On the occasion of its 5th anniversary, La Toupie Bleue shares with you the second part of its new section: “Do a “par 5” while staying padel ! "

This monthly column aims to give you 5 tips/recommendations/shares around the theme of travel padel and the practice itself.

In our first part, we shared with you 5 good practices … before leaving!

For this second part, we share here 5 tips around the theme "flying for your trip padel in Europe ".

Delayed, canceled or overbooked flight… what to do?

La-toupie-bleue-overbooking

In an ordinary business relationship, it is the terms of the contract signed between the customer and a company that govern their reciprocal obligations. The aviation sector repeatedly shown the finger in recent years with the COVID-19 pandemic does not always respect the obligations incumbent on it.

Protecting users and their rights is fundamental for the French government and more generally for the European Commission.

While a great deal of sometimes unreliable or incomplete information is popularized and becomes false beliefs, it is important to disentangle the true from the false about what we would be able to expect from an airline which, for example, sees their flight delayed, or who cancels their flight or who has overbooked (principle of selling one and the same "seat in the cabin" twice, sometimes making effective check-in impossible on the day of departure).

This summary document of July 2022 from the Directorate General for Competition, Consumption and the Repression of Fraud (GGCCRF) will allow you to see more clearly.

The way of the cross to obtain compensation … Specialized sites exist

Companies battered during the COVID-19 pandemic have seen their cash “melt like snow in the sun”, which may have weakened their economic stability.

Delays in taking charge of compensation files, false misunderstanding of customer requests, desire to make procedural files more cumbersome by multiplying requests for documents… so many elements that can discourage many of you.

Some companies are indeed unscrupulous and (perhaps) fail to remember the Montreal Convention which unifies the rules of international air transport.

Lawyers, or even advisers of a legal protection that you would have can make it possible to assemble a file of assumption of responsibility, of compensation, which, we hope it for you, will succeed.

Some companies have specialized in compensating passengers following a dispute with their airline. To name just two of many: the Dutch company VOL-REARDE.FR or the French company supported by FrenchTech: REFUNDMYTICKET.ET

The strong sales pitch of these two companies lies in the fact of not charging you anything if they do not win your case!

Displaying your carbon footprint is becoming more and more of a seller

Proof that the ecological stakes in travel can begin to compete and not to oppose the economic arguments of aggressive pricing, the airlines want to gain in transparency.

For travelers wishing to be able to compare the carbon emissions of a particular flight, companies are increasingly trying to communicate their carbon footprint.

Without falling into "greenwashing", it is up to everyone to experience a stay padel in relation to its values ​​and convictions for the protection of the environment. For its part, La Toupie Bleue, since 1er January 2022, has taken up the challenge of no longer selling mechanical land sports activities with combustion engines, for example, in addition to the stay padel as such.

The plane yes, but the train in all this, real alternative?

As part of the 2021 climate law, the European Commission has taken up the issue of short-term air travel in recent months. The long-term objective is to eliminate air links for domestic flights in the event of an alternative by train of less than 2h30.

One would not have to be too visionary to think that a Lille/Brussels air link in the more or less near future might no longer be possible.

Solutions proposed by the railway companies could then be certain alternatives.
Often due to ignorance of all the workings of booking a train ticket, sometimes because of a previous bad experience (sometimes distant), the reflex of the train is not always automatic.

A site like OMIO.FR (formerly GOEURO) allows you to have a little more visibility on train or even bus connections.

How to navigate the nebula of websites on which to buy a plane ticket

The online purchase of a plane ticket (in dry service) is now customary, if not almost automatic. We are now a long way from the one-stop shop of the airline company that issued you a long paper ticket carefully slipped into its case or from the physical travel agency that opened its doors to you and sells you a single plane ticket.

On the web, lots of sites redouble their energy and ingenuity to encourage you to click to enter their universe and then buy your precious sesame.

Unpleasant surprises can also accumulate once the ticket has been purchased (unanticipated additional costs, unknown modification of the conditions of access to cabin baggage, etc.) on so-called “comparator” sites.

If we favor customer satisfaction AND effective support in the event of a dispute with the airline, we would direct you to sites such as OPTIONWAY.COM who are actually travel operators, like La Toupie Bleue but specialized in the sale of plane tickets.

By going through their website which looks like a lambda price comparison site (but which is not one), you will be assured of being properly taken care of by a travel operator. Official travel agents (registered ATOUT FRANCE) do not have the same obligations, nor the same operation as an airline. French travel agents all have an unlimited financial guarantee in addition to a professional civil liability contract adapted to this specific sector.

So ready, go, take off!!


Remi Collat

The founder of the agency La Toupie Bleue offers themes on internships and vacations padel in Europe. The accommodation specialist padel don't hesitate to give us your opinion on these topics.

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