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Scots holiday from hell after being left stranded in Vancouver when airline cancelled flights

SCOTS holidaymakers have claimed they were left stranded in Vancouver overnight after British Airways put them down as a “no show” after cancelling their flights.

Angela Shearer and her sister Kirstin Shearer said they had the holiday from hell last month when they embarked on a snowboarding trip to Vancouver, Canada.

Angela, 26, claimed they were forced to pay an extra £1,140 on their £7,800 trip with their two partners after being met with a string of problems.

Angela and Kirstin
Angela (L) and Kirstin (R).

The siblings, from Orkney, Northern Isles, were initially set to fly from Edinburgh to London to catch their flight but this ended up being cancelled by British Airways.

The group made their own way down to Heathrow Airport on a train after contacting the airline to say they still planned to catch their flight from London to Vancouver.

However, after their two week stay, the Scots were shocked to find out that their flight back to the UK was allegedly cancelled by British Airways.

They claim they were told their tickets had been re-sold because they hadn’t attended their connecting flight from Edinburgh to London.

The group then had to book a flight the following day where they stopped off at a change in Toronto before landing back in London.

To add insult to injury, the group’s snowboards were again left behind in Vancouver and were not reunited with the group until they were home in Orkney two days later.

Medical secretary Kirstin, 24, shared an account of their disastrous holiday on TikTok last week, writing: “Our Canada disaster, f**k my life.”

The post has now collected over 90,000 views and more than 4,000 likes.

@annayoung688 said: “Girls in years to come you will both be laughing about this holiday.

“It’s all about memories and adventures and yours was certainly that.”

@Alex said: “Omg this might be the worst luck ever. I hope you got home okay.”

@thenameiskatie01 said: “Oh my god! I’m going to Canada next month with British Airways and I hope it’s not as dramatic as your experience. I hope you’re both okay.”

Angela and Kirstin
The group were left with over £1,100 of additional costs.

@leeamy41 said: “You definitely need a holiday after your holiday.”

Speaking today, social care worker Angela said: “We phoned British Airways in London as soon as we got on the first train to let them know that we were on our route and they put a note on our booking stating that we were on our way but may be late.

“We were very grateful we got on the flight in time but when we arrived, we had a lengthy wait for our luggage in Vancouver and when we went to the large luggage collection point there were no snowboard bags to be seen.

“We double checked with one of the British Airways staff members and they double checked and confirmed our snowboard bags were still in London.

“They gave us a voucher to claim snowboard hire and clothing hire for one day while our bags were in transit.

“Since we took longer than expected waiting for our luggage and organising how it would come to our hotel when it finally arrived our transfer bus left without us and there were no other shuttle buses so the only option was a taxi costing us €350 CAD.

“We showed the staff member in the (Ski hire) shop the voucher and they said these were not valid vouchers and they don’t have an account with British Airways and never have!”

Angela continued to tell of how the disastrous holiday continued on their return leg of the journey.

She said: “We arrived at the airport and went to check in and were told we had no booking on this flight.

“We went to the desk again and the staff had a further look and told us that because we were a no show for our first flight from Edinburgh to London (which BA cancelled and said online not to come to the airport so I don’t understand how that was a no show) due to this supposed no show for a cancelled flight British Airways cancelled our return leg of the journey without telling us?

“We had a note on our file that we were on our way to London on the train to make the second outbound flight to Vancouver, which we made.

“Surely British Airways would have seen this on your records and that we actually flew out on our second flight so why cancel our return flight and sell our seats?

“After minimal sleep due to having to get up early to catch the flight from Vancouver- Toronto- London – Edinburgh we arrived at Edinburgh after a long day of travelling to be greeted with our normal luggage but no snowboards arrived.

“This made us very stressed again and disappointed to say the least.”

Speaking today a spokesman for British Airways said: “We are extremely sorry that due to a technical issue, our customers’ holiday to Canada was disrupted.

“We know that this is not what they expected and our teams are in contact to apologise and resolve the matter.”

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