Vueling review by Holmfridur 2014-04-16

Vueling is absolutely the worst airline I have travelled with. I was flying from Gran Canaria to Barcelona and then to Vienna, both ways with Vueling. Only one minute after saying goodbye to my boyfriend and with tears in my eyes because I would not see him the next two months the hand luggage was taken from me when I was walking on to the plane. The reason was because the overhead compartments were full, my hand luggage was neither too big or too heavy. This was done in a lot of rush, I didn't have a chance to take anything that I would possibly need from my hand luggage. They also told me that I would not have to worry about picking the hand luggage up in Barcelona and that they would send it straight to Vienna. When I arrived to Vienna I noticed that my hand luggage was missing. I went to Lost&Found and they told me that my hand luggage was still in Barcelona and they thought that it would be delivered the day after. And that's when I realise that I am in HUGE trouble. Everything was in my hand luggage! Keys, wallet with all of my money and credit cards, keys to my apartment, Sim cards for my phone, MacBook air, iPad, charger for my phone, camera and more. Everything I had was my passport, a phone with an unactivated sim card and 70 cents. I thought to myself: "Where the hell should I sleep? What can I eat for 70 cents? This is insane! I can't even take the train to my hometown! I can't even call from my phone! I am completely stuck until they deliver my hand luggage!". After a lot of panic and crying I was able to borrow the phone at Lost&Found to call Vueling's customer service and they did not know where my hand luggage was, not very helpful. I also called my parents, thank god for parents, they are life savers! To make a long story short (but not so short) they managed to book a hotel room across the street from the airport so I could walk over there and not take a public transport (because 70 cents are obviously not enough). Paying for the hotel room was a struggle, because I did not have any of my cards or money. So again I had to call my parents via the hotel phone to tell them that they needed to take a photo of their ID and send to the hotel to confirm that I was allowed to use their credit card number. I went to my hotel room and called Vueling's customer service from the hotel phone a few times and I was asking them about my bag and everything. When I started to ask if they would pay for everything in the bag if I would not get it back or something would get stolen from it they just hung up, not once but twice. You might think that I was still starving but luckily I was able to eat at the dinner buffet at the hotel (thanks to my parents). Now I had a plan for the night, but what about the day after that? Vueling had not found my bag yet and I had no clue about when I could be expecting to get it back. I still did not have any money to get to my hometown by train to sleep over at my friends apartment (because of course my keys were missing). I desperately needed money! My parents tried everything to send me some money, they were in Italy at the time and called my sister in Iceland and told her to go to the bank to make them send me money, but because of the capital control in Iceland it was impossible. My parents also contacted the international currency exchange offices at Vienna airport, that also failed because of the capital control. Finally they contacted the embassy of Iceland in Vienna and somehow they managed to transfer money to the embassy and then an angel from the embassy personally delivered the money to me. Thank god!! So now I could at least take the train to my hometown the day after and buy me some food! Before I checked out the day after I called Vueling a few times and FINALLY they found my bag! They told me that it would probably be delivered to me on monday, notice that my bag got lost on a friday. So basically even though I had explained my situation to them, that they made me "homeless" and starving, they did not care at all that I would be in this situation for the next three days (they still thought that I had no money and no place to sleep, I made them think that just to make it clear to them how serious this situation that they put me in was). I took the train to my hometown and spent the night at my friends apartment. I managed to lend the spare keys that my lessee had to get in to my apartment, so finally I got home. The hand luggage was taken from me on a friday morning and delivered on the monday night after that. So thank you Vueling for being so careless about your customers, as long as you get your money your customers can just starve and sleep at the airport for three nights because of YOUR mistake!! This is not over yet! When I received my hand luggage I got to know that it had been sent to four airports (Barcelona, Vienna, Prague, Ostrava). Why? I can tell you why! Just so Vueling could save some money, so instead of driving 3 hours from Vienna to Martin (my hometown) they could drive for 2 hours from Ostrava to Martin. What does that mean for me? It means that it doubles the number of people that can open it and steal something from it. My camera got stolen and my charger for my iPhone (worth 285 euros). I have sent a lot of messages, faxes, Facebook messages and called a lot of phone calls. I get nothing! . They don't care about me and I'm sure that they won't care about you either! I will never ever fly with Vueling again and I hope that my story also makes you decide to do the same.