[Albion] Last minute.com have just cancelled my Athens trip

[dazzer6666]

Because even if you use Skyscanner, the results will give you a myriad of companies undercutting the official supplier price to get the business. Whether or not they actually can deliver is something you only find out later but many appear to be reputable companies and, in normal scenarios, I think they often come up with the goods. I imagine the sudden influx of bookings and demand that wasn’t anticipated has caused them backtrack.

I never book flights other than through the airline any more as even small issues become impossible to address and the hassle’s simply not worth the saving. Have had no bad experiences with hotels though and frequently got better deals than booking direct. Tend to stick with Hotels.com and Booking.com who don’t hide lots of extra potential charges in their terms and conditions.

As for Easyjet, I’d choose them ahead of BA if the price was the same. At least Easyjet are up front about being a budget/mid-range airline. BA just behave like one.

I tend to book hotels direct as well - way more chance of things like upgrades and they’ll almost always match any price you can get via a third party anyway.

 

[Weststander]

I tend to book hotels direct as well - way more chance of things like upgrades and they’ll almost always match any price you can get via a third party anyway.

They’re also more amenable to later change requests I’ve found. I like hotels.com, but their customer services wouldn’t allow me to change to less popular dates, even when the hotel said it was fine.

 

[Colonel Mustard]

What if we lose horribly? I would want to get out of Athens ASAP. If I was going I would need to be arriving back the early hours of Friday morning. The rest of the year is for holidays.

Why? Athens is a great city, and a very nice place to spend some time in the low season when accommodation is cheap and the temperature usually v pleasant. I’m there for a week and looking forward to it regardless of the result. I’m obviously hoping that Albion will be through before this match in any case.

 

[Change at Barnham]

I've had two easyJet Holidays to Madiera and they've been superb, I've booked again in Nov. I would recommend them.

 

[HantsSeagull]

expedia are good in my experience

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

Recent history though.

Cancelled flights in the summer of 2022

BA 755 v EasyJet 1,482

The only carrier I’ve ever had a cancelled flight with is EasyJet and that was last October.

Same here. Late night flight to Geneva Easyjet cancelled supposedly because of fog. We re-booked on BA there and then and flew straight out of Gatwick from that ‘foggy’ runway. Perhaps a certain ex NSC poster was the Easyjet weather forecaster ? Travel insurance covered the cost and we were told Easyjet have a track record of cancelling late night flights. We were already sick of the free for all over seats and never flew with them again. I have long felt that it is only worth traveling with good service. No interest in low cost travel or crappy hotels.

 

[jonny.rainbow]

Same here. Late night flight to Geneva Easyjet cancelled supposedly because of fog. We re-booked on BA there and then and flew straight out of Gatwick from that foggy runway. Perhaps a certain ex NSC poster was the Easyjet weather forecaster ?).Travel insurance covered the cost and we were told Easyjet have a track record of cancelling late night flights. We were already sick of the free for all over seats and never flew with them again. I have long felt that it is only worth traveling with good service. No interest in low cost travel or crappy hotels.

Mine was also a late night flight on a Sunday from Cologne to Gatwick.

Loads of stressed out people who needed to be back for work the next morning and the best EasyJet could do was hand out pieces of paper explaining the T&Cs for claiming back your alternative travel and accommodation costs.

 

[trueblue]

I tend to book hotels direct as well - way more chance of things like upgrades and they’ll almost always match any price you can get via a third party anyway.

Good shout. I always check the hotel’s own booking engine and go direct if that price is comparable but have never bothered phoning/emailing about a price match. Must stop being so lazy!

 

[dwayne]

expedia are good in my experience

No third party is good they are all evil especially for flights. That's the lesson we are getting from these threads.

 

[Questions]

I went with them once and they cancelled my booking at the last minute.

 

[Garage_Doors]

Why, in the information age, do people book via brokers.

It's weird and unnecessary.

