In July last year we walked into Flight Centre, Neutral Bay and told them we wanted to fly to Italy for a holiday on 8/1/2012 and return on 25/1/12. We told them that we liked what Emirates were offering for the flights.
They talked us into flying Cathay Pacific on the basis that Cathay offer a ‘better service’ (complete joke that turned out to be) and that we could accumulate QFF points.
We booked the flights through Flight Centre and received confirmation for the 4 legs of the return journey. On Monday night (less than a week before departure) we went on the Cathay website - and just by chance I happened to notice that the departure date from FCO (Rome) to HKG appeared as the 23 Jan not 24 Jan (date on the e-ticket we hold). It is an absolute miracle that I even noticed the change. Everything else remained unchanged. Cutting a long story short, it turns out that on 1/9/11 Cathay cancelled its Tuesday flights on this route. We were not notified of the change. Cathay say they told Flight Centre on 1[SUP]st[/SUP] September. Flight Centre denies this.
When they opened for business after the Christmas break, I rang Cathay Pacific (and actually managed to get through their appalling Customer telephone system) and they grudgingly agreed to schedule the HKG/SYD so that it linked with the other rescheduled flight. They offered nothing by way of apology and continued to blame Flight Centre for not informing us.
The change in schedule has marred our special holiday – cutting short the Rome part of our holiday to only 1 day. Will we see much in Rome in only one day? If we had wanted to change our flights they would have charged us penalties yet they can they unilaterally change a contracted arrangement without penalty? Why were we not communicated with by either Cathay or Flight Centre?
They talked us into flying Cathay Pacific on the basis that Cathay offer a ‘better service’ (complete joke that turned out to be) and that we could accumulate QFF points.
We booked the flights through Flight Centre and received confirmation for the 4 legs of the return journey. On Monday night (less than a week before departure) we went on the Cathay website - and just by chance I happened to notice that the departure date from FCO (Rome) to HKG appeared as the 23 Jan not 24 Jan (date on the e-ticket we hold). It is an absolute miracle that I even noticed the change. Everything else remained unchanged. Cutting a long story short, it turns out that on 1/9/11 Cathay cancelled its Tuesday flights on this route. We were not notified of the change. Cathay say they told Flight Centre on 1[SUP]st[/SUP] September. Flight Centre denies this.
When they opened for business after the Christmas break, I rang Cathay Pacific (and actually managed to get through their appalling Customer telephone system) and they grudgingly agreed to schedule the HKG/SYD so that it linked with the other rescheduled flight. They offered nothing by way of apology and continued to blame Flight Centre for not informing us.
The change in schedule has marred our special holiday – cutting short the Rome part of our holiday to only 1 day. Will we see much in Rome in only one day? If we had wanted to change our flights they would have charged us penalties yet they can they unilaterally change a contracted arrangement without penalty? Why were we not communicated with by either Cathay or Flight Centre?