A mother who overslept and missed her flight to Spain was left in tears after discovering her entire all-inclusive package holiday had been cancelled without her knowledge. Karen Cassidy and her husband George Gale had been due to fly to Malaga shortly after 7am on August 14 but overslept.
Karen explained: "The baby had kept me up so I don't think I ended up going to sleep until 2:00am then we were supposed to get up at 4:00am but just slept through our alarms."
As soon as she realised they had missed their flight, Karen went online and booked an alternative flight to Malaga for that afternoon. But after finally arriving at the hotel at midnight, the exhausted mother of three, aged 36, says she was left in tears to discover her entire all-inclusive package holiday had been cancelled.
Jet2's no-show policy
After calling holiday organiser Jet2 and "crying for 20 minutes," Karen says she was told there was "absolutely nothing they could do" and she had to pay another €350 (£300) to stay the night at the hotel.
Karen says that she and George ended up paying over £1,500 for alternative accommodation and travel, meaning the cost of their £1,114 family holiday ballooned to more than £2,600.
Sharing her experience on TikTok, Karen wants to raise awareness so that other people don't make the same mistake she did. She explained: "Our new flight was around 4:00pm then we were delayed for over an hour so by the time we got to the hotel it was midnight. Obviously they were like 'we can't find your booking.' Then they explained 'actually there is a booking but it's a past booking.' Jet2 had cancelled our entire holiday at 3pm."
Holidaymaker's warning
"After everything I felt we had gone through, I was just shocked."
A spokesperson for Jet2holidays said: "We're sorry to hear about Ms Cassidy and Mr Gale's experience and we understand how disappointing it must have been to arrive in Malaga and find that their holiday arrangements had been cancelled."
"Unfortunately, as the customers did not travel on their booked outbound flight or let us know that they planned to make their own way to Malaga, their remaining holiday arrangements were cancelled in line with the terms and conditions of their booking. When they got in touch with us after arriving in resort, our team offered to try to help and support them."
Karen said that when they finally arrived at the hotel she was "exhausted and just in tears." She explained: "They [Jet2] came back to me and said there's absolutely nothing they can do, they have a no-show policy, because it's been cancelled, they can't go back on that."
Costly lesson
They had arrived at their hotel so late, Karen added, that they had very few alternatives. "At this time, midnight, we don't have that luxury option of going to shop around," she said.
Karen shared her story on TikTok, saying that even though she had received critical comments from some other users, she wanted to make others aware of what she called Jet2's "unclear" policy. She continued: "Through loads of rubbish comments from people calling me an idiot or people saying 'what grown up can miss a flight', there's hundreds of people that don't know."
"If I could save one person, I'm happy."
