Wizzair Sucks

How to reclaim your lost Wizz Air funds.

// May 12th, 2010 // 27 Comments » // frontpage

mouse-trap-with-money-300x199 The number 1 post on our Wizz Sucks forum is “how do i get my money back.” So I thought i’d address it in a post.

The only way to reclaim money from Wizzair is directly from your Credit Card provider.

You can usually make a disputed claim online, or at worst, you’ll have to write a letter. You can usually find the details of disputing a charge on the back of your monthly statement.

The best credit card provider for this is American Express. – No longer accepted, ostensibly AMEX pulled the plug on Wizz Air.

Credit Cards are generally good at giving your money back if you didn’t take the flight and say they didn’t follow through on their various terms of service (ie they stranded you in some random airport, or deleted an entire flight route the day before your vacation) which is what leads 90% of people to this website.

Wizz Air has an extremely poor reputation with credit cards, so they are usually eager to help in your plight. Trying to get your money back from Wizz Air directly is not possible. I have “heard” of only one such person who was successful, and it has yet to be confirmed. Contacting Wizz Air by email is pointless beyond description.

You’ll get a series of canned responses such as “We’ll get back with you in 30 days” followed by an indeterminate amount of time which far exceeds 30 days by several months, then you might get a canned apology and denial regardless of your claim or it’s merit.

The end result can only be described as an exercise in futility which only Kafka could fully appreciate. Their phone numbers are all approx. €1 per minute, if they work at all. If you paid thru bank transfer or debit card, you are out of luck. We suggest finding religion. It might not help get your money back, but it might just numb the pain if only slightly.

If you have gotten your money back or have a similar experience please share it with us by commenting directly on this post!

Wizz Air top pick for next round of bankruptcies

// May 7th, 2010 // 2 Comments » // frontpage

According to a recent article by the Slovakian newspaper Ekonomika,Wizz Air may not be long for this world. “In November 2009, it emerged Wizz Air is significantly loss making and has never made a profit while delaying the pay back of €32 million of debt by five years. Losses since commencing operations total €78 million, which has fueled suggestions that the airline may file for bankruptcy.^“

Or are Slovakian’s simply angry at Wizz Air’s recent contract dipute ending with it’s halted plans for a new hub in Bratislava? We think perhaps both.

While attempting to hasten SkyEurope’s demise late last year, Wizz Air boasted it had been “profitable for several years.” However, as a private company it is not required to publish its financial accounts. This proved quite convenient while it was busy hammering in the nails of SkyEurope’s coffin.

Not buying it?

Speculators don’t seem to think so, either. After the collapse of Flyglobespan in December 2009, Wizz Air was rated the European airline most likely to next go bust.

This was according to a firm of bookmakers whose only agenda is making money. It put odds on the bust at 4 to 1.

See the entire list here: http://www.liveoddsandscores.com/news/press-releases/423733/paddy-power-airline-betting-takes-off-again

Is the end near? You decide, in our newest poll.

To speculate further, one of the more common posts appearing on our own forum these days is “Why doesn’t my credit card work???”

” I could not get my visa card accepted when I tried to pay for my Wizzair tickets. No explanation, so I asked my bank. They said that they will have no dealings with Wizzair because of the amount of fraud associated with the company. That’s encouraging, as I subsequently paid by credit card!
Incidentally, why is it that I am being dumped at a strange airport an hour’s drive away from the one I paid to arrive at, on a Sunday, with no train service to my destination and no shuttle bus arranged? Couldn’t they have told me this before I booked?”

Wizzairsucks Founder issues an Open-Letter to József Váradi offering peace

// March 25th, 2010 // 7 Comments » // frontpage

Having been unable to leav peace e his room for the past 9 months for fear of corporate reprisal and shear & overwhelming lack of a budget airline to carry his person across state lines. The Wizzairsucks founder has written an open-letter stating his wish for an armistice to his Wizzair counterpart József Váradi:

Dear Josef,

I would first like to apologize for casting aspersions toward yourself regarding your prospects for entrance to the kingdom of heaven in our latest poll. This was childish and unfair.

