Dear Madam or Sir,
I have been in touch about this matter with the Europe Direct Consumer Centre and they have advised me to contact the ECC in my country of residence (Sweden). My apologies for writing to you in English.
My wife and I planned to travel on Tuesday 22/3 from Gothenburg to Savannah (USA) with United. The unfortunate events in Brussels on that day made that our flight from Gothenburg to
Brussels was diverted to Liege and the cancellation of connecting flight UA951 to Washington. The earliest rebooking of our trip to Savannah could take place on Friday 25/3 from Frankfurt. Even though United and Brussels Airlines were not able to provide us with a lot of help at th time (as they were understandably very busy), a customer care agent was helpful in reserving this option for us. However, no-one could inform us any further about accomodation and transportation costs incurred in the meantime.
The uncertainty about whether our costs would be compensated, which
persisted all the way until late on Thursday 24th, in combination with
the fact that we already missed most of the wedding we were to attend,
forced us to decide to cancel our itinerary and head back to Gothenburg,
Sweden. United was helpful in cancelling our trip and has promised to
refund our original ticket price, but said was unable to provide any further information regarding accomodation or transport costs. Then, the EU authorities responsible for these matters informed me:
- United needs to refund our full original ticket price (done)
- United should have informed us of our rights at the time of the events
(not done)
- United needs to provide us transportation back home (not done)
- United needs to compensate us for our accomodation and transportation
costs
We have provided both United and Brussels Airlines with all the applicable receipts. Approximate costs in USD: $1254. However, after almost 6 months of have being sent back and forth between United and Brussels Airlines, we now just do not hear anything from them anymore. The last we have heard from Brussels Airlines/United stems from 2 June 2016 (3 months ago), and the Belgian NEB also does not get back to us.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Yours faithfully,
Niels Markwat