akiba

If our recent awful experience with Vueling's complete lack of customer service saves just one family from a ruined vacation, then this post has done its job. The recent two day French air traffic control strike was disruptive but Vueling's complete lack of customer service was atrocious. Unlike Air France and other carriers, there was no email sent to inform us of this event a few days prior to departure. Had that been the case, we could have made alternate plans. Instead, we received an email asking us to arrive at the airport a little earlier than usual. We arrived at Orly for our 19:50 departure to BCN on June 11th at 4:20 pm and were told by the agent to come back to the check in desk at 5:30 pm. She said there were some delays and that she had no other info. We came back at 5:30 pm and were told the same thing and to return at 6:00 pm. We did that and were then told to wait. A large group of us stood around until around 7:30 pm when the agents began to tell people that the flight was cancelled. We were told to go to the ticketing line. We did that and at 9 pm, after getting to the front of the line, we were put on an 8:15 am flight on June 13th. This information was scribbled on a piece of paper. Back to Paris we went to find a new hotel for two nights. There was no email confirming the new flight so after a failed attempt to call Vueling, I emailed them asking for an email confirmation. The following morning I received the confirmatory email. My mother in the US said she was concerned because their website did not list our flight as flying on 6-13. She told me this both before and after Vueling had sent the confirmatory email. She said only four flights were listed as flying on 6-13. Being used to American customer service, I felt confident that everything was fine - boy was I wrong!! On 6-13 we took another cab to Orly and arrived at the Vueling counter at 6:10 am for our scheduled and confirmed 8:15 am departure to BCN. As a little background, we had planned to spend 6-12 and 6-13 in BCN and had an AA miles ticket back to the US on the morning of 6-14 from BCN. When we arrived at the Vueling check in at 6:10 am, we were told that our flight had been cancelled (Mother knows best) and were directed to the same Vueling ticketing line. After standing in that line for three hours, we still had not reached the front. Fortunately, my mother in the US was able to get us a miles ticket from CDG to BOS at 1:25 pm that day and we left the airport. The same four flights that had shown on their website were the ones that flew on 6-13. There was never so much as an email from Vueling telling us the flight was cancelled, yet they knew it was on 6-12 which was before they sent the confirmatory email. We missed out on BCN but more importantly left Paris with a lesson well learned. We will never fly Vueling again and hopefully you will make a wise choice so that if you encounter strikes (June is the biggest month and France and Italy are the worst), you will not be left stranded by an organization that truely has no human decency.

traveller1959

Vueling is a low-cost carrier. Do not expect any kind of customer service. Same is true for the other low-cost carriers (e.g. Ryanair, Easyjet etc.).

It not very wise to get a vacation ruined just because you want to save a couple of Euros.

chapla

I have had a couple of good Vueling flights and a couple not so good.The bad ones were long delays,3-4 hrs with no explanation give. I think they are the poor relative of Iberia which doesn't surprise me!

BigAleinstein

We have had good luck with Vueling but my expectations of airlines, especially the cheapo airlines are low. Flying has become such a miserable avocation that anything that is average seems to be sufficient.

iowamom

Did you consider taking a train to Barcelona?

Ackislander

Sadly, and you did absolutely nothing wrong here, American airlines have frequently shown themselves to be just as bad, both major and budget.

Often the person at check-in knows as little as you do. They are not lying to you; their information system is deficient.

So frustrating.

hetismij2

I suggest you read this: http://europa.eu/legislation_summari.../l24173_en.htm

It probably applies to you.

Christina

They could have done better, but I guess a person has to be more proactive than usual about flights nowadays. That means keeping up with the news, etc. And I also agree it being a discount airline may not have made any difference, I've had terrible customer service from major airlines, also. I've never flown Vueling so have no reason to say it wasn't their fault, I just think sometimes when there are strikes, nothing goes smoothly.

I don't know if June is the worst month for France, I never noticed that, it seems to me it is in the Fall months. Often it has to do when contracts are being renewed, and various strikes have completely different timing in that regard. Civil service workers could have totally different time frames than employees of a private company, like Air France.

akiba

Thanks for the informative replies. We did try to take a train but they were all sold out for that night and the next day there was some sort of French rail strike! It is true that one needs to keep up with the news while on vacation. I believe that many of these strikes are posted in advance so we will know better for our next trip.

opaldog

I'm sorry for your experience with Vueling and even more so that you had to miss Barcelona. We are flying CDG to LIS in October and even though the airfares were a bit lower than Air France, I had read other stories similar to yours and I didn't want to chance messing up our visit to Lisbon. I guess now you will just have to take another trip specifically to visit Barcelona.

kismetchimera

When I am in Europe I always fly to various cities with smaller budget airlines..So far I cannot complains..

Sorry to hear about the ordeal that you went through,Akiba..
I have flown also with Vueling from FCO to CDG before it moved to Orly Airport.