bobhope

Be aware! I booked in October 2004 for two adults to fly by this company to Edmonton in May this year. Two weeks before we were due to fly they cancelled our flights! Yes they gave a full refund, and yes offered a flight 5 days later, but having booked job interviews this was no good. We had to book with United at short notice cost us nearly double! No compensation either! The excuse, they couldnt schedule a flight on that day!

Alberta_Rose

Have you written and clearly laid out the costs incurred?..... they did give us some money back when they did this to us, .....after we wrote and complained!

bobhope

Yes we wrote and complained and quoted a European directive that states they must give up to 600 euros compensation, we are still waiting for a reply. When we entered into an E mail conversation they were very negative. Still I wont use them again! I'll try and stick with Zoom!

Alberta_Rose

I take your point, I said I would not fly with them again too when It happened to us.

When they did send us some compensation it was after some time had elapsed, and we never had any letter of apology, just received a checque.......we felt it was quite odd really.

bobhope

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo How much did ya get! Have you had your passport request yet! We are off for are meds on wednesday.

Alberta_Rose

Oh it was not a huge amount, they let us have overnight accommodation at a gatwick hotel as it was an early start, refunded our taxi fares and lounge fees and what we'd paid to book seats as we ended up beingsplit up, paid for an extra day in kennels for our dog, upgraded the hire car etc..... we sent them an itemised bill

It was awkward mostly as we had to take the kids out of school, reschedule an interview and rearrange our accommodation dates; that sort of thing.

No we are still waiting for PPR, but that's partly my fault as we did not get new police certs sorted out in advance when they ran out, and are still waiting on one to come back!!

Voyager970

SHIT, not to promising, I booked up with them last November, me the wife and 3 kids, flying to Toronto airport July 17th

If they even dare think about ****** cancelling our family holiday flights, I'll ******* ring their ****** necks !!!!!!!!!

Eddie

Jingle

We are booked with them as well in October but hey ...... whoever you book with someone has a story ...

e.g. Continental - bumped our 12 year old son off a flight from NY to London without consulting me or my husband (they had already spread us around the plane and wouldn't seat us together). I wouldn't have known about it if he hadn't started shouting for one of us .... :scared: Then two weeks after we arrived home we received a letter from them ...... I thought it would be an apology but oh no .. it was advising us to go for chest x-rays as one of the stewards on that flight had developed TB Needless to say we will NEVER book with them again

Air Transat changed our flight times SIX times before we flew with them last May to Calgary/Vancouver ..... strangely we ended up flying within five minutes of the first published time

So we are trying Canadian Affair and keeping our fingers crossed and our sense of humour intact - although this time we will also hopefully have interviews scheduled so if there are any changes I hope they are not too major.

Enjoy your trip to Toronto in July!

Jen

proo

Don't bother with emails and calls. They only seem to respond to letter correspondance. If they try and fob you off with "we'll reply in 90 days etc" be firm and say No, you want a reply/compensation within 1 week. Normally they try and drag it out in the hope you'll give up but don't give in! It's the principle that matters. Threatening to take the complaint to a regulatory body/court normally does the trick!

Good luck!

Voyager970

Jen

As most folk will say, we will go with the flow !!!!!

The family have never flown further than Spain, about 4 hours max, so it will an experience, regardless of what happens

Thanks, we will enjoy our trip

Eddie

Gray C

We also, are flying out to Toronto from Manchester on 17 July 05. So fingers crossed we do not get affected and that our flight goes out on schedule

emma69

Hope it goes ok for you! My worst experience was flying with MyTravel (through Canadian affair) Prebooked an extra legroom seat, and paid for it, as I had recently had a car crash and sitting in an airline seat was a recipe for disaster (I was totally fine other than sitting for a long time, so it wasn't an emergency exit issue) Got to check in, and they told me that they had assigned my seat to someone else. Full stop. No apology, no alternatives, nada! So eventually, he told me I could go and complain at customer service, so went to the counter, the 3 girls there were gossiping away about their exploits the night before, totally ignored me, I said excuse me, they carried on talking for about 5 mins before giving me the 'oh I am so bored with my job' look and proving unhelpful. They eventually (about 45 mins after first trying to check in) told em they would 'upgrade' me, which was totally inadequate, as the seats in the upgraded section are pretty much the same as a regular aircraft - I booked and paid for the extra legroom seat so i could straighten my legs and move up and down as much as I needed. They told me they were 'doing me a favour' - I was furious! If that wasn't enough, the flight was delayed, the staff on board were rude and didn't have the intelligence to move my pre-booked vegetarian meal from my original seat to the new seat - thank heavens for airport pre-packed sandwiches!

On the return trip, despite 3 phone calls reconfirming my seat choice, they yet again gave my seat away (and I was there 3 hours before the flight) so I stood at the check in desk and refused to move until I was assigned my seat. Yes I felt sorry for the person who thought he got lucky with an extra legroom seat, only to be nabbed at the gate and told he had a different seat, but I had booked and PAID for the seat. I am not beyond kicking up a stink at check in, and eventually got my own way, but it should never have to be like that. Never ever again!

jon254

Just in case you are n't aware. Toronto LBP is undrgoing extensive building works so double check your departure times 24 hours before. Airline can't do much about it if the Airport does n't have any bays free.

Have a good trip.

Iain Mc

Bear in mind Canadian Affair are just a BOOKING AGENT and have very little to do with cockups on the part of the airlines (flight cancellations, repositioning, missing slots, etc.).

I've used them a lot and had some issues, but they seem invariably to be with MyTravel Flights - this latest time, for instance, we got bumped by a whole day with a week to go before departure, causing numerous hotel issues, etc.

By contrast Thomas Cook seem to be much more reliable with their scheduling and seat booking systems. I try to use their flights through Canadian Affair where possible (this is where you say your flight was a TCX one )

But yes, in the end it should be Canadian Affair providing the compensation to you and passing the cost on to the operator. Mail does seem to be the way to go, I've had some joy writing to their head office in the past.

Regards, Iain

mixbsd

Apologies to have to resurrect this thread a year on (especially in my first post!) but here's a new heads-up about Canadian Affair. I think it's important for ex-pats in Canada to know what Canadian Affair is up to and to avoid using them.

(1) Canadian Affair will use any means necessary to generate extra "revenue" by disingenuously hiding behind "immigration rules" and will hold passengers' return flights ransom, until such time the ransom is paid in cash. Any passenger, who does not have timely access to cash in Canadian or UK currency, will be shafted - even if they have a life, job and family to get back to in Canada.
(2) Canadian Affair have the temerity to demand complaints to be submitted within one month of the return date, yet will play for time, hoping that complainants will forget to follow up on their claim.
(3) Canadian Affair, when chased, will promise a refund (even on an apparent ex-gratia basis).
(4) Canadian Affair, when chased some more, will play for more time, hoping that complainants will eventually forget or give up. This is presumably intended to make the complainant "shut up and go away".
(5) Canadian Affair, when chased yet again, will then break the refund promise - they will not even have the courtesy or guts to inform the hapless complainant that they have turned down the claim.
(6) Canadian Affair will openly lie about having written a follow-up letter.

My recommendation: If flying to/from Canada/UK, fly with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines (maybe no direct flights, but good connections via Amsterdam Schipol) or Air Transat. Never had a problem with either airline.

This is just a synopsis - I have posted full details on my blog.