Tiger... Never again.

Lstratbargain on 13/08/2013 - 14:37

Was lucky enough to purchase two return tickets to Perth back in January using this deal - http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/91714

$250 return from Melbourne for 2 people… a bargain (or so I thought).

First up a couple of months out our original Melbourne to Perth flight was cancelled. There were no other similar overnight flights, so I took it on the chin, organised an earlier flight with Tiger with no extra cost to myself. I did have to book an extra nights accommodation but no big deal I thought, just an extra night away.

Yesterday I was due to fly back from Perth, we get to the airport and get told that the flight is cancelled and the next available flight is ~22 hours away (extremely rude staff, but again I can deal with that)

So we shoot off to the Virgin terminal and organise some flights within 20 minutes. (Out of pocket around $440 for two flights).

So today I ring tiger to organise a refund. I'm told that because we purchased these flights as part of a "get a return flight for $1 deal", they will happily refund the $2 for the cancelled flight for my wife and I.

I'm sure this is covered in their T&C but seriously Tiger, at least have the decency to refund half the total amount, considering they were purchased as a bundle and the return flight was dependent on the purchasing the first flight.

Furious is an understatement. I wonder how many of these $1 return flights they have cancelled? (nice little scheme they have going on)

Anyway live and learn. I won't be bothering with Tiger again. What a sham of a company.

I wonder if anyone else is in a similar boat?

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Comments

  • TheAviator on 13/08/2013 - 14:42
    +5

    That is very, VERY sneaky of them. Unfortunately I can't see them doing very much for you, I'm guessing your itinerary would show some price for the outbound flight then $1 for the inbound flight, and by law that's probably all they would have to give you.

    Really unfortunate situation for you :(

    • stratbargain on 13/08/2013 - 14:48

      Interestingly, the invoice just shows 'fare' a total amount for both flights combined. I've been on the phone asking for an itemised invoice and they cannot get it for me apparently. They just keep repeating that the return flight was only .91 cents per passenger (plus government tax)

      • TheAviator on 13/08/2013 - 15:04
        +5

        well if there is no record whatsoever of the itemised prices, then perhaps this is something you could take up with the ombudsman?

        • Bargain4U on 17/08/2013 - 02:15

          Which Ombudsman would that be?

  • CyberMurning on 13/08/2013 - 15:46

    i went fly with tiger, jetstar, airasia maybe around 8-10x all together, all are fine.
    so until i experience myself, i will still buy from them.
    have saved heaps $$$, for example $99 return sydney KL, $18 return syd-melb, $500 return sydn-japan, etc

    • JayM on 14/08/2013 - 17:37
      +10

      Maybe you should have ticked the "I am associated with Tiger Airways" checkbox before posting.

      • Chopel on 14/08/2013 - 20:55

        lol he mention couple of airways though :P

        • francis.tks on 17/08/2013 - 15:02

          @erwinsie, if you really want a cheap ticket price matched with jetstar. I had my flight cancelled in 2011, during the grounding incident. After that I tried best to avoid them, jetstar is cheaper after price match no reason to fly with them.

    • plague69 on 16/08/2013 - 18:29

      Your one of the lucky ones… One in a million I would guess.

      5 return trips I made with Tiger. only 1 flight (out of 10) ran on time with 0 hassle.

      • Few cancelled flights (only had to wait a over an hour each, not 22 hours thank god).
        *Never book on the last flight of the day. Any cancellations and you would be stuck the whole night!
      • Constant delays.

      However mostly helpful staff here in Melbourne.

      edit/add:
      Jetstar mostly good.

      ++Qantas failed once; paid for my taxi, gave me free accommodation and business class the next day :)

  • RockyRaccoon on 13/08/2013 - 15:48

    If they say it includes government tax, then they should refund that part as well, which you say they are not doing, so you can get them on that part alone.

    They cant charge for tax not paid, and if they didnt fly out then they didnt pay the tax.

    • stratbargain on 13/08/2013 - 16:49
      +1

      Hi they did also refund the government taxes.

      I'm sure by the law they are doing nothing wrong, but it's just something I had never thought of with this 'return ticket for $1' deal. I'm sure they will do these deals in the future instead of the previous 'buy 1 get 1 free' deals for this reason alone. If they cancel flights they are only out of pocket $1 vs the $100+ normally.

