Originally Posted by
Plusflyer
Thanks for the advice. I am gold but the ticket was economy.
In the meantime, I have read EU261/2004 and, although there is no compensation possible if the flight is beyond 14 days, but the airline must offer re-routing and if there is no such offer I am entitled to "reimbursement of the price difference with the new ticket (under comparable transport conditions)". So it seems that there is recourse but I'd rather have the airline play nice and not involve buying my own ticket and a lengthy EU261/2004 dispute and a possible regulator involvement, especially since I would like to collect 4 flight segments on Aegean. It's a pity that Aegean cannot be more consumer friendly. I guess the "best midsize airline" title does not mean anything anymore.
To be honest, I think it’s the same at most airlines, whereby front line agents are trained and backed up by the computer system to take the cheapest option possible for the airline. The true solutions only come up when the back office gets involved. I did ask to escalate this to a supervisor and then suddenly, the option to send a request to the “schedule change” department opened up. I really had to stand my ground and repeat “Aegean chose to cancel the Berlin flights, not me, so Aegean has to provide me with a solution that is acceptable to me.”. I didn’t play the DYKWIA card but would have tried it as a last resort.
I also had a back-up plan up my sleeve involving only A3 segments but with an overnight in ATH but didn’t end up needing it. I guess that doesn’t work for you though?