That aside, I am still saddened by your reluctance to contact me directly, either personally or through various corporate vassals. To date I have only had indirect contact through your legal apparat and an ongoing Wikipedia edit/reedit freenzy.

I would like to suggest we cast aside our differences and attempt to form a more perfect union. Wizzairsucks has had its day, it has come and gone. It is true, we have become the defacto customer service for Wizzair, however, due to my own ineptness and lack of time, I am unable and unwilling to continue in my current capacity.

Let us stop the hate, simply.

I have spent these 9 months sitting alone in my room unable to find a decent budget airline to escape my European enclave. The death of Skyeurope deeply threatens my social prospects and I have had to curtail certain deviant liaisons of late.

I would like to suggest a truce.

Return the money to my parents for the two flights not taken from Dortmund <-> Lviv as well as compensation for the subsequent and forced overnight train journey
Write a simple (just short of heart wrenching) apology to them for their negative experience and ensuing plight
Apologize to me for the unnecessary domain arbitration
Compensation for the 1 week of work on the 96 page legal opus I was forced to prepare in my defense
(Optional) Sensitivity training for Dortmund employees to refrain from demeaning and all-in-compassing statements such as “This is Germany, this is not Eastern Europe… ” and “I don’t know [in italy, romania, czech republic] maybe they don’t know how to follow the [wizzair] rules”

If you agree to the preceding terms, I will throw down my arms… and retire Wizzairsucks onto the spike and oblivion of history.

In the defense of wizzair… no dogs, no tear gas… only natural tears

// January 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // frontpage

Fact or Fiction?

tear_gas_2

From our forum: “My girlfriend from London had to visit me in Ukraine last Friday. The plane by Wizzair arrived late. They boarded passengers flying to Kyiv, but then decided it was better for them to fly to Poland, so they asked everybody to leave, though neither London nor Kyiv airports were closed! Many Ukrainian passengers refused to leave the plane, so they used police with dogs and tear gas to get them out!!! They didn’t have tickets till the end of the year and refused to pay for hotels. With such attitude I will not be surprised if they go bankrupt. I hope it happens very soon! Wizzair sucks!”

Wizzair cries foul… citing Travel.ru and Wizzairsucks.com as co-conspirators… (since the story broke on our forum citing an article on Travel.ru)

http://www.kyivpost.com/news/business/bus_general/detail/57056/print/

It is impossible to believe either tear gas or dogs were released onto a plane full of people. Even if true, it says more about the police’s tactics than anything to do with the airline. Wizz Air does suck, they have terrible customer service, dreadful colors and are more likely to issue legal demands than apologies or explanations.

That being said, they are not evil. As the lead critic of Wizz Air we try to offer biased but true statements of malcontent with their service and have no room for false accusations. We will be removing comments about this incident, unless those persons can substantiate their claims.

Wizz Air has enough problems without the need to conjure up new ones.

Truly frightened

// November 17th, 2009 // No Comments » // frontpage

Me and my wife spent 8 hours in Budapest Airport the 16th of November 2009 with absolutely no information from Wizz Air or any other airport authority. My airplane to Malmö was delayed continuously for 30 min. and 1 hour at the time all day. The Wizz Air representative left the gate for for the last 3 hours, and the passengeres couldn’t get in contact with anyone from the company. Two persons had the flue, and needed medical attention after appr. 6 hours sitting in the airport. They got medical attention through contact with security personal. Wizz Air gave this no attention. Two representatives came at one point and gave us 4 € vouchers for refreshments. For this amount we could choose a small sandwich or something to drink (not both).
All air companies can be delayed, but this total lack of information and responsibility for passengers has truly frightened us. This is surely the last time me and my family will ever use this horrible company.

Wizzair loses! Score one for Wizzairsucks!