      I just think it is very unethical to bait people in with cheap return flights, but when they can only deliver half of their promise they refund 1% of the total purchase price.

      I wonder what would have happened had I had asked for a refund when they cancelled my initial flight. Would I have got a refund for the first leg and got to keep the Perth-> Melbourne for $2? Or would they have made some excuse….. I guess I'll never know.

      You get what you pay for I guess… which in my case was nothing :/

  • Miss Dior on 13/08/2013 - 16:20
    +4

    Thanks for letting us know. I'm noting this info for future reference. Looks like Tiger is out for our family.

  • mrdk on 13/08/2013 - 17:45

    Just wondering if it was the first flights that needed to be reinbursed (ie first flight cancelled and second 1 dollar flight was ok) would they refund you the cost of the whole flight minus $1?

    Dodgy dodgy though.

    • Eivad on 13/08/2013 - 18:45
      +19

      You can read them all you like, doesn't change the fact that they're engaging in dodgy behaviour and relying on a technicality.

      Customer experience mate. Beats strict adherence to terms and conditions anyday.

    • [Deactivated] on 13/08/2013 - 20:31
      +2

      Terms and conditions can be worthless -

      http://www.accc.gov.au/consumers/consumer-rights-guarantees

    • RockyRaccoon on 14/08/2013 - 04:46
      +5

      If you read them there wouldn't be a problem

      Of course T&C's are there, and you have to live with them, but how does that make it not painful when you are stranded miles from home without a flight.

      And what the OP is doing is letting us know that the T&C's can affect us, which is important to know.

      So instead of just repeating the T&C mantra, why not something constructive, since you must have read them in details, point out some other T&C's that would be useful to know when booking with Tiger.

      Up to now I understand that booking $1 return flights with Tiger are not worth the savings as it costs them nothing to cancel. So IF I was to use them, I would only take deals that share the cost over each flight.

      Once Bitten… oh I guess thats a poor pun

  • Davo1111 on 13/08/2013 - 21:05
    +5

    I only had to watch an episode of that show "airline" to know i never want to be on tiger.

    • strangeloops66 on 13/08/2013 - 21:46
      +28

      I watched Animal Planet and came to the same conclusion.

  • strangeloops66 on 13/08/2013 - 21:32
    +1

    If Lion Air (Indonesia's largest private airline) merged with Tiger Air, would the resultant airline operate as Liger Air or Tigon Air?

    • blitz on 14/08/2013 - 09:22

      What's a liger?

      • strangeloops66 on 14/08/2013 - 16:10

        A portmanteau word, meaning the progeny of a male lion and a tigress. A tigon is the progeny of a male tiger and a lioness.

        • blitz on 15/08/2013 - 18:28
          +2

          It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed…bred for its skills in magic.

    • retiredfeline on 14/08/2013 - 11:54

      Lier Air?

      • strangeloops66 on 14/08/2013 - 16:13
        +1

        That nickname is reserved for use by passengers.

    • Soybeanus on 14/08/2013 - 19:29

      My guess would be Tigon. Sounds about right. Liger sounds much cooler though :D

  • anntip on 14/08/2013 - 09:14
    +7

    This is obviously a very dodgy deal.

    • Eivad on 14/08/2013 - 11:48
      +15

      Thanks Rep for confirming this

  • chloden on 14/08/2013 - 15:25

    After having a bad experience with Tiger I now always try to price-match through Jetstar. My family of five are travelling from Melbourne to Perth return in December for $9 each way - $90 total return for all five of us thanks to a Tiger/Jetstar price match.

  • BargainLuver on 14/08/2013 - 15:31

    Shonky indeed. My tip is to use tiger to take advantage of Jetstars "Price beat Guarantee". As long as Tiger and Jetstar have scheduled flight within 1 hour of eachother, you can call up jetstar, quote the tiger offer, and jetstar will beat it by 10% and you won't pay any of the usual credit card/handling fees that you can get hit up with when booking online. Compared to Tiger, jetstar are more reliable and much better customer service experience.

