[Mark Williams]

I booked a flight on line for my son and his girlfriend to travel from Cardiff ( U K ) to Almeria ( Spain ) with BMI Baby ( Budget airline in the UK ).

They both attended the airport on the day of departure to be told that the flight had been cancelled 4 weeks earlier. They were not the only passengers at the airport that morning expecting to travel to Almeria.

The airline told him that I must of been informed by e mail and the monies had been refunded via my credit card.
The monies had been refunded as they stated ,but as my monthly statement had not arrived I was unaware of this on departure day, but they had clearly not informed myself by e mail of the cancellation.
So as my son had arranged a car and the rental of a villa I paid on the day of departure a flight to a nearby airport in Spain at a cost to myself of about £350 more than the original payment
What is my course of action now?

[jimworcs]

Sadly, you have no recourse. The airline limits it's liability to refund of the money paid, in the event of a reschuduling or cancellation of the flight, regardless of your extra costs. The airline had refunded your money. What can happen in these situations is that the airline sends a mass email to everyone affected on that particular flight, and some of the more sensitive email filters pick them us as Spam. if you don't remember to check your Spam folder, the email can sit there unnoticed. The EU rules relating to a denied boarding or last minute cancellation do not apply to schedule changes.

As you had already been refunded, there is really very little that you can do. BMI Baby are usually a bit more responsive than Ryanair, but when it comes to this kind of a problem, LoCo's are all the same. If they don't sell enough seats on a route, they will ruthlessly cut the route... it is part and parcel of what makes them low cost.

[neilarvanitis]

Dear all,

Just to inform you all that I just spoke to a lady at BMI in England, I have her name and position, who informed me that, yes my flight was amendable - having originally been booked via edreams, and she instructed me to contact edreams and request them to call the BMI helpdesk to make the change. She even updated the system so that even edreams could see that she instructed for edreams to contact them to make the modification to the tickets.
Edreams did establish contact with BMI but were subsequently informed that the ticket was non-changeable. Despite the fcat that I had been initially told by the lady that it was! What's more it was even logged on the system (bar the authorisation comment). Edreams just contacted me telling me that they spoke to the person and that she was going to call me now after her lunch break to apologise and that, yes, it was an error on their part.
Now I am left reeling in disappointment. I feel ever so aggrieved considering I trusted the information and instructions and now we have lost out on close to £500 worth of airfares. Thank you BMI for your professional customer service. Not!