Ok, resolved.

After some irrelevant blabla about usually being an airline fee to pay if you don't accept the airline's alternative in case of Invol change (Which is generally untrue, and in the case of EU strongly regulated), they did confirm that there are indeed no service fees to pay at all if you bought the flex option. The agent handling my request was wrong, and they "have been strongly reprimanded"...

I feel a bit sad for ruining that employee's day, but a bit better about my choice of OTA.

"A Flexible (rebookable) Ticket allows you to change your flight tickets no matter what the airline's rules are. If the price of the new ticket is higher you only pay the difference."

You can find the T&Cs here

Those list the "Assistance Fees" as part of "Service fees" (which they promise are waived) so actually the more I read this,  the more I'm confused. I don't know if the agent I had on the chat was simply wrong, or if it's their whole system that is rigged/misleading. Looking forward to get that reply from Customer Services.
 

I am normally quite careful with OTAs and don't buy their extra options which are often scams, but this flex option sounded like a good deal on paper... If I hadn't bought it this time, i would have just talked to airline direct like I normally do. This still beckons the question what did I pay £40 for if they were going to charge me service fees anyway.

From a complaint I'm making to an OTA which until now I used to think was one of the more decent ones   Content should make the story self explanatory.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Hi, I bought 5 tickets with you this year. In May I booked a domestic multi-city with AeroMexico. I paid £41.72 for your flex option so I could change my plans if needed. I haven't had the need to use that option yet.

I received a notification that my flight schedules were changed. One of the new flights, the MEX-CUN, was too late now so I contacted your agents to rebook me on an earlier flight. As the change was INVOL this should have been free of charge.
The agent declared that the new flight was "the best they can do" and refused to rebook me. Instead tried to get me to exercize my Flex option.
I was told exercizing the Flex option would cost me a fee of £13, which was shocking as you promise and I quote "airline's penalties and our service fee are waived. An additional payment may be required if there is a price difference." which is misleading as it hints that ONLY the airline issues price difference is left to pay.

Faced with the inflexibility of your agent and the unacceptable wait times to get someone on chat, I contacted AeroMexico directly, who were in a few minutes able to reissue my flight to an earlier flight, free of charge of course, as it's an INVOL change.

As promised to your agent who mishandled the initial call. I am back with a few serious questions for you that I would like an answer for:
1) How do you think it makes your frequent customers feel, when you unlawfully deny them rebooking for an INVOL change and try to charge them for it?
2) What do you intend to do about it?
3) What am I paying a £41.72 flexible fee for? What will you do if I need to change my flight and refuse to pay the £13 "assistance fee" hidden in your terms and conditions, when your sales text promises "No service fees"? Are you going to charge further fees, perhaps a unicorn fee next?

I await your answers with impatience.
A not so happy customer

Quote

what outcome are you looking for?

In the absence of a policy many organisations would use the ACAS guidelines.

However - is there reasonable evidence that you did not do the thing you are suspected of?

Don't obsess over spelling mistakes. That's trivia.

 

Quote

Exactly what were you accused of? have they classed it as either Misconduct or Gross Misconduct?

Have you been Suspended with or without Pay?

Have you wrote to the Employer asking for a Copy of the following?

Policy and Guidelines they are referring to?

Disciplinary & Grievance Policy & Procedure?

(You need copies of the above to ensure they have followed there own Policies/Guidelines/Procedures

 

It would be helpful to answer all the questions you were previously asked, and did not answer, so that people can actually help you.

There is a hint of possible retaliation in your story, but without the details it's impossible to tell.

Regarding the wrong company name it's anecdotical at best... unless you really want them to send you another dismissal letter with the proper stationary this time, best to focus on the meat of the matter and not the form.

@dx100uk I don't think she's redacted the date. It's just left blank to be filled when signing, no?

Here's the PDF.

Looks pretty rock solid to me as for PoFA angle.

2023-12-11 ParkMaven PCN-NTK incident 2023-12-02.pdf

Here we go again:

_____________________________________________________________________________________

1 Date of the infringement 02/12/2023

2 Date on the NTK [this must have been received within 14 days from the 'offence' date] 11/12/2023
 

3 Date received 16/12/2023
 

4 Does the NTK mention schedule 4 of The Protections of Freedoms Act 2012? [Y/N?] Yes
 

5 Is there any photographic evidence of the event? Yes
 

6 Have you appealed? [Y/N?] post up your appeal] No
 

7 Who is the parking company? ParkMaven Limited

8. Where exactly [carpark name and town] Hampton by Hilton Humberside Airport
 

For either option, does it say which appeals body they operate under.