    • andy19363 on 14/08/2013 - 19:05
      +3

      Compared to Tiger, jetstar are more reliable

      hmmm….
      %age of cancelled flights June 2013
      Jetstar %1.9
      Tiger %0.8

      QantasLink had the highest percentage of cancellations (3.0 per cent) during the month, followed by Virgin Australia Regional Airlines (2.2 per cent), Jetstar (1.9 per cent) Virgin Australia (1.7 per cent), Qantas (1.4 per cent), Regional Express (1.1 per cent) and Tiger Airways (0.8 per cent).

      http://www.bitre.gov.au/statistics/aviation/otp_month.aspx

      • neil on 14/08/2013 - 21:21
        +1

        While Jetstar may cancel more, as they are owned by Qantas, you should be able to be put on a Qantas flight if there is a cancellation. Anyone have experience with this?

        • jaxpylon on 15/08/2013 - 07:07

          Yep, I've had a Melbourne -> Brisbane flight with Jetstar cancelled. Got a phonecall a couple of hours before the flight and we were transferred to a Qantas flight leaving 5 hours later. Just gave us another day of wandering around Melbourne's cafes, and got free food on the Qantas flight.

        • Bargain4U on 17/08/2013 - 02:20

          … and people wonder why Qantas mainline is doing badly when Jetstar transfers costs over to them. Now Tiger Airways is owned by Virgin Australia I suppose you can ask them to move you to one of their flights?

        • callum9999 on 18/08/2013 - 09:28

          Jetstar wouldn't just "transfer the cost" - they presumably would have had to "buy" a seat on the Qantas flight.

          And Virgin doesn't own Tiger Airways, it has a 60% shareholding.

  • IdBuyThat4aDollar on 14/08/2013 - 15:58

    Hmmm I got one of these $1 return flights coming up end of the month to the Gold Coast. A bit concerned about this now.

    Had you taken the next available Tiger flight (albeit 22 hours later) would you have been out of pocket for the flight? Just curious because if this happens to me at the gold coast I'll just stay another night.

    • stratbargain on 14/08/2013 - 17:06

      Hi,

      No I wouldn't have had to pay extra if I took the next available flight. But the scheduled flight was at 12:30am and the next flight was 6:30pm, so it would have meant two taxi's plus another nights accommodation, plus a day's missed work.

      Had I had thought it through and realized I'd only get a $2 refund on the flights I may have considered it, but to be honest I'm not sure I would have trusted Tiger not to pull the same stunt the next day.

  • Merapi on 14/08/2013 - 16:37
    +2

    That's a horrible experience!

    Mind you, if I work for Tiger, I think I'll be super cranky too for having to deal with angry customers all day and horrible company policies/services.

    The cheap price is so not worth all the dramas.
    But yes, I'm glad Tiger Air is still around as I use them for Jetstar price match. :)

    Good luck OP.

  • mista on 14/08/2013 - 17:07
    -1

    WOW, that is extremely bad conduct on behalf of Tiger Airways but doesn't surprise.. based on what I've seen on that tv series "airways", I'm surprised they are still in business.

    They have a legal obligation to give you the whole deal in which you purchased, or none of it (hence a full refund).

    If they renege on their deal, then it is false advertising. They are ripping people off and making them pay for their full one way trip, thinking they are getting a $1 return trip 'special', then cancelling that $1 'special' return trip. So you are then forced into purchasing another full fare ticket (with whatever carrier you choose) to return.

    Extremely lame, it's bad business practice, it's false advertising, and I would pursue them legally.

    Never had that happen to me fortunately.

    • earths_pacifist on 14/08/2013 - 17:17

      There is no legal stand point as they did not renege on the their deal and gave the option to fly on the next available flight at no extra cost. It was the op that decided that the wait was too long and flew with someone else and unfortunately assumed they would get a better refund than they did.

      I have been lucky with Tiger in the past and have had no issues but close friends have. But if I fly with them again I will always assume there is a high likelihood that the flight will be cancelled and make sure that I am not in a rush to get anywhere.

