Flat tyre nightmare cost us £700 — and Europcar won’t pay up

My wife and I hired a car for a trip to Lake Como and Lake Maggiore in June. All went well when we picked up a Volkswagen Golf from Europcar at Geneva Airport, and off we went to Como.
We were about 170 miles into the 200-mile drive to our hotel when a nearby vehicle hit a rock which spun in front of our car and punctured one of our tyres. We were on a busy dual carriageway with no hard shoulder so I had no option but to drive slowly until we reached the next exit. I was able to get us to a car park but when I checked the boot, there was no spare wheel. I called the Europcar helpline using the emergency number on the windscreen but I couldn’t get through.
It was 6.30pm and our hotel’s reception closed at 8pm so we decided to leave the vehicle in the car park and paid for a €120 taxi to the hotel.
The next morning I finally got through to Europcar which told me that someone would be with the car in an hour and a half. I paid another €120 taxi fare to take me back to the car. I arrived at 11am on a very wet day and, despite calling Europcar several times, it took eight hours for a flatbed pick-up lorry to turn up. The driver told me that rather than replacing the punctured tyre he was collecting the car and wouldn’t be giving me a lift back to my hotel. I was stranded again so I had to pay for yet another taxi.
Once I got back to the hotel I called Europcar to ask for a replacement car and was told it could either bring one from Milan airport at a cost of €900, or I could collect one myself from either its Milan or Lugano offices. We opted to collect it from Lugano after our lake cruise the next day but it cost us €250 in taxi fares to get there. Thankfully we didn’t have any issues with the replacement vehicle.
I have tried to claim the cost of the four taxis, which amounts to £513, and £180 for the loss of the car for two and a half days, but have heard nothing about my claim.Peter Fowler, Monmouthshire
You lost a whole day of your holiday dealing with this and, to add insult to injury, Europcar has since charged you €300 for the punctured tyre. This sounded steep but you accepted the cost as you said the puncture could have been caused by a driving error. Yet you understandably wanted Europcar to refund your other costs, especially after it left you stranded several times.
Europcar told me that the company’s emergency breakdown line operated 24/7 and there should always be a member of staff available, so I wasn’t able to get to the bottom of why no one had answered the phone that day.
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Why were you also left waiting for a recovery vehicle for eight hours? Europcar initially said that the waiting time wasn’t above average, but when I asked what the average wait actually was, it wouldn’t be specific, but said it was less than eight hours.
You wondered why the company had taken the car rather than replacing the tyre, which is the normal way of dealing with a puncture. Europcar told me that would have been its breakdown service’s decision but that the driver should have given you a lift back to your hotel.
Europcar said: “We apologise for the experience Mr and Mrs Fowler had in Italy. The service was below what the company would normally expect to provide. We are processing a refund for the missed rental days and will cover the cost of the taxis.”
You are no longer out of pocket but we were both disappointed that the company wouldn’t compensate you for the poor service and for wasting a day of your holiday.
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I write on behalf of a young rock group called Cavalcade who were due to play at my 60th birthday celebrations in Gibraltar in March. They had booked four return flights from Gatwick with British Airways, with the tickets split into two bookings because two of the band members were flying home the next day.
The evening before the flight, two of them struggled to check in online and the website told them to go to the airport instead. When they arrived at Gatwick in the morning, they were turned away because the flight was overbooked. My party was that evening and there were no other options to fly to Gibraltar that day. While the other two were able to catch their flight as planned and stayed in Gibraltar for a few days, the band ultimately couldn’t perform at my party and missed out on their £750 fee.
British Airways told them to claim the £411 refund and compensation. They did this in April but still haven’t been reimbursed. Whenever they call the airline they are told to keep trying because there is no direct phone number for complaints.
Apart from the fact that the band lost out on much-needed income, British Airways also ruined my birthday party. Could you help them tp get a refund and compensation?Wayne, Gibraltar
The two band members had done nothing wrong and yet British Airways had bumped them from the flight. Frustratingly it is not unusual for airlines to overbook flights — they want to make sure planes are full so sell too many tickets in case passengers don’t turn up. They would usually put passengers on the next available flight, but even the one flying to nearby Malaga that day had been overbooked.
I was told that one band member lived two hours from the airport so had a pointless four-hour round trip. Jack from the band said: “It’s frustrating that British Airways only told us that the flight was overbooked when we arrived at the airport. If they had given us more notice we might have been able to make other arrangements to get to Gibraltar.”
Given that this was ultimately the airline’s mistake, I thought it was shoddy that it hadn’t reimbursed them yet. Once I got involved, it still took a week for it to refund the £411. The booking was cancelled at the last minute so the two band members were also entitled to compensation. British Airways has now given them £336 each. It said: “We have been in contact with our customers to apologise for their experience and to resolve the issue.”
£1,427,862: the amount Troubleshooter has saved readers so far this year
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