Tiger Airways postponed my flight by a day and a half

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Tigerair Australia

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  ozzyoi on 26/07/2014 - 09:32

  Update: I just now spoke to tiger airways call center - and explained the situation - they advised that
  1) they can refund the money ( i had got the tickets when 2 for 1 offer was ongoing)
  2) they can prepone or postpone the flight 7 days before or after( which cant be done because hotels have been booked in sydney and am staying @ a friends place in melbourne and it seems he is goin on onsite somewer)

  I asked them for a credit towards any tiger hotels, but they clearly refused. Also initially they told they can prepone the flight to 14th, but after 10 mins they said NO.

  Though tiger airways fares are cheap, the customer care and services suck big time.

  • 

    tomleonhart on 26/07/2014 - 15:47

    "Though tiger airways fares are cheap, the customer care and services suck big time."

    The fare is cheap for a reason. That reason could be no money going toward staff training/extra procedures to be implemented etc…

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  [Deactivated] on 26/07/2014 - 10:33

  +1

  There is a certain saying that speaks to the often unhappy outcome of 'catching a tiger by the tail'…

  I have also heard more than one unhappy 'Tiger tale' from people I know.
  Certainly enough to dissuade me from catching any of their flights, and likely experiencing one or t'other of their various flight-catches - or one of their, seemingly, extra-frequent (maybe-more-than-maintenance-related), flight-schedule-rejigging-exercises…

  I can't help you as regards redress. My understanding is that Tiger also well-and-truly play hardball when it comes to applying their T's & C's.

• 

  surm on 26/07/2014 - 11:22

  I have heard this happening many times with Tiger and Tiger wouldn't do anything.

  Eg.

  http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/tiger-airways-p…

  I understand OP's predicament.

  Tiger offered a service and OP accepted it. OP then made subsequent arrangements like accommodation and taking leave from work. It is not fair by the OP if Tiger now cancels/reschedules the flight and offers just a refund of the ticket.

  The bottom line is that Tiger made a mistake yet Tiger pays no penalty. The passenger is forced to pay the 'penalty' for Tiger's mistake.

  Tiger is not penalised for this behaviour, so they continue to advertise flights and sell tickets knowing that they can cancel without paying penalty to the passengers.

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  Ughhh on 26/07/2014 - 12:14

  +3

  I thought tiger was famous for flight delays. Never fly with tiger if your schedule is tight.

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  grimace3 on 26/07/2014 - 12:35

  +1

  You get what you pay for, tbh

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  bunnybash on 26/07/2014 - 15:18

  I had a similar experience with Air Asia - we paid full price for tickets, and we paid more in order to fly at a decent time, we were going to fly on the cheaper flight which was a red eye special. The next thing we know, Air Asia cancels our flight and bumps us to the red eye flight that was cheaper - but they didn't refund the cost difference and refused to when asked.

  Then when we were on a holiday they moved our return flights to 8 hours earlier!!!

  Basically the only option is to vote with your wallet when planning your next holiday.

• 

  cloudy on 26/07/2014 - 16:24

  +1

  I hadssimilar experience wih jetstar, nothing I could do. Suck it up and accept that flights are cheap for a reason.

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  ozzyoi on 26/07/2014 - 22:29

  Thanks,. are u all sure that nothing can be done? Is there some way any oz bargainer had dealth with it positively?

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  chrisburnett on 27/07/2014 - 07:57

  +2

  I had two flights cancelled two days in a row. We missed taking the kids to Movieworld, so that caused tears, but worse, we missed our friend's wedding and our accommodation was lost as we'd booked on Wotif and didn't turn up.

  If you need to be somewhere, don't fly Tiger. They don't care at all, can't be held to anything and frequently cancel flights if they don't have a full plane because it costs them money to fly half empty.

  The number of hotel bookings that have been lost, ours was around $500, must be staggering.

  • 

    ozzyoi on 27/07/2014 - 08:44

    thanks .. i flew with tiger airways before, this is the first time this has happened..next time no tiger for me

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  vocadata on 27/07/2014 - 12:32

  +2

  Unfortunately you can't expect full compensation in the event of a problem with a low-cost carrier. One of the reasons the flights are so cheap is there is minimal recourse in the event of an issue. If you fly on low-cost carriers frequently then it may be worthwhile getting annual travel insurance or purchasing your flights with a credit card that offers travel cover. Otherwise, pay more and fly with a full service carrier. Tiger has been growing its fleet but Jetstar has more aircraft and more frequent services. Compensation with low-cost carriers is generally limited to a food credit (after several hours delay) and/or rebooking onto another flight without fee, whereas a full service carrier will also provide accommodation or switching to another carrier if the delay is significant.

  When flying low-cost, try to avoid taking the last [or only] flight to your destination for the day, if you can avoid it. I admire Tigerair but I always fly with Jetstar as they will beat Tiger's airfare by 10% when they have a flight within 60 minutes of it (and they don't charge the credit card booking fee either). As they have more aircraft, you're less likely to get stranded too.

  • 

    ozzyoi on 29/07/2014 - 11:02

    i wil remember that next time. Thx

    • 

      lisss on 29/07/2014 - 19:11

      Yep good advice. This is standard for all budget carriers. Has happened to me with Jetstar too. As ceejay recommended, I had travel insurance which covered my additional expenses minus the excess. I was able to get a flight the same day with a different carrier.

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  whodidthat on 27/07/2014 - 12:45

  They messed us around last year, rescheduled flights 3 times then cancelled. Never again.

  • 

    ozzyoi on 29/07/2014 - 11:02

    oh thats sad :(

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  chloden on 29/07/2014 - 11:55

  I had a similar situation. Our flight was booked for around 10pm on a Thursday from Melbourne to Cairns. It was an absolute crap flight getting into Cairns after 1am (and that's assuming the flight left Melbourne on time) by the time we got there all the rental car companies would be closed so we would have had to catch a maxi taxi which would be extra. Anyway they cancelled the flight and put us on the Friday morning flight, which was great. Only thing was my son comes home from school and announces that he has a test on that Friday, the last day of school, which NEVER happens. So now I think, great, I will take advantage of this and ring Tiger and see if we can catch the Saturday flight. All good no problems, GREAT customer service, until….he sees we paid using our free $100 vouchers and suddenly he can't change it. It wasn't a big deal, my son could have missed the test, but I really wanted to Saturday flight as it suited us better, so I asked him to escalate it. That was when I got a taste of Tiger's "great" customer service. The twoing and froing, the being placed on hold and "transferred" to the supervisor only to be told after 15 minutes that the supervisor can't take the call, the promised call backs which never happen and then the language barrier, I actually had no problem understanding them, but they struggled to understand me, it was all very frustrating. But they did eventually change the flight, so it did work out it the end, but it was the customer service that stopped me from flying Tiger in the first place and after this I won't be rushing back.

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    ozzyoi on 31/07/2014 - 22:48

    Yeah customer service is really bad.. fb page seems v.active