Mum 'left in tears' after arriving in Spain to discover that Jet2 have cancelled entire holiday
A British mum was left 'distraught' after sleeping through her alarm led to her entire holiday being cancelled by Jet2.
Karen Cassidy and her husband George Gale were due to fly to Malaga on an early morning flight on 14 August but were left in tears after sleeping through it.
However, having shelled out over £1000 on an all-inclusive holiday, the 36-year-old 'got straight on the internet' and booked a new flight to Malaga in the afternoon, only to learn that her bookings had all been cancelled by the time she and her husband arrived at the hotel.
Given all the airport queues these days, missed or delayed flights are becoming more and more common, but in Karen's case, the real heartbreak came when she arrived at her hotel well past midnight to discover that she would have to spend another €350 just to spend the night.
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After being on the phone with Jet2 and 'crying for 20 minutes' Karen says she was told there was 'absolutely nothing they can do', with the total cost of her holiday ending up more than £2,600 despite her previous £1,114 all-inclusive booking.
Sharing her experience on TikTok, Karen wants to raise awareness so that other people don't make the same mistake she did.
She said: "The baby had kept me up so I don't think I ended up going to sleep until 2:00am then we were supposed to get up at 4:00am but just slept through our alarms.
"My thinking was, 'right, get straight on the internet and see if there are any other flights going today'.
"Our new flight was around 4pm then we were delayed for over an hour so by the time we got to the hotel it was midnight.
"Obviously they were like 'we can't find your booking.' Then they explained 'actually there is a booking but it's a past booking.'
"Jet2 had cancelled our entire holiday at 3pm. After everything I felt we had gone through, I was just shocked.
"This cannot be happening to us. I was distraught, I had been crying for 20 minutes."
Things would only get worse as after spending the hefty fee on a hotel room which they'd already paid for once, they discovered a less than appealing view from their window of a 'fenced wall'.
This was the 'icing on the cake' for the already exhausted couple and they were so unhappy with the room that they felt compelled to go and find a different hotel, which set them back another few hundred pounds.
Karen added: "I was exhausted and just in tears.
"They [Jet2] came back to me and said 'there's absolutely nothing they can do, they have a no-show policy, because it's been cancelled, they can't go back on that.'
"At this time, midnight, we don't have that luxury option of going to shop around.
"Our view was just like a back fenced wall and a part of the street, it was the final icing on the cake.
"I had to pay another £350 to stay in another hotel in another area plus we had to book our flight home.
"It was not a great time. "This was only Friday to Monday, this wasn't a week or anything like that, this was a couple of days.
"It was really sad. We just felt like a number. I just wanted to cry and continue to cry and not stop."
Although Jet2holidays pointed out their terms and conditions state that if customers miss their outbound flight, their travel arrangements, including accommodation and inbound flight, will be cancelled, Karen suggests that this policy is 'unclear' and wants to spread the word to other potential customers.
She said: "There was nothing that set off alarm bells in me [in the policy]. I think it's genuinely really unclear.
"Imagine I was here with my kids and the situation I could have been left in.
"Through loads of rubbish comments from people calling me an idiot or people saying 'what grown up can miss a flight', there's hundreds of people that don't know.
"If I could save one person, I'm happy. I just wanted to help someone else because I just thought I could have been here with my kids.
"I'd spent every penny making sure that the kids had a great summer and then I was like let me take two minutes out for myself, I felt like I was being punished."
A spokesperson for Jet2holidays said: "We're sorry to hear about Ms Cassidy and Mr Gale's experience and we understand how disappointing it must have been to arrive in Malaga and find that their holiday arrangements had been cancelled.
"Unfortunately, as the customers did not travel on their booked outbound flight or let us know that they planned to make their own way to Malaga, their remaining holiday arrangements were cancelled in line with the terms and conditions of their booking. When they got in touch with us after arriving in resort, our team offered to try to help andsupport them."
Topics: Jet2
James Moorhouse