hard way to know a new airline, Eurowings

Saudade

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Joined
Aug 28, 2016
Messages
156
I would like to share what happened to us last week, but I am not a English speaker so, sorry for my English yap!
Apart from Thai Airways lost totally our luggage once, more than 10 years ago (we never recover the luggage) and a few times small damage on the luggage or one day delayed luggage, we never had any big problems with our flights.
We bough our flight tickets to Europe with Lufthansa, which we have been traveling with for the last few years, trough Frankfurt and usually with the big big plane from Singapore to Frankfurt, the flight to go to Europe it was perfect and not problems at all.
This time I have not idea why but they put us on flights with Swiss airlines to come back to Bali, which I didn't understand but I though it could be ok and I was looking forward to know how Swiss airways was.
Our first flight to Zurich it was delayed so we were going to miss our plane to Singapore and the company decided to put us in a hotel and re schedule the flight for the next day, so they put us on a flight to Munich which was ok, and when we arrived to Munich I realized they put us on a flight to Bangkok with Eurowings.
I never heard about this airline before or knew that was existing, so we check on internet and I saw belongs to German, what I though it was ok.
The flight took off one hour late and after we were resting on our seats waiting for the headphones to enjoy the films (expecially our child who enjoy it a lot), they told us that we had to pay for that, not pillows, not blankets, and when they came with the food and I asked for a tonic they told me that I had to pay for that as well.
I was quite shocked and I realized we were on a low budget airline, so I tried to explain to the stewardess that we had tickets for flying with Swiss airlines and I didn't have idea why we were there, so I asked at least to give us the headphones for our child, but they refused saying they were not authorized to do that.
I was really surprise because I had not idea there was a low budget companies doing Europe to Asia, almost a 11 hours flight.
Of course if one choose and pay for that I think it is ok, and not surprise about the services or to pay for everything because probably you know already but in our case our tickets were a non low budget company Swiss airlines, so I was very dissapointed and feeling really bad.
What is the opposite of a low budget company? a standard company? I mean the word in English
After we arrived in Bangkok, we had to run fast because we had a one hour transit, which was pretty good organized, because somebody was waiting outside of the plane with our letters to get the plane with Thai airways to Denpasar.
Wowwwwwwwwwww can you imagine the contrast? hahaha after a 11 hours flight with a low budget airline company from Munich to Thailand, we got to Thai Airways to flight to Denpasar and it was soooooooooo luxury, hahaha you learn to appreciate more these things when you try both in a few hours difference.
Finally we managed to enjoy, the pillow, the blankets, the excellent food, the entertaiment programs.....
The only thing of course our luggage didn't arrive with us and we had to go home without luggage.
The luggage arrive to the airport the next day, but can you believe they brought the luggage at 12 am that day?
They called me to my phone at 23:45 pm but after such a trip the day before, we were sleep totally and didn't hear the phone, I was surprise they didn't try to call home when they were at the door, I just saw the miss call in the morning, so finally they had to come back again in the afternoon to bring the luggage. Why they didn't call me when they left the airport saying they will come late night with the luggage, so I could have been waiting and knew they were coming!
Do you think I can claim a refund for changing our flight to a low budget company?
If I paid the tickets with a Visa card there is any insurance for these kind of situations?
Terimakasi
Have a beautiful evening
 
I don’t know if you can claim anything, but I have to say you sound a very calm person, so welcome to the forum
 
Yes you can get compensation for flight delays of over 3 hrs in the EU. It's the law. There's even a company you can get hold of called airhelp that will help you.
 
If you bought your tickets directly from Lufthansa you certainly are due some compensation. You need to copy your boarding passes or your internet confirmation where they switched airlines. I feel sure you must have known what airlines and arrival/departure times were annotated on your itinerary from the purchasing agent. If they switched airlines which were less quality than you paid for there should be compensation.
If you bought from a travel agent you are also due compensation.
You should concisely gather all your details and present them in a chronological order to whoever it was you purchased your tickets.

I should add that Lufthansa is a member of International Air Transport Association (IATA). If you do not get satisfaction from the airline I suggest you write to them with your complaint.
 
@Saudade , the next is very important: When you say 'the company' put you in a hotel, you mean Lufthansa and don't mean your employer, right?
And: the comple return trip is booked with Lufthansa?

If the answer is 2x yes, you're al set.

The EU rules are very strict and apply to all airlines that have their home base in the EU or with flights departing from the EU. And also connecting flights are included now in multi-leg trajects. Only if there is a force majeur (technical issues are not included, but bad weather could be), the airline could be exempt.