  • Oliver on 14/08/2013 - 17:31
    +3

    I'd say stay away from Tiger completely. Vote with your wallet and don't give these jerks another dollar.
    It might be worth your while to ring them back and threaten to take them to the ombudsman. You were so forgiving for the first two cancellations. It seems reasonable to want half your money back at the very least, especially since they screwed you around so much and incurred you the extra one night accommodation and the other airline's tickets. If I was them and wanted some good PR, I'd refund the total ticket costs.
    It also seems very dodgy that they can't give you an itemised bill. If they just quote you one price then you should get at least half back.

    If they don't pull their thumb out and give you satisfaction, stick to your guns and notify they ombudsman.

    As a further note, I commonly see these exact complaints against Tiger. Deals too good to be true that then get cancelled later on or at the last minute. Seems like pretty suspicious behaviour and perhaps it's their standard business model to hook people in with dollar deals and then cancel the cheap flight, while retaining the expensive/normal flight booking.

  • twodollah on 14/08/2013 - 17:55
    +1

    Have you posted this on their Facebook page? Might be a good idea to get the word out to as many people as possible. Also Whirlpool forums.

  • troyboy on 14/08/2013 - 18:42

    I bought $1 to and $1 from Perth tickets for our family holiday in November/December….. This post gets me a little worried….. We get 1 holiday a year and if Tiger stuff that up I'll be furious…..

  • jacklynhydejr on 14/08/2013 - 18:57
    +8

    Look the situation sucks, BUT as you have stated, you bought a deal titled 'get a return flight for $1.' You only paid $1 for the return segment of the trip. Apart from the mantra of keeping the customer happy (which does not seem to exist anymore), why on earth would they refund you more than you paid? And all things considered, having paid $125 for the one way ticket from MEL to Perth was not that bad anyway!

    And for all the people that price beat with JetStar, what's going to happen when everyone does that, and then there is no Tiger around to keep JetStar in check? No, I'm not a rep - I'm just realistic

    • IdBuyThat4aDollar on 15/08/2013 - 10:27
      +1

      And all things considered, having paid $125 for the one way ticket from MEL to Perth was not that bad anyway!

      Yes but when deciding on booking a flight, generally you look at what it will cost you in total return (well I do anyway). One way MEL to Perth $125 may be cheap (actually thats really cheap) but if the return leg is going to cost you $200+ you probably wouldn't buy these tickets providing its not an important trip (eg. for a wedding, business, etc in which case I would avoid low cost carriers anyway). So I think what's dodgy about the promotion (IF Tiger are deliberately cancelling these flights, and I stress the IF) is its getting people to book flights that they otherwise wouldn't.

      I mean they could have made the promotion "Book a 2-way trip and save 50%" which is effectively the same but they made it "$1 for the return sector for two-way travel". That's a very deliberate choice in the promotion IMO. So it does raise suspicions at the very least.

      And for all the people that price beat with JetStar, what's going to happen when everyone does that, and then there is no Tiger around to keep JetStar in check? No, I'm not a rep - I'm just realistic

      I'm going to be realistic and suggest that apart from the OzB community, not a lot of people out there are aware of or can be bothered with the JetStar price beat. Definitely my friends and family that I have told were not aware, and even when I do tell them, they can't be bothered calling up a call centre. Tiger will always have a market as a lot of people that book with them just assume they're always the cheapest.

      • jacklynhydejr on 15/08/2013 - 21:37

        I don't disagree with anything you have said.

  • LeftHandSeat on 14/08/2013 - 20:59

    I am reading people suggesting that Tiger is deliberately cancelling flights full of $1 return fares. I'm sure there would have been a substantial amount of people inconvenienced who had a fare that was more than $1 for that flight.

    While it is an unfortunate cancellation, I find it a bit of a stretch to suggest Tiger is engaging in deliberately dodgy behavior when they try to accommodate on the next available flight. What benefit do they get in inconveniencing a customer to the extent that the customer has to spend extra money on a competitor?

    But yes, I personally prefer to do a price beat with Jetstar in the knowledge that if there is to be a cancellation, it is likely that I will be accommodated on the next flight which isn't likely to be the next day or worse.

    I guess it just re-enforces the need for travel insurance even more so when traveling on low cost carriers.

