After years of saving, Chris, from Fordoun near Stonehaven, asked her children whether they’d like a big Christmas or a family holiday. They plumped for an October break in Tenerife.
However, due to a series of events they got no holiday and it looked like there would be no decent Christmas for the family either.
The saga began on October 2 when Chris booked a holiday online for herself and two kids to the Canaries. Within five minutes she realised she had booked the wrong dates.
She contacted the company which reassured her the dates could be changed.
It switched the accommodation but advised her she must contact Ryanair herself to change her flights.
She did this first thing the next morning. Chris explained the situation and was asked to pay an additional £279 to change the flights. She did this as it was her error.
She checked through the operator that the flights were for Monday, October 12, and Friday, October 16.
After this she called the accommodation firm to confirm the new flights and it was only when asked for her flight number she discovered on opening her confirmation email that the new flights were actually both leaving and returning on October 16.
Once more Chris called Ryanair. She was told she’d have to pay a further £241 to amend the flights again.
She said she’d already paid for her error but wouldn’t be paying for theirs. To no avail. She was told if she wished to complain it would take 10 days for a response – taking her past her desired departure date.
The following day the holiday company spoke to Ryanair on Chris’s behalf but there was not to be good news. There were now no longer any flights available for her dates.
On October 5 she made a formal complaint to Ryanair requesting a full refund. By October 25, having had a refund for the accommodation, she contacted Citizens Advice and was advised to give the airline a reasonable amount of time to respond.
Chris regularly emailed Ryanair only to receive an automated message saying the firm were working hard to resolve her query and apologising for the delay.
At the end of her tether she emailed Raw Deal on December 10 telling us the £1,300 cost for flights is a lot of money to her and she couldn’t afford to write it off.
We contacted Ryanair and things quickly got moving.
A spokesperson said: “We advise all customers to book directly on Ryanair.com to avoid any issues.
“Our customer service team is looking into this matter and will contact the customer directly to resolve this issue.”
True to their word, very soon Chris got much better news.
She very happily told us: “After you got in touch with them Ryanair phoned to say I’d receive a full refund.
“They also told me the money should be with me in a few days, so fingers crossed.
“Thank you so very much, I can’t believe you got a result so quickly after I’d battled for months with no success!”
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