POPLA

_____________________________________________________________________________________
 

I was meant to travel on the 2nd-5th of December.

Had prepaid parking + Hotel with HolidayExtras.

My airplane was delayed 11 hours (in one hour increments, fun day!)

ended up deciding not to travel and changing my travel dates to 7th-10th Dec.

Before going home I arranged for my parking arrangement with Nightel/Hampton (the hotel is Nightel but the parking is shared with, and managed by, Hampton) to be moved to the 7th-10th and was told no problem.

I asked if I needed to do anything for my stay on the 2nd and they said, "not at all, you're good to go".

Lo and behold, received in the mail today a lovely parking charge for £100 (or £60 if paid soon).

For now what I did is write to Holiday extras directly and ask them to intercede with Nightel/Hampton to remove the charge. I hope this will work out...

What a hassle I was half expecting this to happen anyway... and it did.

Someone will be here to advise but in the meantime please add more information.

Was the debt actually yours?

When did you contract it?

When was the last time you made a payment against it (if any) ?

Whilst I'm sorry to hear about your Mental health, it probably won't be a factor in this, not at first. Stick to numbers and dates for now.

you will also want to have a read on the many pinned threads in this forum, like this:

Chances are your boiler needs being re-ignited or re-pressured, which is something any person can learn to do by watching a short video on youtube. It's a lot easier than operating a computer or mobile phone, which everyone here can do.

Appreciate it's scary if you never touched a boiler before, but they are skills you are better off learning at some point, whether you are renting or owning.

Plumbers are difficult to get in an emergency. If it was their home, they would also struggle to get someone there fast.

Legally they have to fix it within 24 hours, but before you pick this hill to die on, you risk nothing by trying the troubleshooting (or ask a friend to help).

Oh I see it's been 4 days now, so hopefully your issue's been fixed by now 

It's okay to call your friends the C word.

But these people are not your friends.

Some may be provoking you, and getting a kick out of your reactions. Don't give them that satisfaction. Keep the moral high ground, even if you need to bite your tongue until it bleeds.

Everyone also has the right to come to work without being verbally abused and feeling threatened by someone who is not a friend.

HR aren't taking revenge, they are simply doing their job which is protecting their staff; this includes you too.

If you show them you can do your job, learned your lesson and aren't a threat to anyone, you'll be fine. They are also here to listen to you when the going gets tough

And so are we.

All the best.

Ask once and look like a fool, or never ask and remain one.

Does the "insurance = scam" equation also apply to Royal Mail's insured services? I don't know why but those always had an air of legitimacy to me + I never see any threads here about RM.

I think it's about time you send a S.A.R to see what they are trying to hide.

Edit: well, I am proven wrong by the automated link inserted in my very own post. Loss of enjoyment is apparently indeed a thing! Will let others chime in then in case they know better.

Personally, I'd still take the money and run!

£190 cash 

I think that's pretty good, considering that there was no clear cut grounds for a reimbursement at all. (apart maybe for the Broken glass point, which you never replied to - but even then, what you should have done is eat out every day and claim everything back, which I assume you didn't so it's a moot point). Remember that courts award damages based on what actually happened and what you actually had to pay. They don't award money based on "loss of enjoyment".

If you read their letter carefully there is zero admission of fault. They are thanking you for your feedback and promising to look into the points you raised, and offering a grovelling apology that you didn't have a good time, that's all.

How long were you in the house in total? This will affect what you can put down to "wear and tear".

To be honest that dark stain on the carpet doesn't look great from the pictures. (but it might just be the angle at which it's taken tbh). Is it stains or is it just wear? Hard to tell. The sink looks like it's normal wear to me, but again if you've just been there a few months, then it would not look normal.

That said you are right to challenge everything and ask for evidence. Too many times Landlords treat tenants like vermin that are a nuisance to their property (surprise: while you're paying it's actually your property). Never miss a chance to remind them that tenants are valued customers who are paying their bills and their mortgage in exchange for very little work from their part, and without you they are nothing.

As a rule of thumb, calendar deadlines are more often than not set in multiples of 7

...and business day deadlines in multiples of 5 

Just need to set your deadlines to 6 days or 19 days to make folks extra confused  

In person as per post #16

I can't answer as to "WHY" though 

Do your children have special needs that require them to be home schooled, or have they been bullied?

If not than it's probably best for you to let go. I have no doubt you can teach math or english better than any teacher would, but kids don't go to school to learn math and english, they go there to learn to live in a group and have social interractions, for the best and for the worst. This is what will serve them the most in their adult life.

