right ive had no choice but to cancel this and get a refund as first choice were refusing to do anything to help me despite me trying to be flexible so i hope this doesnt happen to anyone else, all the people ive spoken to have been a waste of space in customer services, so now ive got to find another flight and pay more but would rather do that then let them get away with the way they have treated us !!!

hi karen . did you cancel . Ive just been looking at your original flight details and i dont think they were knocking a day off . I could be wrong but I read it as you would of still been coming home on monday night but because the flight was after midnight it was classed as Tuesday .

lyn

hi

yes ive cancelled it, from manchester i would arrive on 30th and brum was 31st but only about 8 hrs difference when i had a look, but it was the distance from the airport to my home with a child that gets car sickness that annoyed me as there are at least 4 major airports nearer than manchester, and with fc diabolic customer services and lies that got my back up in the end, the cheeky man i last spoke to said he had listened to my conversation and i wasnt told i could fly from east mids coming back to brum for no extra charge, i knew he had said that so as soon as he lied about that he got my back up and i cancelled there and then, now got to find another flight oops lol. i cant abide lies like that as i took details down and names of who i had spoken too so i knew what i had been told, had all flight details etc all written down.

fc you should be ashamed of yourselves

right all rebooked 4th time lucky, going for 3 full weeks now so gained 2 nights and from birmingham was 150 more but meals inc this time, and no car parking to pay for or much petrol so probably not much difference, as i had to add on at least a £100 to manchester flight for parking and petrol and that didnt include meals , so relieved thats sorted what a stressful 2 days ive had. lets hope it doesnt happen to any other fc flights

Well done Karen . Glad your all sorted . who did you book with this time.

onur air, most other flights were coming out very high, i know they are a turkish airline but ive used them many times and they have been fine, flight times arent great, but we do arrive in the afternoon at 2.45 rather than 4 am if i had stayed on the manchester flight so thats better, coming back horrid time ,but we should be able to get a lift to birmingham airport its only about 25 mins away, i know ive paid a fair bit more, but if i take all the extras to manchester into consideration and the hassle of getting to manchester its worth it, just hope nothing else goes wrong lol

Hi Elle-Meg, Glad you have sortted your flights out, with the daytime supplemwnts FC charge you are probably better of anf a least now you will not get back in the middleof the night, rather than lose your custom why didnt FC just let you go from where you wanted to, so in the end they lost out.

not sure they did lose out, wondering if this is a ploy to get rid of people that got these cheap flights then they can resell at the higher price, i got them so cheap now i know why, i know thats cynical but thats how i feel, they refused to do anything to help me, didnt even give in on the slightest thing, i even told them i would be mentioning on a holiday site though didnt say which one that i would let people know about this, he didnt seem bothered in the slightest,he was fairly abrupt and said cancelling was my choice and full refund will be with me within 3 days . so lets see if it is lol

Glad you got it sorted Karen. Sounds like with included meals & no car parking you haven't got such a bad deal.

Serves FC right for being so unhelpful, now they have lost your custom.
Lets hope it doesn't happen to others with all these mergers going on though I fear the worst.

Karen, hope you are wrong about about getting rid of the people with cheap flights I think we booked the flights on the same day (mine were to Spain) and we were saying how they went up as soon as we had booked.

Really pleased you managed to sort some new flights out

will be interesting to see if this is the start of lots of changes or whether ive just been unlucky, only time will tell, but its put me off booking with fc again

karen

Hi Elle -Meg, We are right they have made other changes to other flights, my neighbour is off to Turkey on the Dalaman flight Monday the 7th of June and TUI have cancelled the flight and not even informed anyone, we have looked on the TUI web for flights and the flight is not available anymore or on the Birmingham Airport timetable, also my other neighbour is off to Cyprus in August i will have to ask her if her flight has been changed, we are now worried if our flight with Thomascook will be changed if Mytravel take them over im just waiting for any info on the news or papers as their is talk about them mergiing.

There is a lesson anyone reading this should learn.

When booking flights and holidays so far in front, there is every chance that times/dates may change, or, as in this case, be cancelled.

It is not the first time that someone has posted with the problem, and I doubt it will be the last.

Airlines and TOs publish dates many months in front and then run into problems of their own. Not enough people book so they consolidate, or the take off/landing slots are no longer available. Not always the fault of the company you have booked with as some seem to think.

I do agree that when this is the case, the customer service side should try to help rather than hinder. So often the complaints are not that they have changed but the attitude of the people they ring when it happens.

No I do not work for the TOs or airlines, but from experience of planning work and events many months or even years in front, I am aware that problems can and do arise.

fwh

latest is , still havent received the refund as promised, was told a week ago by the manager he was processing my refund whilst i was on the phone and it would take 3 days to reach my card, i allowed a few more days and no sign of the refund, so ive had to ring first choice again twice to speak to accounts, who have told me no refund has been authorised yet but my flights have been cancelled , i asked why this has happened excuse i got was cant get into to the system properly to have a look will ring you back , so waiting for this call now, what a shambles fc are !!!

Sorry to hear of your problem and hope you get your refund soon.
I think you did the right thing by cancelling with First Choice. I had a similar thing happen to me whilst on holiday last year. A week before we were due to come home (whilst on holiday) First Choice decided to change the times of our flight and also made us do a detour to Gatwick, before arriving at Manchester. I tried emailing and contacting their Customer Services who were absolutly useless and ABTA were no better IMO. Finally they offerred me a £50 voucher off a future holiday with them. I will never go with First Choice again on principle, they wouldn't even be my last choice as I'd rather not go than give them any business as I feel they have a total disregard for customers.
Good Luck with the refund.

an update i got my full refund on my credit card about 5 days ago, but as i paid for this in sept my cc was obviously paid off, the bank now want to charge me to move this credit to my account so not very happy 1 bit or use my cc til i use up all the credit which i probably will have to do save all the charges but i dont use my cc very much so god knows how im going to use that much up!!! , ive also had my phone bill through and ive incurred around £16 in phone calls trying to sort this out, im really out of pocket nearly £180 from when i booked this flight to having to rebook etc, im surprised i havent heard from anyone else that was on that flight or other fc flights lets hope mine was the only flight changed then

Glad that you have now got your money back, all be it that you have still lost money on the deal.

People with problems come on here asking for help and do not bother to tell us the outcome.

I am sure that I speak for everyone when I say THANK YOU!

Hope the holiday turns out the best yet.

fwh

if it helps others then im happy to give an update

just out of interest i thought i would share this with everyone, if i had booked fc flights from scratch around the date they changed mine to manchester the flights i were offered were coming out around 1174 for 3 of us, yet flights from luton, gatwick, east mids around similar dates were between 750-900 and brum for dates about 4 days either side which would have been fine 667, yet they refused to let us fly from anywhere else without paying around 400-600 more even though i was being flexible and all the above airports are nearer to me than manchester, very strange and i cant see any sense in giving me flights that are dearer, im tempted to write to them to ask why as im curious, but think it will probably be a waste of time, they have never answered my emails !!!

Hi Karen

I think they are just a very disorganised organisation, where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

If they had a bit of common sense they would have just let you change to one of the loads of more suitable options rather than trying to get an extra 400 quid from you on a less suitable flight.

As it was they lost your custom for this flight completely, serves them right.