In your case with a full day delay, assuming there was no force majeur, you are entitled to €600 per person. (But for the downgrade to a low budget company it will be difficult to make a case.)

Now every airline has a different system to complain and claim. With some it is very clear and that can be done online, others make it difficult.

If you can't find it on the Lufthansa website, an option is to use an agent. My son had issues with claiming at Cathay Pacific (it became Thai Airlines one day later) since they are obviously not EU based, so he used www.happydelay.com Of course they take a piece of the pie (instead of €600 he received €380) but it is a very easy and convenient process; just upload all proof like boarding passes and you will get an answer within 24 hours. And the payment to your account or credit card takes place after two more days.

NB1: ViSA and MasterCard (the Gold versions) often have a travel insurance included. But that is more for loss of bagage etc. and additional costs you had to make.
NB2: SwissAir is a full daughter of Lufthansa so it makes perfect sense to codeshare etc. their flights.
NB3: never start debating with a stewardess on these issues and what is (not) included, it makes no sense. They have their rules and regulations.
 
Could have been a code share, and check ALL the small print terms and conditions, they already gave you hotel room, and you accepted the change of flight / airline etc - airlines reserve the right to change planes without telling you etc etc etc

Plus I think there's a max on compensation

I still think you are not eligible for any compensation, if you do get anything it may be just a goodwill gesture but I am 99.9% confident you will get zero.

Please check again your ticket - are you sure it wasn't a code share? Plus the delay is only responsible liable for the first leg / sector - any delays from the 2nd leg onwards would be on you (so they will claim) even though it was their knock on effect etc

Thats just the cr4ppy world of airline ticketing. Sorry I still stand firm by my theory you will get nothing

Let us know.
 
Seems we (JStar) posted same time - points are code share and euro rules etc where you got the ticket and what you accepted at the airport
 
Max is €600. And in this case (one day delay and xxxx miles outside of EU) it does all apply. Trust me, it works like a charm....

That almost identical case for my son was not even one month ago btw. He booked Cathay Pacific (via an online travel website even!) but the flight originated in the EU.
 
Thanks a lot to all for your advices and opinions. I think I have two different things.
We bough out tickets on Lufthansa website and it costed 44.286.000 rp, from our original tickets we must have arrived in Denpasar on 22 th July at 23:00 pm but finally we arrived on 23 th July at 15:00 pm, so 16 hours late than what was written on the tickets.
I have check the websites helping people to get refunds or compensations but it seems they are focus on flights which has been delayed and people already had their boarding pass, in our case, they didn't allow us to flight, they didn't allow us to make the check in because they assumed we were going to miss our flight in Zurich, so there was not choices and nobody give us any another explications or discuss with us what we would like to do, they were the only ones who decided to put us in a hotel and re scheduled all the flights without consulting us for the next day, of course we accepted the hotel and everything because we had not more choices. If I would know they were putting us in a low budget airline, I would have rather to wait another 4 hours more and get the Swiss airlines flight, the same plane we supposed to get on 21th July
Another thing it was, we suppose to travel from Zurich to Singapore with Swiss Airlines and they put us on a Eurowings airlines which is a low budget company, so the service it was very different and we didn't get what we paid.
To be honest I was more upset about to fly on the low budget company, when we paid for something better, than our flights were delayed.
I send already an email to Lufthansa, we will see.
 
^
You really need to put your emotions aside and go for the (guaranteed) money.

And as I explained, compensation for the delay is a sure thing, a (perceived) downgrade will be hard. That is not included in EU laws. (It would be similar if Air France puts you on a KLM flight and you don't like the plane or the food or the seats...forget compensation).

NB: After all, since you knew your flight would be delayed for more than 5 hours, you could have canceled it all together. Then Lufthansa would be obliged to pay you back the money of the flight within 7 days and still would have to pay you the delay compensation (€600). And you would have booked an alternative.
.
 
Yes now we are getting the full clearer facts, you had not actually checked in? So they will say you had time to change the other flight yourself? Their responsibility is to get you from a to b not on to c and d after
So since you had not even checked in, I am not sure what you can get if anything

But hey, worth an email to try, right? But I wouldn't hold your breath since they already gave you hotel and replacement flight the next available flight. The plane and class quality is caveat emptor
 
There are rules, as many here have mentioned, where compensation is determined on delayed flights in EU..
My point was more to why you were transferred to a budget airline. I find it hard to believe that Lufthansa would/could do that without your precise acceptance. Are you sure they didn't offer an option...i.e. we can get you on Eurowings in an hour or Swissair in 4 hours and you accepted the former...in which case you are not eligible as it was voluntary.
 
