msm2000uk

Apologies in advance for the cynicism, but if you receive a sincere apology from an airline, my advice would be to frame it!

I'd expect some Qmiles, buy not much else unfortunately. The QR CS team are limited in what they can offer; even the Supervisors are restricted.

Hopefully this experience hasn't put off your partner from future flying (in general opposed to with QR).

Do let us know how you get on, and make sure you stipulate exactly what you want when they respond.

Safe travels,

M

ajeleonard

Reasonable is the EU compensation, which seems to have been provided

The reason for the IDB is irrelevant
Your girlfriend's reasons for refusal of the quite reasonable offer of Turkish Airlines are irrelevant
The consequential losses are irrelevant
Your unrealistic desire for a "sincere" apology is irrelevant

InternationalLiving

haha, well, perhaps you're right there MSM, that might be a tall ask. However, my mum more-or-less managed that once: Back in '96, she flew BA LHR-PHL-CLE, and due to weather (IIRC) her flight to CLE was cancelled and BA just left her at the airport for 24 hours or so without so much as being put up in a hotel. She wrote to complain, and initially they tried to palm her off with some chocolate and a bottle of champagne. She was not amused. She then wrote to the chairman of BA, who gave her something like £600+ of travel vouchers (that's quite a lot when you consider 20+ years of inflation!) and wrote to her personally. That said, she was the owner of her own small travel agency at the time, and this was in the days before internet bookings, so it was definitely in their interest to rectify the problem.

And thanks for the kind thoughts... she didn't particularly enjoy her return flight unfortunately, as she had to do LHR-DOH-MNL-CGY all in one go, and someone collapsed on the flight to MNL (they almost diverted to SGN). She told me she doesn't want to fly back to Europe again such is her phobia. I really wish they would have stuck her in J for her flight back, as she might have been a bit more distracted and relaxed that way (and QR have never given me an op-up in 57 flights, surely it's time for one?!)...

InternationalLiving

Thanks for the opinion, perhaps I am being a bit too demanding. While I understand that the re-routing on TK was quite reasonable (and I probably would have accepted, albeit unamusedly), I believe that the airline still needs to be considerate of the needs of individual passengers (such as the phobia of my girlfriend). Yes, they did then offer the flight the next day also. But what irks me is the misinformation, and the way they generally dealt with the problem. I try to be reasonable - at the airport I was calm and understanding about the equipment change, and undemanding (unlike the hard-talking Filipino at the next desk who was kicking up a fuss). However, I do take offense that the reason they couldn't get her on was actually overbooking - in such cases I would expect additional compensation, as it's their own fault, not that of the aircraft - and that they were not truthful about this...

Johnnieboy

Somebody better versed than me can probably confirm, but I thought the EU261 payment for involuntary denied boarding on a flight over 3,500km was €600?

InternationalLiving

My understanding is that if they had not offered re-routing on the TK flight, and she had been forced to wait 24 hours for the QR flight, then it would have been €600...

Johnnieboy

I suspect you may be right, thank you. If the offered re-routed arrival is less than one hour before or two hours after the original schedule, they may reduce the payment by 50%. The OP doesn't mention the timings.

Here's some bedtime reading on eu261 from our friends over on the BA forum for those who can't sleep...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...61-2004-a.html

N1Rotate

You can actually lose seats in an aircraft swap of two aircraft in the same configuration. Dispatching an aircraft with blocked inoperative seats happens more often than most people think.

Another thing that happens is a proactive swap that is then reversed. So for example Aircraft A with 300 seats is proactively swapped with Aircraft B with 250 because Aircraft A will be several hours late inbound and Aircraft B is the only one available. People are then proactively re-routed, then maintenance release Aircraft C with 300 seats earlier than planned allowing it take the place of Aircraft A with no capacity reductions.

NewForester

The airline is required to pay €300 / €600 in cash as per the EU regulations (see post #10), you are not required to accept this as a travel voucher and if the airline do not offer the cash option they have failed to meet their obligations. However sadly that is the only compensation they are required to provide and had this been a flight into the EU by a non-EU carrier then nothing would be due.

brunos

Just a personal opinion.
Flowery, ......, shouting,'.. letters achieve nothing. Just stick to facts.

QR offered an alternative routing on TK which is an excellent airline.
Therefore, the EU261 compensation is reduced by 50% or EUR300.

That the pax refused to take it is beyond the point. Whether the pax is irrational or not in refusing that rebooking is not relevant to compensation.

SO the answer to your original question is that you are unreasonable.

brunos

BTW, I don't think that you are right.
In the case you mention (no more than one hour before scheduled departure time and less than 2 hours after scheduled arrival time) there is no compensation. It is only if the new arrival time is between 2 and 4 hours after scheduled arrival time that a 50% payment is in order for flights above 3,500kms.

Johnnieboy

Actually on further examination yes I was wrong there, thank you for pointing that out. It's a complex bag of rules, thank goodness we have places like this to guide us through.

InternationalLiving

Thanks for the thoughts guys, maybe you are right and I'm just feeling overly incensed by what I perceived to be storytelling on QR's part, but of course I cannot completely rule out the possibility of the proactive switch that then gets re-switched that N1Rotate mentions. However, I do understand that even on the next day the flight to MNL was completely full, so it seems like overbooking must factor in there somewhere. Here's hoping that eventually MNL will get an A380 on one of the flights...

I will post an update when I get a response from Qatar. Thanks as always for the interesting info especially regarding EC261 and its many complexities...

paolo64

I wrote to customer service about the early expiry of a promo code: when I tried to use it 24 hours before the deadline, got an error message saying: expired.
I got a reply but it was about someone else's complaint: So, 'Michael', I got you answer ( basically says your complaint is very old now and do you still want an answer), maybe you got mine?

SK AAR

This is spot on. The OP has no cause as QR has paid/is willing to pay what QR is obliged to pay - then this is settled.

The reason that only the TK flights via IST was an option is most likely that this was the only itinerary that allowed QR to reduce the comp. to EUR 300. Other flights would have arrived MNL too late. Anyway, the pax decided to fly the following day on QR - then be it, but it certainly not give grounds for sending letters like this to QR.

Most in this forum would have happily accepted to change to TK arriving with only a minor delay at MNL in return for EUR 300 - I certainly would. TK is an excellent airline (also in Y).