Get home from a week long work conference ... On May *, ****, I was scheduled to take a morning bus from Trieste,Italy to Budapest, Hungary (BOOKING NUMBER: ***********). After waiting for almost an hour with no bus, one of my fellow travellers went in to the station to find out what was happening. I turns out that the bus diverted to another stop and had left (because of a marathon race on the streets of Trieste). None of us had been notified of this change. The rest of the group was going to a closer location and the local services took care of them for additional cost. My trip was much longer and I was told that there was nothing anyone could do. Finally the counter girl took pity on me and called Flixbus for me. There was a bus leaving at midnight (more than a ** hour delay) or another one the next morning. I chose the midnight bus as there was no offer of accomodation or meals or any of the other things specified in the carriage agreement. After much discussion I was told that they would be willing to let me take that bus but that I would have to pay an additional ** Euro. Not only did I have to sit around for ** hours but it cost me a sizeable amount. At the very least, I would like my ** Euro back but I think that I should also recieve some compensation for the ** hours and * meals. Thank you, Thomas Ledoux
According to the EU regulations, a delay of more than * hours should result in assistance in the form of meals, snacks, and so forth, including accomodation for up to * nights. It should also include a full refund * **% and a rescheduled trip at the earliest convenience at no extra charge. I will pursue all these but I would settle for an apology and a refund of my additional charge.
I called Flixbus and was told that they were not responsible because of the race even though there was no attempt made to notify us of the change of departure location. To their way of thinking, the bus arrived and departed on time even though the passengers were left stranded across town. They felt they were doing me a favour by allowing me to purchase another ticket for a bus ** hours later at a discounted rate. They were rude and uninterested in helping me.