Easyjet Insurance not valid!

J

joodlemcnoodle

New Member
Mar 26, 2012
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I recently booked a holiday to Portugal and due to having 2 young children, I chose the flights that were at the best times, rather than the cheapest. This meant outward flight with Ryanair and return flight with Easyjet. I chose to add insurance to both flights. Unfortunately our son got chicken pox and we had to cancel our holiday at the last minute. When I rang the insurance company to reclaim the costs, I was told that my Easyjet insurance was not valid because I don't live in Portugal!!!

When I made the booking, they had my address details so why did they offer me a policy that was invalid? I wonder how many people have bought that insurance and not had to claim, meaning that Easyjet have pocketed the money knowing full well they would never had to pay out. I am so angry about this that I wrote to their CEO to complain about this - that was a month ago and all I've had is a 'passing the buck letter' saying someone will be in touch - no one has been in touch!
I'm so disgusted with their lack of customer service - I have now copied my letter to the Ombudsman, OFT, Trading standards etc because this is not the way to do business in my view. Loads of people use easyjet because it's more affordable than the bigger airlines but that does not mean they can rip people off.

Not impressed!
 
W

Witch consumer

Moderator
Sep 8, 2008
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Debtors retreat
Insurance is covered by the Financial Ombudsman service, rather than just copy the letter to them, go to their website and put in an official complaint. You do have to give Easyjet time to respond tho, usually 8 weeks.

Thanks for posting this, it's something that hadn't occurred to me (and probably most people). Obviously it is better to buy a completely seperate insurance policy to cover the whole trip rather than buy it through the airlines so altho you may have lost out (but you may still get sorted by the FOS) others may benefit.

Financial Ombudsman Service
 
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J

joodlemcnoodle

New Member
Mar 26, 2012
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Witch consumer said:
altho you may have lost out (but you may still get sorted by the FOS) others may benefit.

Thanks for your reply. That's exactly why I posted this - I know that I should have read the T&Cs - there's no denying that, but I do still think there's a bit of bad practice by EJ here - they can't get away from the fact that their website allows you to buy something that you cannot use at all. If they can stop you from booking a flight with last week's date on it, then surely they can also stop you from buying insurance that is invalid?

Having mentioned this to a lot of people, the overwhelming response I got was that no one knew there was a clause about residency and a lot of people had used EJ loads of times so they no longer read the T&Cs anymore when booking because they had read them first few times and never had any problem with them. I'm pretty sure there are loads of people who do exactly the same thing and I hope that by reading this post, that it will help prevent them from falling into the same trap as I did.

I did post this on another forum and was totally ripped to pieces for being so stupid for not reading the T&Cs - so I do appreciate your friendly and helpful response. I do feel a bit stupid for not reading them because normally I DO read the small print but on this occasion I didn't and am paying for it now. However, i certainly didn't need a bunch of people to ram it down my throat.... this is obviously a much friendlier forum :)

Also, just to update you on the actual situation with EJ - having heard nothing in the last month, I received a call from the insurance company today. The lady was extremely helpful and completely understood how I had made the mistake and she said she was going to raise this with EJ because they are selling Mondial's insurance so if customers have a bad experience using the EJ booking system then she felt that could reflect badly on Mondial as well. She was really lovely actually, very helpful. I also got an email from the assistant to the CEO of EJ - also very apologetic and helpful so fingers crossed they will do something about it that will help to prevent other people from making the same mistake I did.
Click to expand...
 
W

Witch consumer

Moderator
Sep 8, 2008
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Debtors retreat
Thak you for your kind words, don't see the point in kicking someone who is own, members come to us for help, we offer it as best we can.

Glad you seem to be getting a little hope of redress in this matter - good luck, even if you only get a refund of the premium.
 
J

joodlemcnoodle

New Member
Mar 26, 2012
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Quick update..... Had a call from the CEO's office in response to my letter!

Easyjet have agreed they are at fault (ie. that it's misleading and that it's a reasonable assumption that I made about the insurance being valid for UK residents) and have refunded full cost of the flights. They are also looking at the booking process on the website to see how they can improve it.

Result :)
 
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