I spent £1,200 on hotels and trains after £82 Blablacar coach home from Paris was delayed

In July my daughter and I went on vacation to Europe. The return journey involved traveling by train from Lake Garda in Italy, changing trains in Milan to catch a train to Paris and then back to London on an overnight bus, which we booked with a company called Blablacar.

The bus was to leave Paris at 11:35 PM, so we booked trains that would take us to the bus station in time for that. But two days earlier, we got an email saying that the time had moved to 9:25 PM, meaning our trains wouldn’t get us there on time anymore.

We had no choice but to book our trains which cost £132 in total. The earlier timing meant we also had to book a hotel in Milan the night before as the first train out of Lake Garda in the morning would have made us late. This cost us €90.

We reached the Paris bus station 1 hour 45 minutes before the bus. Come 9:25 PM departure time, it hadn’t arrived and was written on the board as ‘delayed’.

I spoke to the Blablacar representative at the station and they said they didn’t know what time the bus would come. They couldn’t guarantee it would come at all.

At midnight the bus station closed and we had no access to toilets, water, food or seats. We didn’t feel safe as two women traveling alone so we made the decision shortly afterwards to go to a nearby hotel, which cost £176, and spent the night.

All future buses were fully booked until mid-afternoon the next day, which meant that we would not be home in time for work. We had to book a train from Paris to Lille to catch the Eurostar the next day to return home. This cost us almost £600 as there were only business class tickets left at such short notice.

In total we spent an extra £1,200 on alternative travel, hotels and food. The bus tickets were £41 each and were supposed to be a cheap option so it’s a shame the journey cost us so much.

We asked for a refund and compensation, but Blablacar never contacted us. JS, London

Helen Crane of This is Money replies: Mon dieu! That’s a very hefty surcharge on a trip home that was supposed to be cheap and cheerful.

You had been on holiday with your daughter on beautiful Lake Garda in Italy, no doubt enjoying the relaxed local lifestyle.

But your return turned into the mother of all nightmare travels.

By now you have learned that the coach showed up shortly before 1 am after you left for a hotel due to lack of information and security reasons.

I can fully understand that you might not want to spend hours in a bus station abroad, late into the night.

It was especially annoying that, given what time the bus eventually came, you didn’t have to bother rescheduling your train journeys at all.

Delays do happen and travel companies can’t always do much about it. But what they do have control over is how they communicate that information to their customers and try to make things right.

Blablacar has fallen here in my opinion. You say that you often spoke to his representative at the bus station, but no one could give you an answer.

You also called the company, but they didn’t get through or were disconnected after a few seconds. For a company called Blabla, they remained suspiciously silent.

You didn’t hear anything until 12:55 PM when, having just booked a hotel, you received an email with the platform number.

You tried to contact Blablacar for a refund and also asked them to compensate you for the extra hotels, travel and food you had to pay for due to the rescheduled and delayed bus.

There are well-established compensation rules and complaints procedures for air travel, but the process of recovering when an international bus trip has gone wrong is unfortunately less short and dry.

In theory, someone who buys a bus or coach journey in the UK can claim up to 100 per cent of the price under the Consumer Rights Act if it is not ‘executed within a reasonable time’ – but how much companies will pay often depends on the length of the the delay. They can also appeal to the Bus Appeals Body.

But Blablacar is a French company, so that is of no use to you.

You contacted directly to request a refund and compensation, but despite getting a call back within 48 hours, you heard nothing for months.

Finally, in September, the company contacted you to refund the cost of the original bus tickets and gave you a voucher for 50 percent of the ticket value.

But you didn’t think that was good enough, because you still had over £1,100 left.

I have contacted Blablacar and am happy to say that it has now offered to pay you an extra 480 euros for your hotel costs.

“We recognize that the information we previously communicated to this passenger was not satisfactory enough. That is why we have decided to cover her hotel exceptionally,” said a spokesperson.

It explained that the bus was delayed because it arrived in Paris via a ferry arriving late. It said it had offered a refund for the bus tickets when the trip was initially rescheduled, and could not cover non-hotel costs.

You have already informed me that you have accepted the offer. While you still have no money, you said you expected them to pay a lot less, so you were happy with this result.

I am glad to hear that your coaching accident has now come to an end, and hope your next holiday will be less eventful.

Hit and miss: this week’s naughty and fun list

Every week I look at the companies that have fallen short when it comes to customer service, and the companies that have done their best.

To miss: Reader Hilary emailed to tell me about the annoying back and forth she experienced when she tried to close her TV and Internet account with Virgin media.

She was a TV and Internet customer at her old address, but when she moved, the new premises were not in Virgin’s service area, so she had to switch.

She ended her service in April 2022 and returned the necessary equipment. She received an email saying her bill was £102 in credit, which would be sent by check.

But a month later, Virgin debited her bill for £65 – saying this was a bill for the month after she disconnected.

Three weeks passed and then she received the check for £102.

Confused, she messaged Virgin. It said it would void the £102 check and send a new one for £167 – to make up for the erroneous charge of £65.

That never happened, so she called the complaints department in July. It told her to send the check for £102, and it would send another for £65.

Still no new check came in, so in August she called Virgin again. It then told her that the refund of £65 was included in the first check for £102.

This was going crazy, so I left Virgin a message. Thankfully this painful payment saga is now over and the £65 check is safe in Hilary’s hands.

A Virgin Media spokesperson said: ‘We have apologized to the customer for the difficulties she experienced in closing her account. We’ve now arranged for a check to be sent to her, no more money is owed and she’s glad the matter is resolved.’

Touch: Reader Morag wrote to tell me how impressed she was with her power company Octopuswhich she said stood out from the sea of ​​suppliers thanks to its great customer service.

She said: ‘I am so impressed with their efficiency and consumer awareness. First class! I’ve been to all the major power companies for the past 50 years and I’ve never written to anyone telling them how good they are until I joined the Octopus company.

“My only regret is that I sent my daughter their invitation to join (we would get £100 to share if she signed up) but she ignored me, took her father’s advice and stayed with the company she was – now she paid an astronomical bill every month! oh dear!’

I feel a little sorry for your daughter, Morag, but maybe this shows that Mama really knows best.