Hi

At the beginning of September, I booked 4 return flights from Luton to Paphos with XL from March 27th-April 5th. We paid just under £500 for this.

XL have now cancelled our flights, and are offering us no alternative flight, and just a refund. We feel we have been cut short because we could've booked with other airlines at the time for around £600 but now we will have to pay over £800. They've said they won't offer us any compensation but feel annoyed that the flight appeared to be available so we booked it but on hindsight should have booked the alternative flight for £600 with another airline. Now it is going to cost us £300 more.

Any ideas or similar experiences?
Thank you

Cyprus

As usual XL appear to be in their usual state of chaos..They launched a range of daily schedule services including the ones you have quoted from Luton as well as Manchester to Malaga that I was interested in. I then saw on other websites that XL were scaling back their operations, to include staff redundancies at some of their bases and it appears that the schedule operation has been a victim of the cutbacks and before it even started!!!!!

Although they announced the start of the new routes they have been mighty quiet about the cancellation of these `new` services.....

I`ve every sympathy with you though.....

Have received today the all too familiar letter from XL saying that our flight next year to Faro from Gatwick in June has been cancelled due to a commercial decision made by the airline. No other flights available that day but can pay an extra £260 to fly on another day. Have already paid for hotel before our flight and apartment whilst we are there for 9 nights, now we either pay the extra and try and change the dates of our hotels or get a refund from XL and lose our money on the accomodation.

Knew I shouldn't have booked with XL, never had any trouble in all the flights I've booked using Thomson, BMI or Flymonarch.

I've searched and searched till I'm losing the will to live

Please can anyone tell me the seat pitch on XL long haul fights, and are they as bad as I've been led to believe?

silverpixie1uk,

Seat pitch on the 767's in economy is 30". The 747's is 31" I beleive.

Darren

Thanks Darren

I am afraid I have also had my xl airways flights cancelled for next July to Faro. I paid for these with my tesco clubcard deals nearly 2 months ago. They have refused to return the tesco vouchers back to me so that I can use them again either with themselves (although these have to be used by 31st of October) or other holidays in the clubdeal brochure. Instead they will return my points to my tesco club card which I will have to then wait until the end of November to receive back again so until then I cannot rebook any flights or holidays. I do have to say I am a little concerned about this airline as they seem to be cancelling lots of flights and have also withdrawn completely from Stansted airport next year, so maybe it is just as well I know now and not weeks before i was due to fly.

Booked to fly to Rhodes from Bristol with XL august next year , have had confirmation of booking , got flight times but no flight codes, can i expect these times to alter , seems funny that they can give you a time but not a code .

Just returned from Sharm el Sheikh with XL and had excellent service both ways. Flights were on time, aircraft seemed relatively new and the staff were very helpful and efficient. Overall I am very pleased with XL for the price that I paid and would certainly consider using them again in the future.

Re my previous message I also have used xl several times before with only one exception (lanzarote 8 hour delay, 4 hours sitting on runway) I have had no problems. Probably the best planes I have flown on with leather seats etc, but Just a little concerned about how many flights are being cancelled especially for next year. I had been given confirmation flight times and codes, but still cancelled. Also flights have now gone up in price since booking with xl, but no compensation for this. They do not take into account that people booking flights only, also have booked accommodation which they are then charged for changes to these. In my opinion doesn't look good.

It was my first time using xl and for me everything went very well, with the exception of a 12 hour flight change. However, my mum flew out to join us in Turkey one week later 24th sep and she was delayed by 11 hours so maybe i will think twice about using them in the future.

Hi There,

Anybody travelled to the Caribean with the above company. All replies would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks Chris.

As said in my previous post, booked a package holiday to Rhodes for next year, flying with XL from bristol on a wednesday, had confirmation of the booking with the flight times still the same but no flight codes. Have checked next years XL flights from bristol and they are coming up not available onlt showing flights for a saturday, should i be prepared for a change of plan. The flights for the saturday does have codes.

Thanks
Lynne .

Hi I'm absolutelty furious with XL as we had our package holiday all booked and sorted with decent day time flights from Manchester and just by sheer luck (or unluck!) I happened to go onto the XL site today to find out they have changed our flight times by a full 12 hours, now making them rubbish night flights, spent an hour on and off the phone to XL this morning who have passed us back and forth to various departments then confirmed they have changed the flight times and given us the option of either cancelling the holiday or put up with it, no compensation for the night flights (everyone knows night flights are alot cheaper). We weren't informed of this change by e mail or telephone either, as I said before I found this change out by chance when I was checking the latest price of the holiday on their web site. Totally disgusted with them.

I am also furious with xl airways. As I said in a previous posting they have cancelled my flights to faro for next july. I had paid these with my tesco vouchers. Now it seems it could take up to three months for these to be paid back to tesco. So now I must wait until xl get themselves organised before i will be able to use these vouchers again.

It seems that they just don`t care, they are happy enough to take your money but don`t bother informing people of changes/cancellations.
My mum flew back from Turkey with them on Monday, incident free, but she`s still not happy that she missed a day of her holiday because of them with no reasonable explanation why.
A rep or stewardess (can`t remember who she said) told her that XL will not be flying to Dalaman from Newcastle next year and going places will stop using them for the Turkey flights too. How true it is, i don`t know.

Managed to re-book a flight to Faro and pay the extra with my tesco vouchers. Spoke to 2 stroppy female members of xl who both said that I couldn't add vouchers to an existing booking and that I needed to cancel then re-book if I wanted to use any vouchers but only had up until 31st October.
Eventually spoke to a sensible chap (Mark)who said its silly to cancel then re-book so he spoke to accounts and they said it was no problem to add the vouchers. Phoned back the next day to book but Mark was off so had another woman say that I couldn't use them and I also had to pay a £20 admin fee even though it was them who cancelled the flight

When I said Mark said it wouldn't be a problem to add vouchers she said ok and eventually re-booked with no admin fee although its cost us an extra £70p/person from our original booking.

Our first and last time using xl.

Loulou, yes you could be right about XL not flying from Newcastle next year as that is where we wanted to fly from but they kept saying there are no flights from Newcastle (even though at the time the flights from Newcastle were still showing on the XL site and I just couldn't get them to understand this) so we ended up booking to fly from Manchester ironically because it had good flight times (which if you read my earlier post they have now changed to night flights) so we are not happy at all with XL.

diydaz and wilson, we also paid with some tesco vouchers and unfortunately it was also a case of lose the holiday by the time XL cancelled the original holiday and flight then re booked it again it would've been passed the 31st of Oct when XL stop using tesco deals

After speaking with tesco clubcard deals today looks like I won't be able to book my tesco voucher holiday this year with cosmos as I may not get my points back from xl until February, although xl do say they have transfered them already(wonder who is telling the truth) I am mighty angry about this as I have been saving these vouchers for two years and some may be reaching their expiry date.