    • Davo1111 on 14/08/2013 - 21:44
      +1

      What benefit do they get in inconveniencing a customer to the extent that the customer has to spend extra money on a competitor?

      They get free advertising when the promotion starts, not everyone buys a cheap ticket. Just like a loss leader at the supermarket/electronics store. you hope they buy something else, or the advertising brings more people in.

      I'm sure there would have been a substantial amount of people inconvenienced who had a fare that was more than $1 for that flight.

      The refund has been provided, they've met their obligations under consumer law

    • zooter on 14/08/2013 - 21:46
      +1

      thanks for alerting us. Will try to avoid. so, if I have a travel insurance, what will they refund? $1???

      again, Tiger was ready to put OP on the next flight and I guess it would be the same with other airlines too. They'll refund only whatever was paid…

      • LeftHandSeat on 14/08/2013 - 23:19
        +1

        so, if I have a travel insurance, what will they refund? $1???

        Depends on who you insure with and what the policy covers. I would be looking for something that covered all expenses incurred due to unforeseen cancellation.

  • funkay on 15/08/2013 - 07:52
    -2

    Isn't that "bait and switch"?
    Last time I checked that was illegal.

    They should be refunding you the cost of the original flight And only charging you the one dollar you paid for the return flight.
    You honoured the terms of the agreement,they didn't. Why is it that you're out of pocket, when they're the ones that cancel the flight? Notwithstanding the additional expenses of travel and accommodation you had to incur.

    Tiger is a joke. I would never fly with them!

    • remake on 16/08/2013 - 09:38
      +3

      I'm not sure if you're serious? How in any definition is this bait and switch?

      Out of all the over-dramatic responses on here, this wins so far.

      So if I was to go to JB and buy two Blurays for the price of one, I should be able to pick a $5 scrapper and a $35 new release; return the scrapper and demand a refund for the price of the new release?

      The return flight only cost the OP $1. Why on Earth would they refund anything more than that?! As stated above the % of cancelled flights for Tiger is the lowest out of all budget airlines in Australia. So he must have incredibly bad luck to get hit twice. You did read the OP that states he was offered another flight? The airline did not cancel his ticket, only the flight. He has chosen to buy flights from a competitor to leave at his preferred time.

      My mind is boggled by the responses here. I understand that companies are evil, but please try to make sense for crying out loud.

      • neil on 16/08/2013 - 11:06

        So if I was to go to JB and buy two Blurays for the price of one, I should be able to pick a $5 scrapper and a $35 new release; return the scrapper and demand a refund for the price of the new release?

        Not the most expensive part but $40/2 would be a fair split.

        With your same example, what if you bought 2 Blurays, Buy 1 Get 1 free. 1st $35, $5. If the second one is broken, do you get no refund since it was free? Or do you get the $5 back?

        You did read the OP that states he was offered another flight?

        Their flights are daily. So OP would have had to get a hotel, taxi and lose an extra day of work. It's not much of a offer.

        I'm not sure about now but in the US (90s/2000s) when your flight was canceled, they'd offer to put you on their airline's next flight or put you on a different carriers flight depending on what is more suitable. Given that Virgin now owns Tiger, I find it mind boggling that this doesn't happen. I think it should be pushed into transport legislature.

        • plague69 on 16/08/2013 - 18:36

          if you return a DVD, it's your call.

          If the DVD is damaged, they would give you the same DVD as an exchange.

  • nadan on 15/08/2013 - 11:26

    I had a really bad experience with Tiger back 2011, we had booked three seats and only had one carry on luggage. When checking in they weight the luggage and told me it was over the minimum weight by 1.5 kgs or something, I said there are three of us so we are still under the limit but they wouldn't have it and I had to remove my camera and a few other items. I thought common sense would have applied but obviously Tiger staff don't have it.

    Then we were all asked to wait at the gate but there was no plane and we had to stand there for more than an hour and finally a plane came from Sydney and we were asked to go and board it when all the passengers were yet to disembark, so it was another 40 minutes wait on the Tarmac near the huge Russian Cargo plane that had touched down at Melbourne airport, its engine noise was deafening. I think after 2.5 hours of delay we managed to board the plane and on our way to Sydney but that would be the end of our travel with these idiots unless we have no other option.

