Crystal Ski - gobsmacked

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@smithski, your flight (East Midlands to Salzburg) was delayed because the plane was late in from Chambery, right? If so, I think you may still be entitled to compensation - airlines can only use the "extraordinary circumstances" defence if they directly affect the flight. Definitely worth checking with someone more knowledgeable than me!

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I think mgrolf may well be right, sounds like TUI are trying to pull a fast one! I think you should take up my suggestion of contacting Simon Calder. He often helps in these sorts of situations as (apart from being a helpful chap) he gets a travel story out of it he can write about! Toofy Grin

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£18k spent with Crystal in 2017 (this ill-fated trip plus a group trip) - doesn't buy you loyalty though.

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@Alastair Pink, yes I think you are right, I will get in touch with the travel guru, but not before I enjoy my birthday tomorrow Happy

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

@mgrolf, I'm hopeful you might have a point and I'll follow it up - at least it gives some hope of some resolution. Thanks

After all it is free

We were due to do Edinburgh to Chambery on Sat 30th Dec in the afternoon for the same week of holiday. The plane was chartered by Crystal from BA and was sitting on the tarmac in Edinburgh, but at the point of departure time we were suddenly informed the flight was cancelled, collect your bags from the carousel and go home for the night.
The reason as I understand it was that Crystal, in negotiation with Chambery, realised that pumping another six flights into Chambery that day when all was chaos was simply going to make things a whole lot worse, and we probably wouldn't get to Tignes that night anyway. So six UK flights to Chambery (from various airports) were cancelled that afternoon.
We were bussed to a hotel 20 minutes away (quiet traffic) which was pleasant and comfortable (got a swim and sauna in before dinner), given vouchers for a restricted menu but filling and nice 3-course dinner (without wine, fair enough), and told to be ready for 6 am collection on Sunday 31st - for 8.30 am flight.
All went smoothly except the flight didn't actually take off until 10.15 am, and it was a bit galling to be leaving the transfer bus at Val Claret as the last sunlight of Hogmanay was disappearing, but, and this is the key thing...

We have been promised a refund for the lost day skiing, hire, pass and accommodation - because the decision not to fly was operational, not caused by airport closure. I think it was probably a good call (although I might have survived a sleepless night for a days great skiing on the 31st, not sure that Mrs and family would have), and this sounds like a responsible way of handling things. We are told to expect refund into the payment account within 28 days. We shall see!

Two years ago we had a last minute change of hotel due to hotel not being ready, and they compensated us in the resort quite well. I'm hopeful.

This was a direct Crystal charter, but I would expect your TUI flight to be a Crystal (internal?) charter? Certainly I would think they are liable.

As others have said keep going back at Crystal years ago a threat to take them to small claims court and a formal ABTA complaint made them come up with a low offer of a voucher, having thrown this back at them and re-iterated they had one more chance before ABTA and small claims (copied in to their Company secretary) they came back with a better voucher offer, which we rejected as we had paid in hard earned cash not in their vouchers, a cheque arrived within 5 days!
Never used them again.

So keep going!

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Check out my thread from 2007 when I had success against Easyjet. Cost them a lot of money for a group of 24 that did!

http://snowheads.com/ski-forum/viewtopic.php?p=556478

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@vinnyhull,

ask him to send proof of bad weather!

Chambery to East Midlands is flight BY7635 (or TOM7635)
BY7635
Sat, 30. Dec Landed
BY7635 TOM9EG
TUIfly X3 / TUI
G-FDZB Boeing B737-800
Chambery (CMF)
to East Midlands (EMA)
955km (593mi.)
Scheduled:
13:15 (12:15 UTC)
14:00 (14:00 UTC)
Duration: 1h 45m
Actual:
19:19 (18:19 UTC)
Departed 364 min delayed
19:56 (19:56 UTC)
Landed 356 min delayed <------ as you suspected 6 hour delay!

Sazlburg had arrivals every hour on the 30th
https://www.airportia.com/austria/salzburg-airport/arrivals/20171230/0600/2359
So no bad weather there as proven.

Your original departure from what I can see should have been at 15.30
& as you can see, This is sandwiched between 2x RyanAir flights that took off ok (though a bit later than scheduled)
https://www.airportia.com/united-kingdom/east-midlands-airport/departures/20171230/0000/2359
So no bad weather there.....

Your tail for the flight on the 31st was g-fdzw & was repositioned from birmingham on the afternoon of the 31st!
31-Dec-2017 Unknown Dublin Int'l (DUB / EIDW) Birmingham Int'l (BHX / EGBB) 10:11PM GMT 10:54PM GMT 0:43
31-Dec-2017 Unknown Lyon (LYS / LFLL) Dublin Int'l (DUB / EIDW) 08:38PM CET 09:29PM GMT 1:51
31-Dec-2017 Unknown Birmingham Int'l (BHX / EGBB) East Midlands (EMA / EGNX) 02:01PM GMT 02:19PM GMT 0:17
30-Dec-2017 Unknown Birmingham Int'l (BHX / EGBB) Gran Canaria Int'l (LPA / GCLP) 01:45PM GMT 05:54PM WET 4:08

You can see the repositioning of the plane to EMA & then it turning up in Lyon some 7 hours later!

