As mini-breaks go – and we’ve done a few over the years – this is one that will stick in our memories.
What could be more fun, we thought, than a weekend in Paris with the kids during the February half term?
It would be a 420 mile round trip on the Eurostar, with two nights in a reasonably priced Airbnb.
And the excitement of a new city for Harry, six, and Georgie, four, to explore.
To your dad!
Hugo and his wife Jo were due to return home from Paris by Eurostar with their children Harry and Georgie, but saw their train canceled ‘due to a train manager’s strike in France’
For transport alone, the return fare for four people on the Eurostar was a princely £876 – or £129 per person each way for me and my wife Jo and £90 per person each way for the kids.
To keep costs down, we converted 50,100 Avios points collected through our British Airways American Express card into Nectar points. These were used to buy Eurostar vouchers which knocked a nice £330 off the bill, meaning we only ‘spent’ £546.
The first sign of trouble came around lunchtime on Thursday, just 22 hours before our train was due to leave St Pancras International in London for Gare du Nord in Paris.
An email from Eurostar informed us that our return journey on Sunday had been canceled ‘due to a train manager strike in France’ and that we would be given a refund for this part of the journey – around £438. What should we do ?
With feverish excitement we went online and booked flights from Paris to Heathrow with British Airways via Opodo to ensure we were back on time for school and work on Monday morning. Costs? £1,014. Ouch. The running total for traveling alone was now £1,890 and we hadn’t even left home yet.
But by paying for flights with our BA AmEx card we at least collected Avios points (although how many is hard to say) and enjoyed the protection and security of a credit card transaction.
We woke up Friday morning and another email had arrived overnight, at 1:17 am to be precise. Bad news. The booking through Opodo had failed and yet we discovered that the payment had been debited, despite the email stating: ‘Don’t worry, you haven’t been charged.’
With our Eurostar train to Paris leaving in just four hours, the battle with Opodo would have to wait. We went to the BA website and four new flights were booked.
This cost us another £1,260. In addition, we used 12,600 Avios points worth €80 to cover the cost of reserving seats so we could all sit together.
What would have happened if we had not paid the extra costs? Would the BA cabin crew really have let our two small children sit with strangers? We traveled light, with carry-on luggage only, so at least we didn’t have to pay extra for luggage. But our expenses now amounted to about £3,220.
The family booked British Airways flights to Heathrow from the French capital via Opodo, but this failed, but payment was made anyway
So it was with some trepidation that we left for St. Pancras. Nothing else can go wrong, right? When checking in at Eurostar it turned out that the table for four we had reserved did not exist. Why is a mystery.
But here our fortunes changed when one of the few heroes of our adventure intervened.
With good grace and without blinking an eye, the gentleman checking us in found a new table – in business class – with lounge access before boarding.
A free upgrade! Things looked better. And so we traveled to Paris in some style, especially for two kids more used to long drives to Anglesey or the Lake District in the back of a 16-year-old Volvo.
Exactly two hours and 21 minutes later we entered Gare du Nord. Paris was everything we hoped for: from the thrill of taking the kids to the Eiffel Tower to meals on the banks of the Seine.
So it was Sunday morning, a little tired, but happy, we went to Charles de Gaulle to catch our plane home.
And then the real fun began.
Online check-in was not possible when we tried the night before. Self-check-in at the kiosks that have popped up at airports around the world? Not if you fly BA from Charles de Gaulle. So we went to the back of the BA check-in line, even though we only had carry-on luggage. Now the line wasn’t long—maybe about forty people—but it wasn’t moving.
There seemed to be only one check-in desk open, the luggage was piling up on the conveyor belts and seemed to be stuck, and still no one was moving. A second agency opened. Progress remained slow. There were other staff walking around, although not many, and they seemed far too important to handle check-in.
We weren’t worried at this point. BA screens above check-in said it wouldn’t close until 10:10, so time was pretty much on our side, especially as we only had hand luggage and the flight wasn’t leaving until 10:50.
Hugo and his family received a free business class upgrade after it turned out the table for four they had booked did not exist
The family reached the front of the check-in queue for their BA flight from Charles de Gaulle, only to be told it was closed. They were then booked on a later flight at 3.05pm
Maybe we should have been more concerned. We finally reached the front at 10:10am only to be told that check-in was closed. We had missed our flight.
We were not alone. But the plane wouldn’t leave for another forty minutes. Surely someone could give us a boarding pass and send us on our way? After all, we only had hand luggage.
Our pleas, and those of others, far from falling on deaf ears, led to what at one point seemed like it could turn into an unseemly fight.
“Then how do we get home?” seemed like a not unreasonable question to ask the apparently senior staff member at the BA check-in desk.
“Go fly with easyJet,” was her response. Zut alors!
As there was no BA helpdesk at the airport, we went to the airline’s website and found a telephone number for the grandly named Executive Club, of which we are members thanks to our British Airways credit card.
Here we were lucky enough to find the other hero of our ordeal, who booked us for the 3:05 pm flight that afternoon. We were too early to check in for that flight at the airport (oh the irony), so she checked us in remotely. But there was a catch. “That will be £880,” we were told. We weren’t sure if this was for new tickets or to exchange tickets, but we paid, and arrived home having parted with a total of £4,100, or almost a tenner per mile.
Of course, some of the money was returned, even if it wasn’t easy.
‘Sorry, you are only eligible for a refund if it has been confirmed that your train has been cancelled,’ read the first email we received from Eurostar after requesting a refund.
Naturally, we wondered, and Eurostar eventually refunded the £438 it owed for the canceled train home.
“A small number of customers who paid with e-vouchers received an automated message stating that they were not eligible for a refund,” a Eurostar statement said. ‘Those affected should speak directly to customer service who can process the refund.’
The Opodo booking that never happened, £1,014, has also been refunded.
A British Airways spokesperson said: ‘We are sorry to hear about our customers’ experience and have fully refunded their flight rebooking costs.’
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