    • Bargain4U on 17/08/2013 - 02:31
      +2

      Carry on luggage is a safety issue. The overhead compartment on board have manufacturer limits. Also consider this, would you want another few kilos dropping onto your head? I don't think so.

      • nadan on 17/08/2013 - 16:24

        I see, Tiger is all about safety which I had forgotten :)

  • infinite on 15/08/2013 - 11:32

    Had one bad experience with them in the past & that was enough for me. Haven't flown with them for years, never will again. Sad to see so many people still getting exploited by them.

  • Weezle on 15/08/2013 - 16:03
    +2

    ACCC.

  • Lucky13 on 15/08/2013 - 16:26

    I flew with them at Easter, no major dramas, bit of a delay leaving by about an hour though I guess. Just thought it was pretty funny coming back to Melbourne and when we got off the exit/baggage area was a cordoned off area of the carpark ahh such class Tiger :D Thought it was pretty funny. But they are cheap tho

  • cloudy on 15/08/2013 - 18:37

    Sounds crap, but I have to say that I reckon jetstar has treated me worse. My conclusion is that all discount airlines are crap, but only jetstar has lied to me, in ur case they at least offered to honour their deal, but it's just a case of only 1 flight per day, so they could only offer u a flight 22 hrs after.

  • webbj on 15/08/2013 - 22:27

    I also grabbed the MEL—>PER $1 return promo. Outbound flight was also cancelled (although rebooked to later on the same day) fingers crossed our return flight actually goes ahead as planned on Saturday…

  • theonewiththehat on 16/08/2013 - 01:25

    Surely since you relied on their services and as a result were out of pocket by $440 they are liable for the eventuating loss you suffered due to them not being able to complete their part of the contract? If I were you I would definitely take this further!

  • nikey2k27 on 16/08/2013 - 03:59

    walk away tiger are hell you get what you pay for.

  • [Deactivated] on 16/08/2013 - 20:43
    +2

    By your own account you paid $1 for the return flight.
    They refunded that $1.

    Explain the problem to me again?

    The airline game is one of the toughest industries out there.
    Harden up.

    • Lucky13 on 17/08/2013 - 01:18

      Kinda have to agree, you got the flight you paid for and the one you didnt take cost a dollar and you got that back. It sucks and it would be nice to get half the total but the second ticket wasnt half the total it was a dollar.

    • RockyRaccoon on 17/08/2013 - 09:27
      +1

      The airline game is one of the toughest industries out there.
      Harden up.

      Thats what they are doing. Hardening up against Tiger.

      As you said its a tough game, so those who dont provide service will just fail….

      Now that we are in agreement, what else do you want to add…

      Like others have said, without any legal requirement to compensate for issues on their side, airlines can tough it out, unless of course the public opinion domain comes into play, which is what this thread is about.

      • Lucky13 on 17/08/2013 - 11:07

        I dont know its a cheap airline, you get what you pay for. We're kind of lucky now to have the option of being able to take a cheap airline. Theyve got cheap airlines in Europe, Ryan Air for instance (Geez I flew with them n I swear theyve got Work Experience Pilots but anyway) and now we've got the option to take a cheap airline. And thats it its an option you dont have to fly cheap ass if you dont want to.

      • [Deactivated] on 17/08/2013 - 22:29

        Now that we are in agreement, what else do you want to add…

        Only that i personally would never choose to fly with Tiger.

        One grounding is more than enough for me - my freckle & everything attached to it is worth more than a few dollars (though i'll acknowledge now that some dispute this for reasons that i consider irrational).

  • Garagesale on 17/08/2013 - 05:24
    +1

    Its time australia introduced laws similar o those of the eu where customers need to be properly compensated when flights are very late or cancelled.
    Its depicable whn local airlines make an economic decision ( or just use shonky planes) to cancel flights if there arent nough paying customers n the flight.

    No.1 rule on tiger is to book flights early in the day and not evening ones so if u get bumped u may get a later flight.

    • callum9999 on 18/08/2013 - 09:35

      Australia already has flight safety rules so you won't be flying on "shonky planes".