Book direct always, I genuinely thought everyone knows this. Use skyscanner to find rough prices etc then book direct

Hope you get it sorted. I'm sure there was another fella on here who did similar for Amsterdam and was booted off his booking because of Expedia or someone

" I genuinely thought everyone knows this."

if this were true then they would all go out of business, but get your point, when the wife ans i go to a single destination then i will always book flights with the airline and direct with hotels, but when we go on multi destination holidays like the last to the states it required several flights, hotels, and car hire at different places that all needed to tie into each other, neither the wife nor i have the time or patience to put it all together so we give it to the booking agent to do. and to be fair they do this very efficiently, We give them a window of 6 weeks and tell them the destination we want to go with in a 16-day period, they do the rest, We normally give it to 1/2 dozen companies and they always come back with a quote within a few hours and generally in the same format, so guessing they have the same software, so they do have their place in the market. This also work for us as we never book far ahead, it never a case of booking a year in ahead, normally within a month or two, generally its, "its half term in 6 weeks time, where shall we go?"

 

[B-right-on]

My Mrs booked a flight for her elderly aunty via lastminute.crap and we had all kinds of issues, the airline couldn't find the booking at Gatwick, none of the confirmation details made any sense and it was next to impossible to get a straight answer from them.

Very very stressful for a late 70s woman on her own who was already stressed out as she was supposed to fly half way around the world on her own.

In the end BA were brilliant and sorted it out and booked her on the next flight 3 days later.

 

[Garage_Doors]

Read the easyJet complaints page on FB. Loads of unhappy individual.

Have flown with most airlines over the years ans Easyjet have been one of the better ones, never been a bad experience for me. as said by others, British Airways have lost my luggage on more than one occasion.

 

[Gazwag]

Do they? In what way?

My daughter and her boyfriend had an easyjet holiday booked to Germany last year for the England game they had tickets for, easyjet cancelled it four days before they were due to leave and it was too late to re book anything at a decent price

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Read the easyJet complaints page on FB. Loads of unhappy individual.

I fly with them regularly and cannot remember the last issue due to EasyJet I had. I also can’t be arsed to read the FB complaints page but from my experience their customers are frequently challenging and blaming EasyJet and their staff over things which are not their fault….many of the issues are purely from misguided expectations, a bizarre sense of entitlement and diva attitudes. I felt so sorry for one member of staff who, after asking the guy in the seat next to me to put a boxed cake he was carrying in the overhead, was being abused and accused of being rude (she wasn’t) I offered myself as a witness for her when he threatened to report her to head office/sue them etc. It made the journey a little frosty but hey Ho.

 

[Springal]

I’ve tended to book package holidays with BA & EasyJet and never had a problem. Usually very good value, option of deposit / pay 10-12 weeks before and good protection on a package deal rather than separate.

My recent one with BA worked out about £200 cheaper than booking separately and I’ve also got a mid range car included

Flights only I find EasyJet much better in the event of problems, compared to BA who just meltdown

 

[Springal]

Read the easyJet complaints page on FB. Loads of unhappy individual.

How many times have you ever left a review on a flight which went well ?

This kind of thing people only complain or write negative reviews when they have problem. Regardless of where the situation is.

I was caught up in the ATC problems 2 weeks ago and it’s amazing how many people either don’t have travel insurance, or seemingly can’t do anything for themselves

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Bastards. Wife just clicked on booking to see when final settlement due and it’s posted up as “booking cancelled” We booked and paid deposit a week ago.

Now considering our next move.

Worryingly, (I hope we are but) I doubt if we’re alone on this.

Did they say why?
Was it a flight and hotel? Sometimes the hotel comes back and says nah and cancels it

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

How many times have you ever left a review on a flight which went well ?

This kind of thing people only complain or write negative reviews when they have problem. Regardless of where the situation is.

I was caught up in the ATC problems 2 weeks ago and it’s amazing how many people either don’t have travel insurance, or seemingly can’t do anything for themselves

I deal with a lot of people of have issues overseas and they expect the travel company to cover it

Ask them if they have insurance they say no or they don't want to deal with them and proceed to get angry when present them a cost.

I'd like to see travel insurance become a legal requirement.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Recent history though.

Cancelled flights in the summer of 2022

BA 755 v EasyJet 1,482

The only carrier I’ve ever had a cancelled flight with is EasyJet and that was last October.

How many of these were on the day though?

In their defense EasyJet did take a bit of time to get their time-table sorted after Covid and they did consolidate many flights but always gave weeks of notice. I was a victim of this as a 9am Saturday BER-LGW flight I used to regularly take was consolidated into the 7am. You can look at this as 52 cancelations or 52 moved to a slightly earlier flight.