EasyJet for travel? not so easy

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Hi all,</p>

<p>I just recently did a tour around Europe using the trains and EasyJet… The trains were great but I did not have any pleasant experience with Easyjet in 5 flights with them. I would like to share my experience so that people won’t be tricked by EasyJet for their low price tickets. Easyjet advertises that they have one of the cheapest airline tickets. That is true. However, there are a lot more to that. Most of the easyjet airports are not major airports. They are very far from the city and if you book your flight early in the morning (like we did), it’s very hard to get there using public transportations (bus, metro, train…) because they don’t open early in the morning. So, we ended up taking the taxi to the airport, which was really expensive generally 70 euros depending on where you live. Upon arrival, unlike other airlines that puts you on the next flight if you’re late, you forfeited your ticket with Easyjet. In a city where you are not familiar with the language, the people, and there’s no free internet, it’s really hard for you to try to get out of the city easily. That’s fine, it is the customer’s responsibility to get there on time. So our first flight from Spain to Paris… it was delayed 2 hours. We waited and waited and waited… after 4 hours they announced in Spanish that it was canceled due to pilot strike. No body informed us in English of what happened, we had to chase the local Spanish speaking people to ask what happened. We got 2 options: 1. to file for a ticket refund (which will take 3-4 months, our friend who was stuck at the airport because of the volcanic cloud still didn’t get his refund after 2 months) and find our own way from Spain to Paris. 2. Wait for the next flight which will be in 2 days. Option 2 is obviously not an option for us as we booked hotels and planned everything that we will do in Paris already. We can’t just lose 2 days staying at the airport doing nothing. So we chose option 1 to get our money back and bought train ticket the next day to Paris. Note that they did not provide us of any hotel, meal, or anything they said the in FAQ website. We “slept” at the airport that night, that means staying awake watching our luggage. Imagine if you have kids. So it is our responsibility to get there on time but once something happened, it’s not their responsibility to reimburse us and we were left stranded. We also lost a day of our trip including hotels, museum + metro passes we bought in Paris. We met one couple and they missed their brother’s wedding because of this pilot strike. Some people ended up buying expensive tickets (in the thousands) to fly to Paris immediately.</p>

<p>Another incident happened in Germany. Easyjet has a policy of 1 hand bag and it has to fit into the box they provided. If it fits, you can go, if it doesn’t you have to pay extra fees. We were traveling with a group of friends and family. They picked out 3 of us and told them to put their bags into the box. Nobody else is required to put their bag in. I came and told them that, then the Easyjet staff told me to put my bag in also. One of our friends’ bag was too big but she managed to push it inside the box anyway. Easyjet staff didn’t like that and required her to pay 33 euros (the price to check in the bag was 14 euros). Many Germans saw that and started to come and helped us out by speaking to the Easyjet staff in German. My friend demonstrated that she can push the bag inside the box and get it out. As long as you get it in, it doesn’t say that you are not allowed to push it in. They are just trying to milk customers for more money. </p>

<p>That did not happen just once, it happened every time we travel with easyjet. And despite that fact that my friend’s luggage is within dimension, fits in the required box, it just needed a little push, each and every time easyjet made us pay extra. So if you consider some of these facts about Easyjet: they always run late, far from major airports that require additional fees for taxi, cancel flight without notice / reimbursement, getting stranded at the airport without food or hotel in a place you don’t know the language, milk customers for unnecessary additional fees. If you’re planning an organized trip, you might not want to fly with Easyjet. It is probably only good if you take one flight for a weekend from one place to another. Even then, the fees might add up to more than the tickets from other airlines. For us, we booked 5 straight easyjet flights and hell happened to us. It can ruin your perfect trip. And if they don’t reimburse me for their flight cancelation, I’ll let a lawyer talk to them. And when coming home, I realize that they charged us by the minute for talking to customer service on the phone (it’s about $100 for 10 mins wait).</p>

<p>So the next time you book, don’t just choose for the price. Easyjet might not be very easy after all. I’ll call them CheapJet (they are cheap in price and their milking of customer is also very cheap).</p>

