05/07/2005, I purchased my tickets online via Thomas Cook website to travel with Alitalia airlines to Tunisa on 22/10/2005. I paid £365.70 by debit card in full and received my email confirmation the same day.
22/10/2005, arrive to check in at Heathrow airport T2 at 08:00am, only to be told that my tickets had been sold to standby passengers and I could not travel on my confirmed flight. The check-in was not closing for the flight until 09:00 and there were about 20 confirmed passengers who had lost their flight seats to standby passengers.
11:00 Alitalia decide that they are going to put me onto a flight with Lufthansa at 19:00 to arrive in Tunis at 23:35. Bearing in mind that I was supposed to arrive at Tunis for 14:35, I was not a happy bunny. So here I was in LHR T2, bored out of my mind, with £20.00 of food vouchers to last a good 10 hours with a 6 year old. I left my house at 06:00 to get there. When I asked the check-in staff how this can happen when the flight had not closed I was told that Alitalia deal with customers on a first come, first served basis and that it was quite normal for them to overbook by up to 20%
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So after a long tedious wait, I check in my baggage for the Lufthansa flight and that goes according to plan. I tried to call medhotels to inform them that I was now put on a different flight and I would not make it for the original transfer I had paid from the airport to the hotel. Medhotels informed me that as it was a different flight with a different airline there was nothing that they could do and that I had lost my money for the transfer. It was also too late to book another transfer for that day. I had booked the hotel with them as well. The hotel is 160km from the airport.
I arrive at Tunis airport, knackered and not knowing what is happening with me getting to the hotel. I find that my luggage has not arrived and I have to pay for a taxi to Port El Kantaoui. The cost of this taxi was £75.00 one way.
I call Tunis airport the next day (23/10/05) and they tell me my luggage has arrived, but it cannot be sent to me, so I then have to take another taxi back to the airport to get my luggage. Get to the airport, only to find that I have to search all 6 baggage carousels when about 4 flights had just arrived. I was there for 3 hours looking for my cases. After about 90 minutes I started crying because I couldn't take it anymore, being in the same clothes, tired, hadn't eaten, etc, etc. I ended up having to pay £65.00 for the taxi to the airport second time around, as the reception staff at my hotel felt sorry for me and arranged a special rate taxi for me. The reception manager came to the airport with me to translate to both the airport staff and taxi driver.
Between Thomas Cook, Alitalia and Lufthansa I managed to lose a good 1.5 days of my holiday, I was only there for 7 days.
Can someone please advise me on what my next steps should be. I know I received some money back from Alitalia, but it's not really any consolation considering the distress my daughter and myself were put through and the extra money I had to pay out in transfers. I have all my receipts.