Wizzair

[KitchenSinkDrama1]

Hey All. Anyone used Wizzair before? Single mum to two teens here, I saved and saved for a holiday to Tenerife and it seemed like a bargain at the time...I've booked with them for the first time in co with LoveHolidays and I'm really appalled by all the add ons - and we haven't even left yet!

I’ve flown with Wizzair, they’re perfectly okay. I would never book through a third party though. All the ‘hidden’ costs are explained outright when you book directly with the airline. The issue here isn’t wizzair, its love holidays and their money-making scheme.

I should add, the hand luggage I bought (£90 extra for us to take small cases!), turned out to be 1cm smaller than usual hand luggage, forcing us into an impossible conundrum: pay the additional £90 - all this on top of paying to sit together and paying for refreshments on board - or deny the kids some of their absolute essentials.

Where are you flying from? We flew with them from Luton recently and check-in was APPALLING. We queued for so long to check-in as bag drop wasn’t working, and they kept calling passengers from other flights to go ahead of us and other passengers. They’d obviously turned up late to check-in, but just got bumped up continuously. Awful.

Flight itself was fine and cabin crew lovely.

Hi GrandSlamFinalee, thanks for your reply.
It seems I've made a grave mistake and am paying for it! All part of a package deal which I could just about manage...
I disagree on your assertion re this not being WizzAir's fault though, it seems a cynical ploy to go one centimetre below the common hand luggage standard and to charge £18pp each way so I can sit with my children, amounting to another £150 or so.
I live and learn.

@The2Omicronnies Oh no! I'm dreading it. Yes, we are flying to and from Luton to Tenerife....!

'Wizzair' is my first post on Mumsnet and I am so grateful to the sisters who have replied, thank you very much. I think, according to the responses, I should change the title to "Wizzair&LoveHolidays" or some such, but I don't know how! Would anyone be able to advise me on this please?

Hi OP so if you haven't traveled for a while, you may not be aware but pretty much all the airlines gouge you now for luggage, seats together and food on board, unless you buy a package from someone like Jet2holidays, but they are normally more expensive.

Just make sure you have travel insurance - get it sooner rather than later - so if anything does go wrong ( which it's unlikely to) you will have some cover. Also not sure if they work in Tenerife but worth having the European health cover cards in addition to your travel insurance. They are free and you apply online.

We love Tenerife, so have a great time.

Dd flew with them to Cyprus in July from Gatwick and it was fine, everything she expected from low cost air. She took carry on - normal size rucksack which was enough for 9 days of holiday for a teenager so didn't pay for extra luggage and no refreshments. Hope all goes well for your experience.

I had a perfectly good flight with them, you just need to be careful as the price of flights is great if you only want to take a handbag with you when you add on a cabin bag, luggage, allocating seats etc it doesn't work out all that cheap.

Wizzair’s measurements are 55x40x23. The standard is 55x40x20 - some airlines have a slightly more generous allowance of 56cm height (if that’s what you mean by ‘one cm less’) but it’s definitely not the norm. It’s not a cynical ploy, countless other airlines use 55cm.

90% of airlines also charge you for pre-allocated seating. These include British Airways, Lufthansa, Swissair, American Airlines, I could go on. It’s not just Wizzair, it’s the expensive companies too. I take dozens of flights each year and I can’t even remember last time I was given a free choice of seat - except for a transatlantic flight where I booked a premium fare. Nowadays, airlines will charge you for everything they can come up with. It’s just the (sad) reality of low-cost travel.

if you haven't traveled for a while, you may not be aware but pretty much all the airlines gouge you now for luggage, seats together and food on board, unless you buy a package from someone like Jet2holidays, but they are normally more expensive.

Airline economics 101 - the airlines have to make money somehow, so it's either a cheap ticket and then ancillary revenue, menu pricing ( which I know many people think is "gouging" or "ripping off") or charging a higher flat rate, with no extras.

We had a flight booked with Wizzair for our holiday this year. We booked it direct.

Just as we were leaving for the airport they cancelled the flight. There were then no alternative flights available on their system for a week and a half. They did not offer us flights with an alternative carrier as they are apparently supposed to do and they are impossible to get through to on the phone.

We lost £2k on our accommodation because we couldn't get to it.

Insurance saying they won't cover because we were not at the airport when the flight was cancelled.

Wizzair then refused to refund our ticket cost saying we were only entitled to vouchers for a future flight. We had no choice but to initiate a charge back with our bank.

We have applied for flight cancellation compensation that we are entitled to but they haven't made that easy.

We have to wait 30 days for a response and judging by other peoples experiences discussed on twitter we could wait up to three months or maybe not even see our compensation ever.

They charge you a lot to call their customer service line and their live chat never seems to work. If they email you and you need to reply the email bounces back because their mail box is full.

So in short thanks to wizzair we lost our holiday and are down £2000 ( would have been another £1500 if we hadn't known about the credit card charge back system )

Needless to say I would never book a flight through them ever again.

@Rookiemare, thank you for your kind reply. You are quite right, I haven't travelled anywhere for the last several years (let alone with teenagers!)and did not know this about hand luggage. Would you happen to know how I might include @LoveHolidays in my OP? I have an email from LoveHolidays saying the dimensions allowed on board for Wizzair are just (in centimetres!) 40.30.20cm.

Angel, I'm so sorry to read this! Dreading the holiday now - not just because of what you said darling - because of my own experience so far and what others are saying. Damn!

Thanks. I do think parents ought to be able to sit with their children at no extra charge though, and the 1cm deficit in 'normal hand' luggage dimensions is particularly cynical!

I want @LoveHolidays to see this thread - but I'm getting old and am rubbish with technology and don't know how to add them. Advice please?

I have seen some contact wizz air themselves to add on luggage instead of via love holidays and it worked out cheaper. Worth a try.

Possible on Twitter / Facebook but not on Mumsnet, I'm afraid.

I have an email from LoveHolidays saying the dimensions allowed on board for Wizzair are just (in centimetres!) 40.30.20cm.

Okay, those are the dimensions of what used to be the ‘second / personal item’ not of the cabin suitcase. If it’s consolation, you can take a bigger item with you (backpack / rucksack), they never check those.

any consolation*

We flew WizzAir to Krakow. No issues at all. I remember we had to call them about something. I seem to have buried the trauma of what! I did speak to a human on the phone and it was all resolved.

@AngelsWithSilverWings can't you say you were already at the airport?

Op when are you going?

@NCTDN no we would never do anything dishonest with an insurance claim. Apart from anything DH works in finance and would lose his job if found out.

We have now put our claim in on the basis that the reason why the airline texted us rather than waiting until we got to the airport was because of the government asking them to do so in order to reduce the chaotic scenes seen at airports earlier in the summer.

Hoping the insurance companies see that we had no option but to just stay at home and try ( and fail) to find alternative flights ourselves rather than needlessly travel to an airport to catch a flight that had already need cancelled.

Not holding out much hope though.

Just to update the thread re our insurance claim - our travel insurance finally agreed to pay out after we sent them a copy of the news article about Wizzair being investigated for not following the consumer protection rules re helping passengers find alternative flights after cancellations.