      And while I partially agree, the EU legislation is going to be partially withdrawn in the near future as the compensation amounts are absurd. There's one example where someone bought a flight for roughly $20 that was delayed by 3 hours. The compensation deemed suitable for such a situation is over $350!

  • BuyNow Think Later on 17/08/2013 - 12:34

    OP,

    I have not flown with Tiger before but am worried about how Tiger handles their cancelled flights.

    1) Did Tiger communicate to you in anyways about the cancellation at least 3 or 4 hours prior to each of your 2 cancelled flights' time?

    2) Is there an online check-in facility to confirm your flights prior to leaving for the airports?

    3) You live in Melbourne, from your profile location, and you said "Melbourne to Perth flight was cancelled. There were no other similar overnight flights, ……organised an earlier flight with Tiger with no extra cost to myself. I did have to book an extra nights accommodation…" Why did you have to book an extra night accommodation in your home city?
    I assume you did not live in Melbourne at the time of your outbound flight.

    • donga100 on 17/08/2013 - 15:17

      Needed the extra night accommodation due to arriving in Perth earlier I presume.

  • le3lee on 17/08/2013 - 14:54

    Im so worried now because I had a friend whose outboubd flight perth to melb was delayed and melb to perth flight delayed over night. I rang up flight Centre to enquire about interstate insurance. Will cost me $15 and $25 excess for expenses up to $400 inc a new airfare but it will have to be a substantial delay. Just checking on what is considered as a substantial delay!

    • RockyRaccoon on 17/08/2013 - 16:18

      Just check that the insurance covers delays by the carrier. Many just cover delays caused by other events, not rescheduling.

      Eg from 1cover

      We will not pay for delays or rescheduling by a bus line, airline, shipping line or rail authority unless it is due to a strike, riot, hijack, civil protest, weather or natural disaster.

      • le3lee on 17/08/2013 - 22:00

        Will do thanks!

  • francis.tks on 17/08/2013 - 15:05

    Well, my experience wasn't that good as well. I got a ticket for them for $35 in the 2011 Tiger airways grounding incident. Although I was provided with full refund, but all the other tickets were so damn expensive. Because everyone else flying tiger for the next month have to buy new tickets. After that incident, I just price match jetstar if I want cheap tickets, and their services so far had been great.

  • callum9999 on 18/08/2013 - 09:31
    +3

    The claim that Tiger are cancelling flights to get out of honouring the $1 fares are a load of rubbish - there will only be a handful of $1 fares on each flight.

    Badly managed situations yes, but not a deliberate scam. Most likely scenario is that their flight schedule is too packed for the amount of planes they have, so on the rare occasion where a plane goes wrong there is no redundancy in the system to cover it. Why on Earth you'd expect there to be when you're only paying $1 for the flight I have no idea!

    • nadan on 18/08/2013 - 23:53
      -1

      What evidence do you have for this? Given the whole operation is shonky it is more like scam than a real business operation.

  • hOrny on 18/08/2013 - 19:03

    They are refunding you the return flight only because they have already provided you with the original flight from Melbourne flying out to Perth. Why would they refund that portion of your money as well? Granted the first flight from Melbourne to Perth was cancelled but as you said, you

    "organised an earlier flight with Tiger with no extra cost to myself"

    • RockyRaccoon on 19/08/2013 - 07:05

      We understand what is going on.

      If the pricing is leg based you get refunded what you are charged each leg.

      The OP has highlighted something we just need to be aware of.

      We tend to look at the total cost of the flight and then divide it by half so we can decide the value, since we are buy a return trip.

      The point is when the second half gets cancelled we are stuck over a barrel, wait for the next flight, which would be sort of ok if its a few hours later, but with Tiger its a day later. That extra day on a trip away often means accommodation costs.

      So buy a ticket like this and you take a gamble, so depending on what your gamble threshold is do you take it.

      Yes the points the OP made, can be dissected into what they should or shouldnt do. And some can be a little dramatic, but at least now I know what could happen.

      Other airlines, yes ones that originally cost more, do give better options if the flight is cancelled, and offer some sort of compensation. Just like getting flight insurance, at an added cost.

      And deals the $1 return fares are probably worse to get than a 50% off each way.

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