// October 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // frontpage

david-and-goliath-sumos2 Wizzair wins, Wizzairsucks is closing its doors. Wizzairsucks Wins! The legal dispute with Wizz Legal (Wizzair’s team of highly trained lawyers) ends! Wizzairsucks slumps on to slander another day!

The panel reached its decision Oct. 1st and decided unanimously in favour of Wizzairsucks.com for its legal merits, as well as wit, candour, fortitude, and elegant style by the WIPO appointed panel of one. The highly esteemed Mr. Sebastian Hughes of Australia, a country well known for its criminal origins, has ruled in favor of this fledgling hate rag, stating:

The Complainant [Wizzair] appears to have wholly missed the point of the Website in asserting that “there is no evidence to support the conclusion that the disputed domain name was registered for the purpose of a legitimate protest site”.

However it has been speculated by Wizz Legal that the case may have been tampered with in favour of the Respondent. They cite several key witnesses that reported seeing the Leading Panelist and the Respondent breaking bread over a large tub of Vegemite. They further allege that the Respondent provided the Vegemite as a means to buy the Panelist’s swing vote and mention his well documented weakness for the substance and its unavailability in the nether regions of Beijing Province.

After further saturation of the substance, slightly slurring his words, he went on to state that:

the use of the disputed domain name in respect of genuine and non-commercial criticism of the Complainant does not amount to bad faith registration and use…and the Complainant has failed to prove that the Respondent lacks rights or legitimate interests in the disputed domain name under paragraph 4(c)(iii) of the Policy. Accordingly, the Complainant has failed to satisfy the second limb under paragraph 4(a)(ii) of the Policy….the Panel is of the opinion that the use of the disputed domain name in respect of genuine and non-commercial criticism of the Complainant does not amount to bad faith registration and use. For all the foregoing reasons, the Complaint is denied, and the Panel declines to order transfer of the disputed domain name.

Basically, it proves what every unfortunate Wizzair customer already knows… that Wizzair does in fact suck.

Read all about our Legal Battle here: http://www.wizzairsucks.com/about/legal-battle/

Thank God for the freedom of speech and the internet! At least we can share our resentment for what is probably the worst airline on the planet!

// September 9th, 2009 // 7 Comments » // frontpage, letters

Letter from “Dan” sent to us on 09/08/2009:

Here is my story, in progress, as I am committed to do everything in my power to make it right!

To start off, I’d like to point out that this was our honeymoon flight, Cluj – Venice, to start off what should have been the beginning of our beautiful married life. I am a Platinum Star Alliance Member.

August 25th, 2009 10:30 AM: we got in a hurry at the CLJ airport, traffic and a new terminal barely visible made us get there 45 minutes before scheduled departure. Shock when we got to the check in desk, THERE WAS NO ONE THERE!!! Not a single person from WIZZ Air!!!

August 25th, 2009 10:32 AM: shocked and in disbelief, I rushed to the WIZZ ticketing counter to ask someone to get us boarding passes. Shock again, when the agent told us “tough luck”, grudgingly showing us a big sign that said that check in closes 40 min before departure. When I said there’s 43 minutes to departure and we have no luggage, he simply walked away….

August 25th, 2009 10:35 AM: frantically I called WIZZ Air Customer (or should I say lack of Customer) Service… for 60 EURO cents a minutes, I got to experience the worst customer service of my life!!! It ended in the lady agent slamming the phone in my face!!!!!! Ouch….

August 25th, 2009 10:38 AM: after paying about 3 EUROs to be abused over the phone, I realized that we might not make the flight… none of my desperate calls or my wife’s tears to the security desk, the ticketing agents or any person that seemed remotely official to call someone from WIZZ Air from the gate to give us our boarding passes had any luck…. We were being denied boarding this flight!!!!

