Opodo review: Flight cancellation/refunds

Hello, on 1st August 2023, I booked a return trip ticket to Abuja for Sunday 3rd September 2023 to return on 1st October 2023. I paid a total of £909.05 for the flights and insurance (medical + cancellation). The particulars of the booking are:

Booking ID: [protected]

Airline Booking Reference: R4GXUO

Insurance Policy No: CNXAST158

(Policy No: UKB2200703GBMR)

On 23rd August, I received an email from Messrs Opodo (through whom I booked the flights) that saying;

“Dear John Brown,

The airline has informed us that a minor change has been made to your booking”

By this “minor change”, instead of arriving Abuja at 16.20 as earlier scheduled, the flight will now be arriving Abuja at 19.50hours.

As if this “minor change” is not enough, on 25th August 2023, I received another email from Messrs Opodo saying,

“Dear John Brown

The airline has informed us that a minor change has been made to your booking.”

This latter “minor change” is to the effect that instead of touching down in Abuja by 16.20 hours as was the original intention, or by 19.50hours as communicated on 23rd August (2 days ago), the flight will now be arriving Abuja by 21.20hours.

As if this was not enough, on Tuesday 29th August 2023, I got 2 separate emails from the airline (Lufthansa) thus;

“Your Lufthansa flight has been cancelled

“Dear Mr. Adegunsoye,

Your Lufthansa flight LH566 from Frankfurt Airport to Port Harcourt Arpt on 03.9.2023 has been cancelled. Please accept our sincere apologies. We are currently looking for alternatives and will contact you as soon as we have found a solution.

In the meantime, you can check your rebooking status or search for alternative flights using our Chat Assistant.”

And 3 minutes later, the second one came through saying that;

“Your Lufthansa flight has been cancelled

Dear Mr. Adegunsoye,

Your Lufthansa flight LH566 from Port Harcourt Arpt to Abuja on 03.9.2023 has been cancelled. Please accept our sincere apologies. We are currently looking for alternatives and will contact you as soon as we have found a solution.

In the meantime, you can check your rebooking status or search for alternative flights using our Chat Assistant.”

Obviously, both of Messrs Opodo (booking agent) and Messers Lufthansa (airline) have my contact details and I am therefore not surprised when the messages came through.

But curiously, these messages indicated to me for the first time that the scheduled flight to Abuja is being routed through Port Harcourt, a fact not disclosed in the flight itinerary sent to me at various times nor on the Opodo app I had to download into my phone.

Given the history of changes to my flight itinerary from London to Abuja and the subsequent cancellation on the flight from Frankfurt to Port Harcourt and Abuja, I perceive that the changes are too much and welcome the cancellation, having been psychologically affected and therefore no longer interested in the trip, even if there were to be an option.

All emails I sent to effect the cancellation between 29 and 20th August to customerservice.[protected]@contactopodo.com were not delivered. On Thursday 31st August 2023, I was able to cancel the flight from my app. Since then to date (over 150 days and still counting), I am yet to get a refund even though the information Opodo put out is that refunds shall be processed in a maximum of 10 days from the cancellation date. Yet Opodo’s app keeps telling me that the status of my cancellation request is “Pending airline authorization”, but the length of time that has passed without my refund is unacceptable. I want a refund.

I have suffered so much financially and emotionally since the event and desirous to get this behind me.