[Sara]

I am having a terrible time with Air France. We had confirmed seats on Flight AF2581 (we were flying from London to Brazil - with a connection in Paris) on 22/12/10 leaving at 18:00 hrs. On the 21st we received emails saying that our flight was cancelled - something we thought might happen due to the bad weather conditions. However the next day the Air France website said our flight was still scheduled so we phoned again. The reservations person we spoke to said that it was still on schedule but then asked for our booking reference. As soon as she looked us up she changed the story and said the flight was cancelled. On the 23rd we phoned again as we were a bit suspicious because the website said it had left Heathrow at 18:00 and arrived in Paris as scheduled. We again spoke to someone at Air France who said the flight left as scheduled and arrived in Paris. We are so angry and frustrated at the lack of communication from their "Customer Care Center”. I have written several emails and letters including one to Mr Pierre-Henri Gourgeon Air France's Chief Executive Officer but have had no response whatsoever! It has now been 23 days since our dream holiday was left in shatters - we incurred a lot of non refundable expenses, and to add salt to the wound, we received notification today that 3 of our tickets were finally being refunded less the £13 booking fee! That's £39 they have stolen from us, an insignificant amount but in the scheme of things and insult as it was their error and failing that led to us to not being on that flight to Brazil. I am fighting tooth and nail and will never give up but it seems like I am hitting my head against a brick wall. Incidentally their "Customer Care Center" does not have a telephone number - one can only contact them via letter or email through the Air France site!

[jimworcs]

I suspect that they "bumped" you to accommodate the huge backlog of people stuck at LHR. However, to avoid compensating you, they have lied and said the flight was cancelled. You should persist and demand your fees back and consequential damages. You may also wish to consider using EUCLAIMS.CO.UK. This is a Dutch based specialist company which will sue them for you on a no-win, no fee basis. You will have to pay some of your compensation to them if you win, but they have a good reputation for doing solid research into what really happened and using it to good effect in court. Good luck.

(You can instead file a claim yourself in UK court at www.moneyclaim.gov.uk which is an online small claims court). However, the burden of proof as to what happened is on you.

[Sara]

Hi jimworcs
Many thanks for your advice and I will definately look into following your recommendations.

[camela]

I book a flight for my sister with Air France from Colombia to Hong Kong a week ago. I was helping her to do the on line check in and it didn't work. Just called Air France and they said that the ticket had been cancelled. After calling three different people in three different countries I was told that it had been cancelled because the name on the ticket was different to the name in the credit card. No one informed us about this cancellation. They said that there was nothing the could and if she wants to travel tomorrow she has to pay for the ticket is cash,at the airport, even thought the payment has already been deducted from the card! So I said ok. but are there seats available? they said no. The flight is in about 10 hours.... staff mostly rude, unhelpful, I am very frustrated!

[Noconnor]

I am so very dissapointed with AIRFRANCE AND WILL NEVER TRAVEL WITH THEM AGAIN!! They refuse to refund me nearly €1400.00 for a mistake that was theirs. I mispelt my email and never recieved my confirmation email and when I called them they insisted I never made a booking and it was propbaly a website error. I rebooked alternate flights and after seeing nearly €1400 from my credit card rang them and the third girl found my flights. I think this is AWFULL as I cannot afford the debt in current times and they just dont care!!!! terrible customer care!!! is this how you treat your customers ?????

Noelle O Connor/Dowdall

[jimworcs]

Which country do you live in? Did you notify them within 24 hours of making the booking. In many European jurisdictions Air France would have to reimburse you under these circumstances. I would contact the local competant authority in Europe if you made the booking from a European country. It may well be that other non European countries also have rules relating to such bookings, but you should not give up. (Incidently, it helps to give more details of your complaint on forums like this, as you are more likely to get advice on how to resolve things).