Hello
I purchased round trip EWR - BCN flights on Norwegian Airline 9/5 - 9/12.
Received a text at 11AM on the 5th saying flight is cancelled due to technical issues on previous sector. After speaking with them on the phone (of course after a 2.5 hour hold time) we were rebooked for first leg JFK - AMS (for shabbos) and a 3rd party airline AMS - IBZ. We never received the booking reference for the secondary flight and had to call KLM directly to look it up.
Next we received a text 5PM Tuesday saying our leg back from BCN was cancelled due to operational reasons. Got them on the phone (again, 3+ hours until we hung up) and was rebooked for a 3rd party airline IBZ - LGW and on their flight LGW - JFK. Still didnt have a booking reference for me and never received it by email from Easy Jet. Called 4 times trying to get the booking reference up until the morning of our flight and was assured we had seats on the flight but there was no booking reference.
Got to the airport, no seats reserved for us on the flight. Ran to each airline counter to see options to get to LGW for the connecting flight while waiting on hold for Norwegian. They could not provide us with a solution to get us home and kept trying to offer to pay us for hotel stays and fly out to different airports the next day (Friday). We found 2 seats on British Airways to LGW for $270 each and they said they need to get back to us to see if they can buy those for us. They didn't call back, so I bought them myself and made it in time for our flight and got home.
I've left much of the frustration out of this post. Waiting on hold for almost 10 hours before and during this trip, changing our day to day itinerary bc their new flights ate away hours of our trip, and the biggest offense, being told multiple times we had seats on a flight to LGW (which were originally priced at $161 each) and then being stranded at the airport without a resolution makes me wonder what I can do.
What can I expect based on my rights?
Has anyone experienced anything like this before?
How would you handle this?