The tail from Chambrey delayed flight G-FDZB movements was :-
31-Dec-2017 Malaga (AGP / LEMG) Manchester (MAN / EGCC) 08:10PM CET 09:39PM GMT 2:28
31-Dec-2017 Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield (DSA / EGCN) Malaga (AGP / LEMG) 02:42PM GMT 06:27PM CET 2:44
31-Dec-2017 Malaga (AGP / LEMG) Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield (DSA / EGCN) 11:24AM CET 12:51PM GMT 2:26
31-Dec-2017 East Midlands (EMA / EGNX) Malaga (AGP / LEMG) 06:15AM GMT 10:03AM CET 2:48
30-Dec-2017 East Midlands (EMA / EGNX) Lyon (LYS / LFLL) 09:12AM GMT 12:26PM CET 2:13
As you can see the plane left EMA on the 30th & 31st with no return journey!

This is the info ive managed to piece together, I have no idea of the actual flight times, departure, arrival, etc. - Now, go ask them about this bad weather.......

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@Mr.Egg, that's genius and a starter for 10. Good stuff !

Crystal left us in Finland for 9 hours because our plane was diverted to chambrey because they apparently needed it more than us. We requested a refund and the arrogant @@@@@@ told us to get stuffed. We instructed a no win no fee solitictor (Blue something) and got back £800, plus costs of £400 to the solicitor. Don’t mess around. Just appoint one of these solicitors.

You know it makes sense.

@smithski, I too am trying to claim compo under EU rule 261/2004 (see https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/flight-delays ) after a 13 hr flight delay out of Bristol to Verona on 6th Jan.
I sent my epistle off to Tui today, having rang Crystal Customer Services as I was told to by our v good rep in resort. (He was the only positive about Crystal and showed them up on the communication front.) Crystal didn't want to know, even though I, like you want compensation for an afternoon/evening missed in resort and the first mornings skiing missed due to playing catch up with ski gear, lockers, reps and such.
We too had to find out stuff for ourselves as we had missed welcome meeting and spent about 24 hrs getting up to speed once we got there.
Our delay was down, we were told, to a 'technical fault' with our aircraft so I fail to see how they cannot pay out.

Having seen your thread and the 'Grrhhh' Crystal thread, along with my own experience so far, I cannot see that I will book with them again.

When I have a spare hour I will detail the fun and games we had. Just cannot face doing it at the mo.

I will so be posting negative stuff on their website at some point.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Must have used Crystal around 20 times over past 8 years and never had cause to complain. May not be perfect, but really not so bad.

Did once miss a day stuck in BHX due to weather, but Crystal handled it ok. Didn’t even consider making any claims - it’s just something that happens.

But couple of months later when renewing annual insurance broker asked me if I’d had any claims and I mentioned the (unclaimed for) delay and they insisted I should claim there and then.

In the end insurance paid out £50 per hour for the delay - capped at £500 but that was still £150 more than I’d paid for whole trip.

Next time don’t scrimp on the insurance 😁

A snowHead

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

[quote="froomie"]

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@smithski, I had a similiar experience with Easyjet many moons ago, they also tried the "bad weather" and "out of our control" card, fortunately I had similiar info to that provided by @Mr.Egg.

In the end I took them through the small claims procedure, it took a long time. Every single time they had a deadline they did "just enough" to keep the process going, inc various letters from lawyers, which I batted straight back.

In the end, and very close to the actual court appearance date I got offered a settlement which covered my costs due to the delay (which is all I was after).

So if you get no where, I'd go down the small claims. It's online (note seems to mention a new quicker method as well) https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

PS: Hi and Happy Birthday Very Happy

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@smithski, have a look here https://www.flightradar24.com/20.67,16.11/3

You will need to pay to get the data that far back but use the data/history tab to search various ways. The secret to what you want to know is the tail number of the actual aircraft which will then show you log of everywhere that aircraft has been and every detail of route and timings etc.

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Am I out of date or being naive but if you book a package holiday through a TO aren't they responsible for any issues? ie why should you have to deal with airline.

Btw I haven't used a TO at all for 7 years, even longer for skiing.

After all it is free

@Mr.Egg, airport.com only has data for last 8 days, how do you get the older data? thanks

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Well, contrary to the OP, it was two bad experiences with Crystal that finally turned us to self-organising our family ski holiday. We had very good service from Neilsen when my son was injured in Italy, so I wouldn't want to tar all TOs with the same brush. But what we came to realise is that Crystal are really at the bottom end of being just a bookings intermediary and seem to (a) pay their Reps poorly and (b) train their Reps less than the other TOs. So basically, yes, they're fine if all goes well - you're benefiting from their scale in terms of travel, transfers and accommodation. But if anything goes wrong then you're on your own (bar an inexperienced and underpaid Rep) and certainly it'll be an uphill task to get any compensation, however warranted.

