A MUM-OF-FIVE has been left fuming after she had to fork out over £2,000 after their flight home was allegedly pushed forward without them being told.
Jo Chalk-Jones and husband Dion Jones had jetted off to Málaga, Spain from Liverpool, Merseyside last month for a £2,900, eight-day holiday with their kids through travel company loveholidays.
The 36-year-old had logged onto her app the night before they were due home to check in for their return flight with Ryanair when she discovered the flight had allegedly been changed.
The teaching assistant was horrified to discover the flight had been changed from 14:30 on Saturday to 20:40 that evening – a full 18 hours ahead of schedule.
The family from Wrexham, Wales were then left stranded in Málaga, and were forced to fork out another £2,100 to stay an extra night in their hotel and fly back home on the Sunday.
Jo alleges that upon contacting Ryanair, she was informed that loveholidays should have notified her of the change in flight time.
Ryanair allegedly did offer Jo a replacement flight home on Tuesday, but this clashed with the children being due back to school on Monday.
Jo claims that loveholidays and Ryanair have refused to take responsibility and no refund has been issued, despite the family being over £2,000 out of pocket.
Speaking today, Jo said: “I booked a holiday for myself, husband and our five kids in November for a surprise Christmas present.
“It’s the first holiday we’ve all been on.
“All went fine until I went to check in online at 18:50 the night before we were due to fly.
“The app said I couldn’t check in as it was less than two hours to the flight.
“Obviously, I was confused because we had over 19 hours before the flight was due to depart.
“I contacted Ryanair and they said that there had been a change to the flight.
“They stated that they had informed loveholidays and that loveholidays should’ve emailed me.
“I had had no email from either company.
“By the time I had managed to speak to Ryanair and find out the new times we couldn’t make the flight in time, the only other flight they could/would offer us was for four days later.
“Obviously we couldn’t stay that long so I had no choice but to request a refund which I still have not received but that didn’t help the fact that we were now in Spain with no ticket home.
“I managed to find a flight that we could all get on for Sunday evening but we were not home until 1am and my children obviously had school the next day.
“My youngest is five and had to go to school with less than six hours’ sleep.
“My husband is self-employed and had work booked in on the Sunday that he had to cancel, so obviously lost income there too.
“We ended up spending nearly the same amount for one night as we did for the whole holiday in the first place.
“Ryanair said they told loveholidays of the flight change and [that] it’s their responsibility to let us know.
“Loveholidays said flight changes aren’t their responsibility and left the chat.
“The flight home was pretty full which meant that we all had to sit separately – not a great end to our first holiday.”
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “This passenger booked their flight through an unauthorised online travel agent (OTA), whom Ryanair has no commercial agreement with and who (like many OTAs) provided Ryanair with an incorrect email address for the passenger, meaning that Ryanair could not communicate with the passenger directly.
“Despite Ryanair issuing three notifications regarding the time change to this passenger’s flight to the email address supplied for the booking, the OTA, having provided an incorrect email for the passenger, failed to pass this important information on to the passenger.
“Ryanair urges customers to always book directly on Ryanair.com, as OTAs may provide Ryanair with incorrect email addresses, contact & payment details, which block Ryanair from communicating directly with the customer to share essential flight information and updates, including check-in prompts, potential departure time changes, delays, cancellations, and refund updates.”
A spokesperson for loveholidays today said: “We are sorry to hear of Ms Chalk’s experience following the airline’s flight schedule change.
“We are in touch with her to help her secure a refund and will continue to support her until this is complete.”
