Cancelled flight home whilst abroad

[LondonFly]

Hi. I have a return flight back to home in UK from TLV in September over 14 days away. Virgin have cancelled this flight today so I have no way home. I can only travel on the day I booked and even though they have an agreement with Elal, they are claiming that they don’t have access to any seats on Elal as they are limited to specific seats due to it being a reward booking.
There are flights available on Elal for the day and time I booked which are necessary for me to fly on.
I am a party of 6 booked reward booking in premium.
What are my rights?
and as there are no premium seats available, can I get business seats? or compo if I take economy
Many thanks

[Colin MacKinnon]

Hi,

I looked at 19th September – a random midweek date avoiding Friday/Saturday.

Wizzair offer 15:30 from TLV to Luton for £75
BA later that afternoon for £196
ElAl direct to LHR and Luton

So it appears there are some options in economy.

If your travel is absolutely necessary on that day that you booked, I would check what you would get back from Virgin if you cancelled, and then see what you could book yourself.

I appreciate there are six people in your party, so even a £100 difference adds up to £600!

However, bearing in mind the situation in the Holy Land, you also need to be a little understanding (?grateful?) that anyone is prepared to operate. So if only economy is on offer, without the hassle of refunds/claims etc, maybe simplest to take it.

There is no chance you will be upgraded to business, except at random on the day.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

No compensation as more than 14 days notice has been given

Are there 6 seats availalable on El AL the day you need to fly? That’s what matters rather than there just being flights.

Are you willing and / or able to split your party up across different flights and / or different days? Airlines won’t offer that as they assume the entire party will want to remain together

[LondonFly]

Thank you for this.
With persistence and arming myself with Eu261 law, Virgin kindly put me the Elal flight that day.
However they only gave me economy seats, as there were no premium on the flight.
Am I entitiled to any compensation for the seat downgrade?
Thank you

[JDB]

@LondonFly – under Israeli aviation law a downgrade from First or Business to Economy entitles you to 100% compensation. Under EC261 I think TLV just falls into the 75% reimbursement/compensation bracket. You will most likely have to fight quite hard for either.

[LondonFly]

Thank you.
75% of what exactly?
Thanks

[JDB]

LondonFly wrote:

Thank you.
75% of what exactly?
Thanks

75% of the points you paid and additionally 75% of the cash you paid after Virgin’s legitimate disbursements such as airport charges and taxes. I think I may have misinformed you as to the rate under Israeli law as the 100% rate is for flights over 4,500km – it’s 80% for shorter flights for a downgrade from business to economy, 90% from first to economy.

[LondonFly]

Thank you very much

[JDB]

LondonFly wrote:

Thank you very much

@LondonFly – I should perhaps have said that you can’t claim for the downgrade until after you have flown on the fairly logical basis that you have to have suffered the inconvenience before being reimbursed/compensated for it. Virgin will potentially say that they aren’t the operating carrier of the flight on which you experienced the downgrade and/or that you weren’t actually downgraded on the flight you eventually travelled on. Both are nonsense arguments.