Home schooling is a luxury that not everyone can afford, yet that often does a disservice to those who do.

Pardon me for the blunt opinion o/

Wait until you find out that anchovies and mushrooms are not covered, or any meat based produce!

That clause is for ppl doing... precisely that, so stuff like 160mph on the motorway. So the punishment can be greater than default.

at 109 over 101, it sounds like the default will be used. Still a very silly thing to do, mind.

Hey whilst it looks like you genuinely did not have a good time, I don't see anything here that warrants a statutory compensation. 

...Except maybe...

Advertised as a 4* Hotel with sports facilities such as basketball and tennis however, this is used as a car park for customers 

Sounds like they advertised something that wasn't made available to you. Whilst this happens all the time, standard practice would be to offer you some form of minor compensation for the advertised facitilies that weren't provided in the end.

(however note that if the hotel is indeed a **** then you got what was advertised, there's no 2 ways about this, it has the stars or it doesn't)

...and...

Broken glass in the food

Did I really read this right? Broken glass in your food? Or did you just mean your drinking glasses were chipped? If you actually had broken glass in your food that I'm surprised you didn't leave that hotel screaming on the spot, because that's certainly what I would have done.

The rest of your complaints would be better suited in a tripadvisor review or mail to customer service, but it's not really something that would normally warrant compensation. Do be aware that whilst some of them seem like genuine complaints, like stains/dust, some of it comes across as a bit entitled (Complain because you have to walk to grab drinks - Complain about people's english skills in a foreign country) or downright nonsensical (Your outlandish point about the aircon - Just because it's hotter outside doesn't mean you should make it colder inside, on the contrary that's very unhealthy not to mention wasteful)

Do feel free to complain to easyjet and depending on how skillfully you manage to handle it and how ballsy you feel you might get some money or a voucher as a result, it's worth trying.

Oh that's lovely. That went a lot smoother than I expected. Well done. 

You shouldn't ask for the refund on top, since you paid them to get you from Rhodes to home and that's what they did in the end, kinda. 

Hope you managed to enjoy your stay in Brussels!

Ahh one thing I forgot,

I see you did spend one night in Rhodes at your expense on the 28th. They MUST pay you that as well as meals+ transport that day, I do not see a way for them to weasel their way out of this one.

It's the nights in brussels that will be a bit more difficult to argue.

So as we're talking about the NATS issue on the 28th there is no EC261 compensation due.

The airline did have a duty of care to take you back to the UK, but by going your own way you made things a lot more difficult for yourself.

Accepting the refund will not close your other avenues for a claim so I would accept that now if I were you, you can still make a followup claim for duty of care minus what they already refunded you.

What you should have done, hindsight being 20/20 is either:

A) Stay in Rhodes indefinitely in a hotel at Easy Jet's cost, until they find you a flight home or

B) If you REALLY can't afford not coming back to the UK, find an available flight back home yourself, which is pretty much what you did, so far so good. Then instead of booking it yourself, tell EasyJet to book you on it. And only when they refuse, document the refusal, tell them that you will book the flight yourself anyway, and do just that. This would have made your position much stronger, as you would have reminded them of their failure to fulfil their duty.

Now that you kind of went your own way and did your thing , take the refund first, then make an adjusted claim for your plane + eurostar back minus what they refunded you. Remind them that you saved them money by not demanding they put you up in a hotel in Rhodes for 3 nights. Make sure you explain why you needed to be back in the UK immediately, and try and prove that this was really your fastest way back. You might get lucky but more probably you won't.

2 nights in Brussels is a very unusual route back and I'm sure they'll question why you even did something like that, especially when they offered you a flight on the 31st which if I understand would have gotten you back on the same day.

Once they reject your claim, you can perhaps try and make another claim with reduced costs. Just the flights + eurostar minues the hotel for example. Remind them again that you saved them money by not demanding they put you up in a hotel in Rhodes for 3 nights, and they should be happy you made your own arrangements.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Thank you for suggesting that case. It's a really good read. Will put the link here for those interested:

SANDRA DUNBAR AGAINST EASY JET AIRLINE COMPANY LIMITED (scotcourts.gov.uk)

As you've already seen from reading it, the onus is on the airline to prove that they did everything they could.

In that case EasyJet did try and go to great length to explain what each of their spare craft was doing that day, and why they didn't have another one left... which in the end did not convince the judge, and they were ordered to pay.

Knowing Ryanair, you're probably going to need to take them all the way to SCC to try and get that explanation from them. It certainly seems worth it.