Becky Rollison is a name which may be familiar to some of our loyal customers as she works in the Travel Team here at PayingTooMuch.com providing telephone support to customers looking for travel insurance.
Becky recently took a holiday to Disneyland Paris with her husband and two children. After five happy days riding rollercoasters, eating candyfloss and having pictures taken with Mickey Mouse, their holiday took a downward turn. Becky explains why:
“When we arrived at Paris airport for our Sunday flight home we were initially informed that our flight was delayed. The delay quickly turned into a cancellation and we had to stay in the airport hotel for a night. Easyjet provided us with meal vouchers and paid for the hotel room.
“On Monday we returned to the airport to be told that there was no flight availability until the next day. At this point my children were missing two days of school and we were keen to get home. However, with no other choice we agreed to fly home the next day, on Tuesday.”
Compensation?
Eventually Becky arrived home, nearly 48 hours late. As a travel professional, she was aware of Easyjet’s obligation under EU law to compensate her for the delay.
For more detail on the EU Denied Boarding compensation scheme, see our recent blog post here. However, in Becky’s case the main point was this:
- Her flight was under 932 miles and delayed for 2 hours or more
Becky’s original delay was caused by a French Air Traffic Control strike. This would have initially given Easyjet some ‘wiggle room’ with the compensation as this was outside the airline’s control. However, the fact that Becky and her family were then delayed until Tuesday was Easyjet’s own fault, so they were liable to compensate for the delay.
Making a claim
To make a claim you should normally submit an air passenger rights EU complaints form to your delayed airline. However, Becky decided to go through MoneySavingExpert’s Resolver.co.uk website.
style="colour:red "Resolver.co.uk will provide you with free letter templates to send to various companies and airlines to help you get the compensation you deserve. Here’s why they don’t charge, taken directly from their website:
“Resolver is a free service, both for the consumer and for businesses to use. But why are we free? The aim of Resolver is to ensure consumers get better service. Our process allows us to measure how good businesses are at delivering customer service, and we sell this ranking information to businesses as an insight into how well they or their competitors are performing.
"We do this by using anonymous 'normalised' data, so that your personal data remains secure and private. Our focus is always to help consumers to get a better service and we will always help get your voice heard.”
Great success
After sending the letter template to Easyjet Becky received a notice that she was entitled to compensation and would soon receive a cheque of €1,000 to compensate her family for the delay to their flight.
One final word from PayingTooMuch.com’s MD Michael Ward: “I’m delighted that Becky and her family have been rightfully compensated by Easyjet for their delay. This case just shows how important it is for customers to know their rights. Congratulations Becky!”
