My budget family weekend away in Paris turned into a £4,000 travel nightmare
...and it all started with a French train workers’ strike!
AS MINI-BREAKS go — and down the years we’ve done a few — this is one that will stick in our memories. What could be more fun, we thought, than a weekend in Paris with the children over the February half-term?
It would be a 424-mile round trip by Eurostar with two nights in a reasonably priced Airbnb. And the thrill of a new city for Harry, six, and Georgie, four, to explore. On y va!
For transport alone, the return fare for four on Eurostar came to 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 via our British Airways American Express card to Nectar points. These were used to buy Eurostar vouchers that sliced a handsome £330 off the bill, meaning we only ‘spent’ £546.
The first sign of trouble came at lunchtime on the Thursday, just 22 hours before our train was due to depart 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 cancelled ‘due to a train manager strike in France’ and we would be issued a refund for this leg of the trip — some £438. What to do?
With excitement levels at fever pitch, we went online and, through Opodo, booked flights from Paris to Heathrow with British Airways to ensure we were back in time for school and work on Monday morning. The cost? £1,014. Ouch. The running total for travel alone was now £1,890 and we hadn’t even left home.
BUT at least by paying for flights with our BA Amex card we were collecting Avios points (though how many is hard to tell) and enjoyed the protection and security of a credit card transaction.
We woke on Friday morning and another email had arrived overnight, at 1.17am to be precise. Bad news. The booking via Opodo had failed, yet we discovered payment had been taken, despite the email stating: ‘ Don’t worry, you haven’t been charged.’
With our Eurostar train to Paris due to leave in just four hours, the battle with Opodo would have to wait. To the BA website we turned, and four new flights were booked.
This set us back a further £1,260. On top of this, we used 12,600 Avios points worth €80 to cover the cost of reserving seats, ensuring we could all sit together.
What would have happened had we not paid the extra? Would BA cabin crew really have made our two small children sit with strangers? We were travelling light, with hand luggage only, so at least we didn’t have to pay extra for baggage. But our outlay was now some £3,220.
So it was with some trepidation that we set off for St Pancras. Surely, nothing else could go wrong? At the Eurostar check-in, it transpired that the table for four we had booked did not exist. Why is anyone’s guess.
Here, though, our fortunes changed as one of the few heroes of our adventure stepped in. With good grace and without so much as a blink, the gentleman checking us in found a new table — in business class — with access to the lounge before boarding.
A free upgrade! Things were looking up. And so we travelled to Paris in some style, especially for two children more accustomed to long drives to Anglesey or the Lake District in the back of a 16-year-old Volvo.
Precisely two hours and 21 minutes later we pulled into Gare du Nord. Paris was everything we hoped for — from the thrill of taking the children up the Eiffel Tower to meals on the banks of the Seine.
So it was on the Sunday morning, a little weary, but content, that we headed to Charles de Gaulle airport to catch our plane home.
And that’s when the real fun began. Online check-in had not been available when we tried the night before. Self- check-in at those kiosks that have popped up at airports across the globe? Not if you’re flying BA from Charles de Gaulle.
So to the back of the BA checkin queue we went — even though we only had hand luggage.
Now, the queue wasn’t long — perhaps 40 people or so — but it wasn’t moving. There seemed to be just one desk open, luggage was piling up on the conveyor belts which appeared to be stuck, and still no one was moving.
A second desk opened. Progress remained slow. There were other staff wafting about, though not many, and they seemed far too important to deal with check-in.
We weren’t concerned at this point. Screens above check-in said it would not close until 10.10am so time was just about on our side, particularly as we only had hand luggage and the flight was not due to take off until 10.50am.
Perhaps we should have been worried. We eventually reached the front at 10.10am exactly to be told check-in was closed. We had missed our flight.
We were not alone. But the plane wasn’t due to take off for another 40 minutes. Surely someone could give us a boarding pass and send us on our way? We only had hand luggage after all.
Our pleas, and those of others, didn’t so much as fall on deaf ears but spark what at one point looked like it could turn into an unseemly tussle.
‘ So how do we get home?’ seemed a not unreasonable question to ask the apparently senior member of staff at the BA check-in desk.
HER response? ‘Go fly easyJet.’ Zut alors! With no BA help desk at the airport, we went to the airline’s website and found a phone number for the grandly named Executive Club, of which we are members due to our British Airways credit card.
Here we were fortunate enough to find the other hero of our ordeal, who booked us on to the 3.05pm 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’ll be £880,’ we were told.
unsure whether this was for new tickets or to change tickets, pay we did, and home we arrived, having parted with a grand total of £4,100, or nearly a tenner a mile.
Of course, some of the money has been returned — though even this was not straightforward.
‘Sorry, you’re only eligible for a refund if your train has been confirmed as cancelled,’ read the first email we received from Eurostar after applying for a refund.
This, of course, we queried, and Eurostar did eventually hand back the £438 it owed us for the cancelled train home.
The Opodo booking that never was, which cost £1,014, has also been refunded.
A British Airways spokesman says: ‘ We’re sorry to hear about our customer’s experience and have refunded them the cost of rebooking their flight in full.’