Many European airlines will claim the delays are not in their control and deny you, or offer a flight voucher.

You need to be calm about it. If your reasoned approaches don’t get results, no need to be upset about it. There are third party companies that will pursue your claims if it comes to that. Just don’t accept vouchers, or less than €600 per passenger.
 
I would like to share what happened to us last week, but I am not a English speaker so, sorry for my English yap!
Apart from Thai Airways lost totally our luggage once, more than 10 years ago (we never recover the luggage) and a few times small damage on the luggage or one day delayed luggage, we never had any big problems with our flights.
We bough our flight tickets to Europe with Lufthansa, which we have been traveling with for the last few years, trough Frankfurt and usually with the big big plane from Singapore to Frankfurt, the flight to go to Europe it was perfect and not problems at all.
This time I have not idea why but they put us on flights with Swiss airlines to come back to Bali, which I didn't understand but I though it could be ok and I was looking forward to know how Swiss airways was.
Our first flight to Zurich it was delayed so we were going to miss our plane to Singapore and the company decided to put us in a hotel and re schedule the flight for the next day, so they put us on a flight to Munich which was ok, and when we arrived to Munich I realized they put us on a flight to Bangkok with Eurowings.
I never heard about this airline before or knew that was existing, so we check on internet and I saw belongs to German, what I though it was ok.
The flight took off one hour late and after we were resting on our seats waiting for the headphones to enjoy the films (expecially our child who enjoy it a lot), they told us that we had to pay for that, not pillows, not blankets, and when they came with the food and I asked for a tonic they told me that I had to pay for that as well.
I was quite shocked and I realized we were on a low budget airline, so I tried to explain to the stewardess that we had tickets for flying with Swiss airlines and I didn't have idea why we were there, so I asked at least to give us the headphones for our child, but they refused saying they were not authorized to do that.
I was really surprise because I had not idea there was a low budget companies doing Europe to Asia, almost a 11 hours flight.
Of course if one choose and pay for that I think it is ok, and not surprise about the services or to pay for everything because probably you know already but in our case our tickets were a non low budget company Swiss airlines, so I was very dissapointed and feeling really bad.
What is the opposite of a low budget company? a standard company? I mean the word in English
After we arrived in Bangkok, we had to run fast because we had a one hour transit, which was pretty good organized, because somebody was waiting outside of the plane with our letters to get the plane with Thai airways to Denpasar.
Wowwwwwwwwwww can you imagine the contrast? hahaha after a 11 hours flight with a low budget airline company from Munich to Thailand, we got to Thai Airways to flight to Denpasar and it was soooooooooo luxury, hahaha you learn to appreciate more these things when you try both in a few hours difference.
Finally we managed to enjoy, the pillow, the blankets, the excellent food, the entertaiment programs.....
The only thing of course our luggage didn't arrive with us and we had to go home without luggage.
The luggage arrive to the airport the next day, but can you believe they brought the luggage at 12 am that day?
They called me to my phone at 23:45 pm but after such a trip the day before, we were sleep totally and didn't hear the phone, I was surprise they didn't try to call home when they were at the door, I just saw the miss call in the morning, so finally they had to come back again in the afternoon to bring the luggage. Why they didn't call me when they left the airport saying they will come late night with the luggage, so I could have been waiting and knew they were coming!
Do you think I can claim a refund for changing our flight to a low budget company?
If I paid the tickets with a Visa card there is any insurance for these kind of situations?
Terimakasi
Have a beautiful evening
Hello,
Have you subscribed any travel insurance in Singapore ?
 
It could be worse. You might be somewhere around the world and stranded with Thos Cook going bankrupt.
With the final tidying up I presume all executive management will get their full entitlements and perhaps any outstanding bonuses.
 
Then the Govt will step in and rescue them and bail them out and so it starts again
 
With the final tidying up I presume all executive management will get their full entitlements and perhaps any outstanding bonuses.

Well, at least I got that right. News this evening shows that the CEO and other executives gave themselves 50 million pounds before seeking bankruptcy.
And snpark got this right too. "Then the Govt will step in and rescue them and bail them out and so it starts again "

This evening's news says Boris Johnson wil have the government step in and keep the comnany going. But then he also questions the executive payouts. How ungenerous of him when the CEO said he was sorry. I think we can also assume that worldwide executive bonus traditions will prevail and they will keep their money.

MInd you Boris has his own problems. The UK supreme court says his action in prorogueing the Parliament was illegal.
 
The non UK branches of Thomas Cook are also facing bankruptcy it seems. And many still leave on their package TC/Neckerman trip, with the chance of being blackmailed and even held hostage in foreign hotels ?
 

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