2

<p>So sorry you’ve had bad experiences with them :frowning: </p>

<p>I’ve had many great experiences with EasyJet that. Easyjet flies into more major airports than Ryan Air does. I agree that the cost of getting to and from airports can add up, but there are many cheaper ways than taxis in most cities to get to the airport (charter buses, airport buses, train, subway). EasyJet offers tickets that are incredibly cheap, and if your aim is to get the cheapest tickets possible (like students do), then they are great to use. You don’t need to buy anything that costs extra money, like early boarding, checked bags, travel insurance, whatever. Airlines of course milk customers for money, but your friend maybe should have been a bit more careful with her bag in terms of knowing EasyJet’s policies. Also, it is possible to pay for a checked bag online before the flight (I think I paid 9 euros to check a bag on a one-way flight). You do get what you pay for, but if you’re fine with the bare minimum, then they’re great.</p>

3

<p>Sorry to hear of your negative experiences. My daughter has flown on EasyJet without any problems. </p>

<p>I have to say, I have had bad experiences on many airlines, even ones that are not the cheap ones.</p>

4

<p>DD is flying to Germany tomorrow and just discovered that despite checking with her friends there before buying a ticket she is going to the wrong Frankfurt airport on Ryan Air.</p>

<p>It’s somewhat like attempting to fly to San Francisco and ending up in Oakland, still in the right general area, but a ways to go to get to the right place. Hopefully there will be no bad airline shenanigans</p>

5

<p>These are the experiences my daughter and her friends have had w/Easyjet:</p>

<p>1) D and a friend flying from Madrid to Lisbon were both asked to put their bags in the size bin, both fit. Upon boarding, D’s friend was told ehr big was too big and was forced to check it and pay. Upon arrival in Lisbon they went to the Easyjet counter, showed them that the bag fit, and friend asked for her money back. She was told “sorry”.</p>

<p>2) that same weekend another friendd flew Madrid/Paris, and the same thing happened to her. However, she inadvertently left her computer (foolish, I know) in the bag, and upon arrival both the laptop and cord were gone.</p>

<p>3) D was flying from London to Munich to meet S. Missed her flight, was put on next one at no charge.</p>

<p>3) D stuck in London for 3 days due to 2nd cloud bout. Was put up in hotel and fed for three days, did not have to pay for anything, not even transport.</p>

<p>Mixed experience, but nothing like we’ve had with United, American or Iberia.</p>

6

<p>Kate43,

</p>

<p>Some of our flights were early in the morning (7am). We needed to go at 5 or get there at 5:30. The buses and metro don’t start until 6am in some places. Plus it takes a lot longer to use the buses/metro since you need to switch trains. Therefore you have to start going even earlier, which in some cities the metro / buses haven’t started operating yet. I heard Ryan air weight your carry on luggage too, that’s why we didn’t choose them. </p>

<p>Gloworm

</p>

<p>I wish we could have done that. We pushed the bag in and it fits, still they told us to pay or we won’t fly. They say you have to put it in “easily”, which is not stated anywhere.</p>

<p>I’m still waiting for them to response to my claim for a refund. The other fact that I hate is that they charged me by the minutes for calling to file a claim with them on the day they canceled the flight. That’s ridiculous.</p>

7

<p>Ah yes, I understand, for instance, I took a taxi in Madrid. However, charter buses are good, and since they’re private companies, they have better schedules than city buses. Of course, I can’t speak for all of EasyJet’s cities, but with just a bit of research on the airport’s websites, it’s usually pretty easy to find a few different ground transportation options, including charter buses. For instance, I took a (Ryan Air) flight to an airport in Stockholm that was probably 50 or 60 miles from the city center, and there is a very popular, convenient, and cheap charter bus service from the airport to the city center. Also, in London, I caught EasyJet flights in the morning before the Tube was running, and Easy Bus (run by EasyJet) is also cheap and convenient, picking up passengers at multiple points throughout the city to bring to the other airports besides Heathrow.</p>

8

<p>Ah, and what might be the extra cost, monetary and stress, of getting to the airport should be factored into your decision to use EasyJet. For lots of people, the extra stress of getting to a further airport isn’t worth the amount of money you save on the plane ticket. Or, if the extra cost of getting to the airport adds up to more than a competitor’s plane ticket, then you may want to just go with another airline (usually this doesn’t happen though, since the tickets are so cheap anyway).</p>

9

<p>So sorry about your experiences. We flew Easyjet, but studied the measurements of bags, and carried one of those $8 hand scales throughout Europe. We knew ahead to be careful about the locations they fly into and out of. For us, it worked well. But we had been warned about what to look out for.</p>