EasyJet feckers !!

[ginislife]

Feb 21 I booked a fairly expensive holiday, 2 centre, 5 nights hotel and a weeks cruise. We have to fly from Gatwick which is totally shite for us as we're north of Birmingham. Flight is 5pm in the afternoon so we dont need a hotel the night before and we get back into Gatwick late at night so we've booked a car park rather than a hotel with free parking. We go in 2 weeks.

Today I've had a phone call to say they've cancelled our flight and we're rebooked onto one flying to the other end of the island we go to first - longer transfer time - and at 9.20 in the morning. Wtf.

We'd need to leave home at 1.00am to be there in time or stay in a hotel which we'd need to pay for - but we've already paid for car parking which is no doubt non refundable.

Fully conscious that this is a 1st world problem and that we're very lucky to be going at all but they just don't care about anyones plans and costs. Grrrrrrrrr rant over

Is there another flight from a closer airport that would work better for you? If so, can you ask to be rebooked onto that one?

That's what I've done. We'd still lose the car park though no doubt. I've tried to look myself but you have to choose a return flight and we're not returning from the same place as the ship docks elsewhere at the end of the trip.

That’s why you never book anything non refundable when it comes to budget airlines. We were due to go to Prague last year and Easyjet kept changing the flights, it got to the 4th change and I gave up, was sick of rebooking hotels, we got back from Malta today instead, it cost us £182 to change our flights by two days due to DH being on a course yet they can swap and change with no compensation due!

Can you claim the parking costs back on your insurance at least? I know that doesn’t solve the hotel / early start chaos though :(

Even if you have to be at Gatwick for 6.20am, how on earth do you think it'll take over 5 hours to get from Birmingham in the middle of the night?

If I was to set off now from Manchester it's less than 4.5 hours drive.

Extend the parking, job done. I really don't see the issue?

If you're north of Birmingham, I don't suppose they have a flight to this new airport that you're flying to that they could switch you to?

Sorry from Liverpool or Manchester to the new airport.

but we've already paid for car parking which is no doubt non refundable.

Have you checked whether the parking actually is non-refundable? My experience is that airport parking has become more flexible since Covid.

If the flight departure or arrival has changed significantly you can claim eu 261 compensation

Where are you flying to?
How much has your arrival time changed by?

If you booked Gatwick official Long Stay parking - North and South, this is now refundable.
They deserve a mention for being brilliant to customers during lockdown with quick efficient refunds - and still great now.

Why don't you have a travel lodge or something somewhere nearish Gatwick the night before, and continue to use the airport parking you've already booked?

Is the return flight unchanged (so far....)?

If it’s Less than 14 days If you don’t accept the change they’ve to compensate you

@EasterIssland it's just more than 14 days
@JurasicPerks as far as I know return flight is unchanged
@SynchroSwimmer that makes me feel better as that's what we've booked. My friend booked it so I can't check and she's not rung me back yet
@BarbaraofSeville that's what I've asked for
@Fuuuuuckit yes you're probably right but it's still a 2.30/3.00 job and we had plans to drink champagne before the flight. 6.30am isn't quite the same as 4pm !! And yes we can extend the parking but it's just pissing me off that you make plans according to the info you're given and they just cancel it at such short notice.
@BorgQueen not our choice to fly EJ. It's effectively a package so the flights were booked for us. It's bad enough it's Gatwick !!

Sorry, I was just having a rant.

Use skyscanner.com to find one way flights that might work better.

There is a good hotel in Gatwick airport (literally above the departures gates) which is v good for early flights and has family rooms.

Argh so annoying, OP. I remember years ago we had an easyJet flight booked for late afternoon on Boxing Day (nice and civilised after all the festivities) and they cancelled it and shifted us to 6am 👍🏻

That said, we have booked Gatwick parking a couple of times recently at fairly short notice and I'm sure it said you can change your booking up to 24 hours beforehand without issue. Hopefully that included cancellation, too. Hope you find a way to make it work and still enjoy your hols!

@Limoux To the best of my professional knowledge, EU 261 (now UK 261 post brexit) only applies to a delay or cancellation on the day.

In the OP's case as the reschedule is a case of several hours she should be able to reject it and claim a refund before booking a flight from elsewhere (this will not affect the return leg as easyJet are a point to point carrier, so return flights are not linked to each other).

Just to add, yes it's shit that they've changed your flight, and I really really do understand, but the travel industry has had and is still having the worst time in history due to covid. If you can find any slack in your heart, please cut them it.

No airline is cancelling flights deliberately to piss people off. It costs them substantially more to cancel a busy flight than it does to operate it. It's not a flippant decision.

I just booked a flight to the US, chosen because of the good connections. Got an email within hours saying they had changed the flight so I now have hours hanging around in an airport. But they are still selling tickets for the original flight I booked. Think there is a scam going on here.

@pixie5121 thanks for your contribution but believe me it was not our choice to fly from Gatwick. We were told it was our only option by the travel company. They booked the flights as part of the package.

You get longer on holiday! Woop!

Sympathcize. Not in the same circumstances, but we had a flight cancelled recently. Have to say on the return, I was just grateful to get on the flight. So many staff off with covid, the lady who checked ALL of us in, ended up checking all our boarding passes. She got three lots of abuse from one person for the queue - horrible to see. Nothing to complain about really, as flight taxied five mins after time and landed early.

Airlines and airports were asking you to be a airports three hours before. We couldn't check in until two hours before, so you might want to ignore that, and just allow two hours plus time for travel delays.

Am currently sat in a perfectly nice Travelodge 5 mins from Gatwick that cost us £38 for the night. I'd do that.

If you’ve booked a package, can you not call your TA and say this isn’t an acceptable option? We went on holiday in Jan and two separate flights were cancelled. After the second cancellation we were booked onto a flight that would have meant spending ten hours at Charles de Gaulle airport! We rang and said we weren’t happy and ended up on a far better flight which presumably cost more.

It’s for things like this that I will occasionally use an agent. Let them do the legwork to come up with something better if it’s available.