As mini breaks go, and over the years we have taken a few, this one will stick in our memories.
What could be more fun, we think, than a weekend in Paris with the kids during February half-term?
It would be a 424-mile round trip on Eurostar with two nights in a reasonably priced Airbnb.
And the excitement of a new city for Harry, six, and Georgie, four, to explore.
On and off!
Hugo and his wife Jo were due to return home from Paris on the Eurostar with their children Harry and Georgie, but their train was canceled “due to a strike by train managers in France”.
For transport alone, the return fare for four people on Eurostar came to £876, or £129 per person each way for me and my wife Jo and £90 per person each way for the children.
To keep costs down, we converted 50,100 Avios points accumulated through our British Airways American Express card into Nectar points. These were used to purchase Eurostar vouchers which knocked a nice £330 off the bill, meaning we only “spent” £546.
The first sign of trouble came at lunchtime on Thursday, just 22 hours before our train left St Pancras International in London for Gare du Nord in Paris.
An email from Eurostar informed us that our return journey on Sunday had been canceled “due to a strike by train managers in France” and that we would be refunded for this leg of the journey – around £438. What to do?
With excitement levels at an all-time high, we went online and, through Opodo, booked flights from Paris to Heathrow with British Airways to ensure we made it back in time for school and work on Monday morning. The cost? £1,014. Oh. The cumulative total from travel alone was now £1,890 and we hadn’t even left the house.
But at least by paying for flights with our BA AmEx card we were accumulating Avios points (although it’s hard to know how many) and enjoying the protection and security of a credit card transaction.
We woke up on Friday morning and another email had arrived overnight, at 1:17 to be precise. Bad news. The booking through Opodo failed but we discovered that the payment had been made, even though the email said: “Don’t worry, you haven’t been charged.”
Since our Eurostar train to Paris would leave in just four hours, the battle with Opodo would have to wait. We accessed the BA website and four new flights were booked.
This cost us £1,260 more. Additionally, we used 12,600 Avios points worth €80 to cover the cost of reserving seats, ensuring we could all sit together.
What would have happened if we had not paid the extra? Would BA cabin crew really have made our two young children sit with strangers? We traveled light, with only carry-on luggage, so at least we didn’t have to pay extra for luggage. But our outlay now amounted to about £3,220.
The family booked British Airways flights to Heathrow from the French capital through Opodo, but it fell through and payment was still collected.
So, with some trepidation, we set off for St Pancras. Surely, nothing else could go wrong? At the Eurostar check-in it turned out that the table for four that we had reserved did not exist. Why doesn’t anyone know?
Here, however, our luck changed when one of the few heroes of our adventure intervened.
Willingly and without batting an eye, the gentleman who checked us in found us a new table, in business class, with lounge access before boarding.
A free update! Things were getting better. And so we traveled to Paris in some style, especially for two boys more used to long trips to Anglesey or the Lake District in the back of a 16-year-old Volvo.
Precisely two hours and 21 minutes later we arrived at the Gare du Nord. Paris was everything we hoped for: from the excitement of taking the kids to the Eiffel Tower to meals on the banks of the Seine.
So it was on Sunday morning, a little tired, but happy, we headed to Charles de Gaulle to catch the plane back home.
And that’s when the real fun began.
Online check-in was not available when we tried the night before. Automatically check-in at those kiosks that have popped up in airports around the world? Not if you fly BA from Charles de Gaulle. So we went to the back of the BA check-in queue, even though we only had hand luggage. Now the line wasn’t long, maybe 40 people, but it wasn’t moving.
There seemed to be only one check-in counter open, luggage was piling up on conveyor belts that seemed to be jammed, and no one was moving. A second desk opened. Progress remained slow. There were other staff hanging around, although not many, and they seemed too important to deal with check-in.
We weren’t worried at this point. The BA screens above check-in said it wouldn’t close until 10.10am, so time was on our side, especially as we only had hand luggage and the flight wasn’t due to take off until 10.50am.
Hugo and his family received a free upgrade to business class after it emerged that the table for four they had booked did not exist.
The family arrived at the front of the check-in queue for their BA flight from Charles de Gaulle and were told it had closed. They were then booked on a later flight at 3:05 p.m.
Maybe we should have worried more. We finally got to the front at exactly 10.10am to be told that registration was closed. We had missed our flight.
We were not alone. But the plane was not due to take off for another 40 minutes. Surely someone could give us a boarding pass and send us on our way? After all, we only had hand luggage.
Our pleas, and those of others, did not even fall on deaf ears, but instead sparked what at one point seemed like it might turn into an unseemly fight.
‘So how do we get home?’ It seemed like the reasonable question to ask the seemingly tall member of staff at the BA check-in desk.
“Go fly with easyJet,” was his response. Zut alors!
With no BA helpdesk at the airport, we went to the airline’s website and found a phone number for the bombastic Executive Club, of which we are members thanks to our British Airways credit card.
Here we were lucky enough to find the other hero of our terrible experience, who booked us on the 3:05 p.m. flight that afternoon. We arrived too early to check in for that flight at the airport (oh, the irony), so he checked us in remotely. But there was a catch. “It will be £880,” we were told. Not sure whether this was for new tickets or to change tickets, we paid and arrived home, having parted with a total of £4,100, or almost ten pounds per mile.
Of course, some of the money was returned, although even this was not easy.
“Sorry, you are only entitled to a refund if your train has been confirmed to be cancelled,” said the first email we received from Eurostar after requesting a refund.
This, of course, we asked, and Eurostar eventually refunded the £438 it owed for the canceled train home.
“A small number of customers who paid with electronic coupons were sent an automated message saying they did not qualify for a refund,” a statement from Eurostar explained. “Those who have been affected by this should speak directly to customer service who will be able to process the refund.”
The Opodo reserve that never existed, £1,014, has also been refunded.
A British Airways spokesperson says: “We regret our customers’ experience and have refunded the full cost of rebooking their flight.”
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