Calm down dear

I have a bit of a problem. I have 2 separate bookings a BA into london and another out on Wideroe to Bergen same day. I had allowed heaps and heaps of time but Wideroe changed the times so I had to cough up a big fee to maintain the gap, my problem. Today I looked and saw that Wideroe have now further changed the airport to STN. I called for a refund and they refused saying that the new ‘schedule” change was emailed to me on January 26 and if they don’t hear within 14 days then I am deemed to accept. They said that they are not bound by me saying this is a significant change and that their t and c’s state an email from them counts as notification and I am deemed to accept within 14 days. Therefore the refund will be nothing.
Of course the email was in junk but you’d never notice the airport change as it wasn’t highlighted !

Could the board opine ?

corporate-wage-slave

Can we have some specifics please. Has the flight number changed? And what was the original airport? What was the original time of departure, of arrival. And what are the new times. And details of the time change that you paid extra for.

Calm down dear

Thanks CWS.
Original 1/7 WF353 LHR to BGO 1310-1620. They changed the schedule and I paid a fee to change to 2/7 WF357 LHR to BGO 1240-1540

On 26th January they sent an email (in junk) with new trip: 2/7 WF0355 STN to BGO 1255-1545.

For reference the email just said schedule change and you wouldn't have noticed it meant airport eg it said London(STN) 1255 to Flesland (BGO)

Calm down dear

Here is the email from 26 January :

YOUR ITINERARY HAS BEEN CHANGED. Please control the information below:

-->WF0355 02Jul23 13:10 London(Stansted)-Bergen(Flesland) Arr:16:00

Note that in some cases, only the flight number has been changed.

The change regards all passengers in this booking (XXXXX).

This was your original itinerary:

WF0357 02Jul23 18:55 London(Heathrow)-Bergen(Flesland) Arr:21:55

Your receipts:

The reason for the change above is a time change or cancelled flight(s).
If the change is more than 2 hours and you rather would travel at a different time, we ask you to check wf.no/en for alternative flights. List these in your reply to this email. Please remember that the departure and arrival point as well as the airline(s) and ticket type must be the same as the original reservation.
If we have not been notified from you within 14 days, we consider that you accept the new itinerary and that this is your new agreement with us.
In other respects, we refer to Widerøe's terms & conditions (article 9.1.2)

corporate-wage-slave

OK, so a different flight number, different airports, different times, so I think we can safely describe.this as a cancellation and suggested replacement. Their terms and conditions may well require acceptance within 2 weeks, but in EC261 there is no requirement to dance to Widerøe's demands. In EC261 a cancellation of this type gives passengers the right to choose between various options, but no requirement to choose them by a particular timeframe. There are 3 provisions in EC261 that protect you: the general requirement for a high level of protection to passengers; the customer's right to choose a refund and a requirement that EC261 supersedes any conflicting terms and conditions. So I would have no hesitation in taking this up with Widerøe via MCOL. They are not on an ADR system, so you could get the CAA to investigate, but the CAA will be both slow and unable to force Widerøe to comply. Clearly taking attention to their emails will count against you, it's a fairly basic thing to do, but since you are looking at this well before departure - and thus Widerøe can sell the seat - then I think you have a good case.

What was the nature of this change please? It really helps to be specific in this area. If it was 18:55 to 13:10 I'm trying to work out why you paid, since Widerøe must offer a rebooking with a change of that degree.

Calm down dear

Thanks CWS - The original booking was at 1310 on 01/07, they sent an email with a "minor" change by memory to be an hour earlier, I decided that for sanity I would pay to change to the Sunday flight at 1240hrs. I have also found another email in junk changing the Sunday Heathrow flight from my 1240hrs dep to a 1855hrs dep. Then comes the 26th Jan email changing both the airport and time and flight number.
So Wideroe have refused to refund - I have the chat transcript - do I need to give them a warning for MCOL ie reach out to them again ? The ticket cost for 2 is £384 so these were not cheap (but when I booked they really suited us!) and wrongly thought wideroe (being at LHR and all that) was some sort of SAS subsidiary as am sure when I booked various SAS routes were also offered.

corporate-wage-slave

Well that second change also enables a refund, so they are doubly on the hook here.

As far as I can tell, Widerøe doesn't have a UK office, which makes service to them tricky. So to some extent you need to see if their Bodø office will play ball here, and they may choose not to do so. At this stage I would go to Chat and say you want to raise a formal complaint under EC261, which over-rides the airlines Ts & Cs. Can they supply an email address for this please? Then send a clear, short letter, sticking to EC261's terms, asking for a full refund of both sets of charges on the basis of cancellation (strictly speaking the change fee should have been claimed after the other change and may now be difficult to recover). At the end say that you are giving them 2 weeks to respond otherwise you will launch a case either with the CAA's Consumer team or via Moneyclaim Online. The latter is just to keep your options open, I don't think the CAA route is helpful, they are a particularly ineffective regulator with zero interest in passengers.

I would also suggest a review of your junk email settings, it's costing you money.

Calm down dear

Thankyou very much and I will let you know how it goes.

Calm down dear

So I contacted them again via chat and they again refused a refund stating EC261 does not apply to them here as "Heathrow cancelled our landing slots and redirected us to Stanstead". They said they do not give out email addresses but directed me to a generic online feedback form which I have completed as you suggested.

corporate-wage-slave

I would also copy in:

[email protected]

EC261 does not switch off if Heathrow withdraws slots, it seems the Chat agent is unaware that EC261 101% applies for cancelled flights. I guess people get confused over the compensation issue, but that's not what you are asking for here and the agent should know better.

Calm down dear

Yes did that and got a reply yet again saying it does not apply as I had been deemed to accept etc. I then replied with is that your final word (as had given them 14 days) and they said yes. Then this afternoon my online form got a reply from “claims” saying they will look into this and see if an “exception” to their terms and conditions could be made in my case.

Calm down dear

Update: After a lot of back and forth, eventually the claims team accepted and refunded me but gave me a long lecture about that it was the "uk's" fault for forcing them out from Heathrow and compensation was not meant for that purpose as not to do at all with Wideroe. Can I thank everyone who assisted with wise words.