I've made the same criticism when people have complained about TO transfer chaos on Snowmaggedon days and been told 'What do you expect? This isn't the Voyages Jules Verne market?'. But I don't buy that: the implication is that some of your money is going towards a highly experienced Rep and a well-oiled system to handle any transfer and flight issues. All you're getting are cheaper flights and transfers - the rest you could do as well or as cheaply yourself, with a bit of effort.

Things will go wrong whether you self-organise or go TO. And there are limits to what any TO can do when problems arise. But I think that Crystal are the least able of all the TOs to handle any problems that come up, however good value they may otherwise be.

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Just go DIY everyone. They will get the message when they go out of business. Never used a tour operator since easyjet came into being snowHead

(other airlines are available).

You know it makes sense.

@smithski,

With Airporta you need to edit the URL to change the date & go back further than 8 days YearMonthDay

[website address][country][airport][arrival or departure][DATE][time start][time finish]
[www.airportia.com][austria][salzburg-airport][arrivals][20171230][0600][2359]

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

A snowHead

@Mr.Egg, Mr.Egg, for being able to dig up all that ^ info and post it on here, you absolutely win Snowheads today.

A snowHead

Check your home insurance policy to see if you have legal expenses insurance - you can claim for flight delay under the contract disputes section. I had a similar issue where an Etihad flight was delayed due to the incoming plane being held up due to bad weather. They tried to argue exceptional circumstances but it was deemed to be operational as they should have had more planes. You might have to push the legal expenses insurer a bit but it should definitely be covered. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions, I worked as a senior underwriter for a legal expenses insurer for a number of years.

Takes all the hassle out of the process, they pay all the court fees and do all the paperwork.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Step 2: Claim rejected or put on hold by the airline? Take it further with the regulator or new adjudicators

Passengers should claim compensation
Just because your case has been rejected or put on hold by the airline, it doesn't mean that's the end of the line for your complaint. If you think you have a legitimate claim, you can take your case either to the relevant regulator or one of several new adjudicators many airlines have signed up with.

Escalating your complaint is normally free, but watch out – one of the new adjudicators now charges a £25 fee if your appeal's unsuccessful.

If you flew to or from the UK and your airline's with an adjudicator, you MUST use it

The CAA, the UK's airline regulator, has been approving various Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) schemes to take on cases. If your airline has signed up to one it has to tell you when it rejects your claim – if the ADR scheme covers the flight you flew on you MUST go to it if you want to appeal. The advantage of going to an ADR scheme is its decision is generally binding on the airline.

Here's a round-up of the different ADR schemes which have so far been approved by the CAA, and the airlines they cover:

AviationADR (formerly The Retail Ombudsman) – Air Astana, Air Canada (and Air Canada Rouge) Air China, Air France/KLM, Air India, Air Mauritius, Asiana Airlines, CityJet, Delta, Egypt Air, Flybe, Garuda Indonesia, Norwegian, Ryanair, Skywork Airlines AG, Small Planet Airlines, South African Airways, TAP Portugal, Turkish Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Wizz Air. You can submit your complaint here – there's no fee if your claim's unsuccessful.

CEDR – British Airways, Easyjet, Thomas Cook and Thomson. You can submit your complaint here. If your claim's unsuccessful you'll have to pay a £25 fee, but if you're awarded any compensation this fee will be waived.

Czech Trade Inspection Authority – Czech Airlines and Smart Wings/Travel Services. You can submit your complaint here. There's no fee if your claim's unsuccessful, but this scheme's decisions are not legally binding on the airline.

Latvian Consumer Rights Protection Centre – Air Baltic. You can submit your complaint here.

Söp – Austrian Airlines, Brussels Airlines, Eurowings, Germania, Germanwings, Lufthansa, Scandanavia Airline SAS and Swiss. You can submit your complaint here – there's no fee if your claim's unsuccessful. This scheme's decisions are not legally binding on the airline, but it says 90% of businesses follow its rulings.

From Martin Lewis's website.

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Erm, make that four Laughing

.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

This thread is Snowheads at its best.

After all it is free

I will never use Crystal ever again. The chalet staff returned drunk every night. The food was just thrown together. Breakfast and dinner was served by alternating stoned and hung over staff. The rep was useless and we were made to feel a nuisance. We were getting in the way of their season. Never again.

Chalet Glacier, Lavachet, Tignes.

*Ski* the Net with snowHeads

Well credit where credit's due. Took a while but in the end Crystal did their bit and acknowledged their failing by making an acceptable settlement. TUI paid out on the EU flight regulation quite early on, then some time later Crystal offered additional compensation (after a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and raising a case with ABTA), initially in the form of vouchers but having declined those they then settled with a cheque. Thanks to those of you who responded with help and advice and I hope that others have had a similar satisfactory outcome.

Help!!

Crystal Ski - gobsmacked

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