Re holiday flight change

[Watda]

We booked a holiday for June next year about three months ago. We booked with a company who we don’t normally travel with as they had the best flight times.

We are flying to antalya and normally the flights are late in the evening. The flight we booked was scheduled to depart at 6am. We were planning on going anyway but it just so happened that a friend of ours who lives in turkey was having a birthday party that evening and this was the only flight which worked for us in that regard.

We have now received notification that our flight has been changed by 11:40 to 17:40.
The tour operator’s definition of a major change is more than 12 hours.

I’m so annoyed about this and I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to do. How can a change of almost 11 hours be minor?

It’s all down to the T&C’s you agreed to when you booked. Schedule changes within a 12 hour window are not considered unusual in travel I’m afraid.

That’s why scheduled flights are more expensive than charter flights.

Happens with scheduled flights too. Nothing you can do, it's completely rubbish but they don't have to provide compensation if it's more than 2 weeks before you are due to fly.

They seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that people choose a certain flight time because it suits their plans.

I know, really frustrating we have had this on more than one occasion. Often book a holiday and pay extra for better flights only for them to change it nearer the time of travel. Makes me really annoyed but nothing you can do as less than 12 hours consideeed reasonable.

Honestly, I’m not at all bothered about compensation, I just want to be able to change my holiday as the flights are no longer suitable.