airline switched my flights? Am I entitled to a refund?

[icebearforpresident]

A few months ago I booked DH, the kids and I on an Air France flight to Paris for April. Leaving 11am which was perfect as we have at least 2 hours travel to get to the airport.

Get an email today saying the flight we were on was cancelled and we are now on the 6am flight. We now have no choice but to stay at a hotel the night before and need to be at the airport at 4.30am with a 3 year old and a 5 year old.

Looking at the Air France website we are entitled to compensation if our arrival is delayed by 2hrs but can’t see anything about if our booking is changed by them.

Any regular travellers here that can shed any light on it for me?

Not sure about Air France but Virgin Atlantic did the same to me and when I rang up they moved me onto a different flight free of charge. In my case they had moved me to a much later flight so I found the earlier flight online and rang up to change

Not spoken to the airline yet (wanted to be clued up on my rights) but had a quick search on their website and it’s either 6am or 5pm. We’re going to Disneyland so the 5pm flight means we miss our entire first day. There’s an early afternoon flight but it’s with easy jet so I would need Air France to refund me before I could book, by which time it might not be available and I have no flights!

If the flight is April then I don't think you will be entitled to any compensation. It's usually only due for cancellations within 14 days. Have you spoken to them about why it changed? They may have other flights they are willing to move you to or you could cancel and book with someone else.

The relevant regulations are EU directive 261.

Yes, you should be able to claim a refund for the cancelled flight. I've tried to find exactly where it says under the conditions of carriage, but it's pretty vague! I'd get in touch with them to get that flight refunded.

If you’re going to have to fork out for an extra hotel night, I’d try to get a flight the night before and find somewhere cheap to stay on the outskirts of Paris. Then you can have a nice leisurely start to the Saturday in Disneyland.

I had the same situation with klm recently managed to flights changed just by talking them (weirdly by WhatsApp).

TBDO that’s a really good idea, I never would have thought of that. A quick search gives me a hotel at CDG for the same as the hotel and there’s a flight at 5.30pm on the Sunday. Will phone customer services on the morning and see if they can bring us forward a day. We planned to get the train from the airport to Disney anyway so staying at an airport hotel would suit perfectly.