Cancelled Flight

My husband and I recently flew to Hawaii. On the morning we were due to leave for Melbourne (12/9/15) I checked my email before we left for the airport only to find an email (sent at 11.40pm the night before) to say our flight home had been cancelled. There was no mention of another flight home. We rang the Australian office and she tried to say that we couldn't get another flight for 2 days. I explained that my husband was on heart medication and didn't have enough with us. She said that she had booked us on a flight the next day going via Sydney. She said we would receive a confirmation email in half an hour.

After 3 hours I rang the Honolulu office of Jetstar and the lovely man there confirmed that no booking had been made and he proceeded to book us on the flight via Sydney and actually sent the email while I was on the phone to him as I was so upset.

After spending an entire morning trying to get on to another flight, we managed to get on one a day later (13/9/15). We were told in our emails (one addressed to me and one addressed to my husband) that Jetstar would reimburse $150 for accommodation and $30 for meals. It cost us AU$500 to stay another night in our hotel, not to mention the loss of a day's pay and expenses for another day in Hawaii but hey we would accept $180 each and try and get the day's pay back from our insurance.

Upon landing in Sydney we received another email to say that our flight to Melbourne had also been cancelled. I was really angry at this point and while my husband went to collect our luggage for the onward flight to Melbourne I went to their service desk and demanded to know what flight they would be putting us on. She had no idea the flight was cancelled and rang the domestic airport and spoke to them. Meanwhile she googled the flight and when she spoke to domestic they didn't know about the cancellation either and she confirmed that she had just googled the flight and it was cancelled!!! Seriously what are these people on!!

We finally got back to Melbourne late on Monday night 13/9/15).

Upon our return to Melbourne we faxed through our receipts as directed for both of us. 2 weeks later my husband rang Jetstar only to be told that a sum of $99 would be reimbursed to him in a few days. We have it in writing what they promised to pay and as we were both paying customers, we expected to both receive a refund of the full amount of $180 each. To say that they are only going to pay $99 means their email was obviously a blatant lie. Their customer service is the worst I have ever come across. After all the stress they put us through, to then delay any compensation payment and reduce the payment is absolutely disgusting.

However, lesson learned, we will never fly with them again as they ruined what was otherwise a fantastic holiday.