel and booking reference. I would like to think that once they have this and hear back from you that things will get sorted.
Finally, I would leave the reference out in your correspondence about your pregnant wife and things like queuing for 3 hours at the customer service desk and no seat given to your wife. Just stick to the facts.
Hope you get things sorted.0 -
I'd go to small claims court. Sadly I've heard the "were told to buy new flights, now they won't reimburse" story many times.0
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Sounds like you will be able to make a claim under EU261 for denied boarding compensation. They should have given you details of this at Gatwick but you can also Google for more details.
Not sure why the mix up over the new flight option. Sounds like you might need to get back in touch with them to explain why you ended up taking the LHR/ORK/FAO routing especially if you had been told that they could not offer alternatives for so long (not the within 48 hours that they are now saying which btw I would also see as unacceptable as a wait).
When EZY oversell flights they would normally send passengers to the gate to be (hopefully) seated by the gate team. Your boarding card has SAG printed on it - Seat At Gate. The handling agent should also ask for volunteers to come off the flight when the service is oversold but in reality given their quick turn around and a general drive to board flights quickly, this seems to rarely happen. You should certainly not have been made to feel that it was your fault if you could not be boarded due to the overbooking.
You also mention that they can not find your flights details. Rather strange given that they must of linked these up to pay for your delayed expenses, but contact them again with your full names, original flight number, routing, date of travel and booking reference. I would like to think that once they have this and hear back from you that things will get sorted.
Finally, I would leave the reference out in your correspondence about your pregnant wife and things like queuing for 3 hours at the customer service desk and no seat given to your wife. Just stick to the facts.
Hope you get things sorted.
Thanks for the response.
Sorry I didn't not make myself clear originally.
Easyjet initially said they could not find my booking, I emailed them the information you stated and they responded stating they will pay the expenses but not the flight;
"Further to our initial reply we can again confirm that you are not entitled to the reimbursement of any expenses you have claimed under EU Regulation 261/2004.
Please see a breakdown of your claim below and the reasons for non-payment.
1) Alternate Carrier to the Destination: £**** (Flights available within 48 hours)"0 -
Usual EJ bovine excrement and misinformation. Can I suggest you copy, paste and edit this into the flight delay section, look for the easyJet thread. There are many veterans there with advice and help for you.If you're new. read The FAQ and Vauban's Guide
The alleged Ringleader.........0 -
Surely with easyjet every passenger gets a numbered seat at the time of booking as they email you a pdf boarding pass with seat letter and row number on it - are you saying that the computer will sometimes allocate 2 people the same seat?0
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Surely with easyjet every passenger gets a numbered seat at the time of booking as they email you a pdf boarding pass with seat letter and row number on it - are you saying that the computer will sometimes allocate 2 people the same seat?
No they had intentionally overbooked the flight in the hope that people would miss their flight, they had overbooked this flight by 5 passengers, none of us managed to get on!
When I tried to check in online I got an error message, telling me to go to the check in desk at the airport.0
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