August 25th, 2009 10:40 AM: back at the ticketing desk, I tried to see what flight accommodation they can provide us, considering that we have just been denied boarding our scheduled flight. Now comes the shock of all shocks, the mother of all surprises, when the agent told us that the next scheduled flight will be 2 days from now and we will be charged 120 EUROs for the both of us!!!! If we wanted to leave that day, there was only one option, to buy a new ticket and be re-routed through Germany. And we needed to be fast as the flight was leaving at 12:00 PM. By the way, the price for this was a whopping EUR 1,300!!!!!!!! Ouch, ouch….

My jaw dropped and I tried to explain that there are international regulations concerning denied boarding situations (didn’t knew at the time Regulation (EC) No 261/2004, but I am a frequent flyer and I know in the US all airlines are trying to accommodate passengers in their flights or code-share flights in situations like this.

August 25th, 2009 11:10 AM: we had no choice….. we paid the EUR 1,300 and got on board Lufthansa flight to Venice through Munich. Star Alliance partner Lufthansa had no issue checking us in 45 minutes before departure…..

So now, I’m left fighting WIZZ Air for some retribution for this “unpleasant situation” as they referred to it in their reply to my claim request. I’m planning on cancelling the credit card payment for the tickets, that covers about $250 and trying to recoup the rest through Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 either by suing them in small claims court in the US or reaching out to the Romanian authorities. If anyone has any experience as to what the best way would be to reach any civil authorities in Romania or Europe that would have a saying in this, please reply to my message.

Thanks for this website and I hope some of these stories and hopefully resolutions to issues presented here will help people be more informed before being trapped and screwed by WIZZ Air.

Dan

Lies, lies, and more lies

// June 8th, 2009 // No Comments » // frontpage

The return leg of out return trip to Lviv was cancelled by Wizz Air. They didn’t inform of of the cancellation at any point, we found out via contacts in Ukraine. We found out that the whole Luton-Lviv route was being cancelled from May, which would have left us stranded in Lviv. They did confirm the cancellation when we phoned them at 65p per minute cost to ourselves. They informed us that we could fly home from Kiev at no extra cost. However when we had finally sorted out the best way to get to Kiev and rang them again they then said they had been wrong and that we would need to pay extra to book the flight from Kiev and claim a partial refund for the return leg cancellation from Lviv.

So they were asking us to do further business with them after cancelling our initial flight and not even bothering to inform us.

Their customer services email address say they will take 30 days to reply. When I sent a letter with Subject “Full Refund Required” it was bounced back to me several hours later as spam ! When I then sent the exact same letter but changing the Subject line so it didn’t mention refund it got through, though I have as yet still not received a reply to the email.

This is immaterial though as I booked with a credit card and went through my bank to get a chargeback which has been successful.

Funnily enough the day after the money was returned to my bank account WizzAir phoned me and said they would refund me if I cancelled the chargeback ! I happily informed them that the money was already safely back in my account.

To anyone defending WizzAir, either because they are deluded enough to think this company is on a par with cheap flight airlines such as RyanAir or because thay are lucky enough to have had good experiences with WizzAir I can only encourage you to book with WizzAir and take the consequences. For everyone else, don’t touch WizzAir with a bargepole. They are a complete shambles and their customer service is non-existent and simply an excuse to rip you off at 65 pence per minute.

WIZZ AIR review : 13 May 2009 : by S Engel

// May 14th, 2009 // No Comments » // frontpage

I advise you not to fly with this company. We had a multiple bad experience with Wizzair. Our flight from Budapest to Eindhoven had a 6 hour delay. We were given no information about the reason for the delay and me and my husband suspected a technical problem. According to wizzair regulation we were entitled to rebook for another flight. But when we tried that, we have found out that we have to pay the other tickets ourselves. After coming home I have tried to get my money back. The reply came after 2 months! And the money was sent via an account of some agency despite I have provided two accounts of our own to be repaid directly. I am still waiting to see if I will get any of my money back. Hope this comment would save someone losing time, money and nerves with Wizzair. For us it was definitely the first and the last time flying with Wizzair.

Unhappiness in Paris… left for dead.