Forgive my rant-the pre-trip report.

Gee, thanks everyone. Not.

So your flight was canceled, but KLM booked you on another flight that will get you to Amsterdam on the same day as originally scheduled and paid you your compensation before you even had to ask for it?

Sheesh what a pain.

Hope the flights go smoothly and you all enjoy your trip !

Ugh. Flying is getting ugly. I hope the connection at Heathrow goes smoothly. Just spent 7 hours there due to a missed connection. As I remember, we went through immigration and then back through security, so maybe it’s safer to get the ETA?

How awful for you, especially since you don’t need this aggravation the day before you fly.
On the other hand, it reads like a lovely trip. Enjoy.

I may have missed it, but what happened with the ETA conundrum? Sorry you had to go through your hours of aggravation. Glad you could rant.

Could be worse? Could have a connection in Newark?
(I'll agree; holy crap! Rant deserved!)

I sympathize. Rant away! You deserve it.

I've had similar happen. Direct flight home to ORD changed to New York Kennedy, then on to O'Hare. I happened to find the change when I had looked at the reservation for some reason. I didn't get an official email until weeks later. In the meantime, I had made my plans and had a course of action ready before contacting the offending airline.

We are at their mercy.........

Allan, yuck and double yuck! it's bad enough to face issues like that but doubly worse when it happens right before your flight! I don't blame you for ranting, and I really hope everything works out!

So will you get to use the vouchers? At least that would be something good to come out of this.

Allan, I hope this is the only hiccup in your travels. Have a wonderful trip!

This is the kind of stuff that gives me travel anxiety. Let's hope you got your travel hiccups out of the way and the rest of your trip goes smoothly. I'm also flying tomorrow. Bon Voyage to us!

So.....

The good news is you don't need an ETA if your are just transiting the UK which you are.

The bad news is Westjet arrives at Terminal 4 and BA departs from Terminal 5.

You will follow Flight Connections to travel between terminals. (It's a bus that goes airside between terminals.) You wlll have to go through security but no immigration or customs.

Go to this website, fill in the blanks, and you will get step by step instruction on what you have to do.

http://www.heathrow.com/flight-connections

Make sure you have boarding passes for both flights prior to departure.

That’s awful, sorry about it all…and the day before too!
Grrr.

Sending good travel karma your way for not only your flights, but your entire trip.
Keep us posted after you get safely to Amsterdam.

Update-with an angry face emoji if I could. KLM called me at 7am this morning to "let me know" that my flight has been changed and to expect some emails. I guess he didn't get the memos from last night. Or so I thought. My flight was changed AGAIN. Now I fly WestJet to Toronto and connect to KLM to arrive in Amsterdam at 6am on Thursday. I've got 1:45 between flights and if you've ever been to Pearson in Toronto that can be a sprint depending where the next gate is. On top of that I can't check in online. I hope this isn't true but the KLM guy on the phone told me I'd need to check in twice, once for the WestJet fight and again in Toronto for the KLM flight.

I asked about the seats I prepaid for with WestJet and British Airways and was told there was nothing he could do about that and I have to call them directly. Place angry face emoji here. The WestJet leg is not showing up in my WestJet app anymore and so I don't have their booking reference number which was different then the KLM number. Now I'm trying to decide how many more hours I want to put on the phone and if it's worth it to try and recover my seat costs.

By the way, just in case, last night my wife and I applied for our ETA's via the UK App. Eazy Peazy, however 16 hours later we have not heard back.

Dutch Traveller, flying from the western part of Canada (and the US) is a tiring journey even when it is a direct flight. Adding an unplanned layover in a notoriously busy airport just makes it all a bit more tiring. I have gone through Heathrow many times and encountered innumerable delays landing and departing (sorry Allan, I hope that doesn’t happen to you). Now we use KLM and Schiphol much more because it is a very convenient airport with great connections. Now that we are older and retired, we fly to Schiphol and stay in the area for a couple of days to see more of the Netherlands and manage the jet lag before venturing onwards. We did this just last week.

Good grief.

But you know, you are probably at the point where you shrug and tell yourself, “Well, it could be worse.” (Might not be true, but I sometimes reach that point when I figure out there’s not much more to do that’s in my power.)

Insult, meet Injury. . .

@Allan: Your experience is why I continue to value and financially support firms with highly trained employees providing excellent service. It's a short list, but happily includes staff with Rick Steves' Europe.

Your rant is merited. I hope the airline staff on board your flights will be extra kind. Most importantly, safe travels. Just keep telling yourself: It is better to have delays/frustration than to have the airline door go flying off (or worse).
I sincerely hope the rest of your trip is pleasant -- afterall, that's why one takes a vacation. Let us all know how it goes.

I can totally understand your frustration and need to rant. Taking one step back, I honestly was impressed they proactively provided compensation and booked a new flight.

I am also picky about my seats so not getting what I had planned for is always a disappointment as well.

Allan, when I came home last year and had the 2nd leg of my flight cancelled unexpectedly (while I was in the air on the first leg), I wondered if I would get back the $150 fee for the Comfort+ seat I had booked many months before.

I tried not to worry about it then, however, as I just wanted to concentrate on the new flight I was rebooked on. The next day, however, I got an email from Delta referencing the cancelled flight and asking if I had any expenses. I replied back regarding losing my Comfort+ seat, and they reimbursed my credit card within a few days.

It may be a different process for you, but either way, I wouldn't worry too much about the seat fee now. Just concentrate on getting there, and then you can deal with requesting a refund due to the loss of your seats.

Update. Got my seat fees back from WestJet. Got tired of being on hold with Britsh Airlines, however when I look at my credit card it hasn't been billed by BA yet anyway. So I'll leave that for now. The only frustrating part is that WestJet couldn't reselect seats because KLM used a KLM booking code only that WestJet can't access. I've learned on these codeshares they usually use two booking codes; one for each airline. And the guy said when he looked at the seating plan he couldn't see any seats together so we may be seated apart. My wife will not be happy about that. We'll get to the airport early tomorrow and perhaps I'll suggest she undo a few buttons at the top of her shirt if the counter rep is a guy.....she says it worked when she was 21 and got pulled over for speeding...

Dear Allan, all this stress and confusion, and you still managed to make me laugh.

Here's hoping for a wonderful trip, in spite of the frazzled start.

Hope the “opened buttons” ploy worked.
We used to do that every time returning to Saudi Arabia when I worked there in the early 80’s, while bringing in banned items such as magazines, tampons, bacon (sshh), etc.

Would now be an inappropriate time to discuss the Mexico City adventure you were considering? Direct flights Calgary to Mexico City for under $500 (USD) on AeroMexico.
My friends in the Castro tell me that button bit works well for men, tambien.One never knows with whom we are "interacting" in the travel industry.

Now that everything is set, you have another option.

You may not have to accept the voucher from KLM. You can insist on cash compensation. And possibly more then 360 Euros each.

See if your situation is covered by EU 261.

https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-rights/air/index_en.htm

That's on my list Frank, thanks.

My friends in the Castro tell me that button bit works well for men,
tambien.One never knows with whom we are "interacting" in the travel
industry.

I may have to double down at the airport tomorrow morning, while my wife unbuttons, I'll bend over to pick up that quarter I dropped.

Oh Allan this is too much for my jet lagged brain to take at 4am in London today. The stuff of travel nightmares and somehow you have me almost spitting out my coffee in the pre dawn hours. Enjoy your trip, you’ll be here soon!

Three words: Sue Ellen Mischke, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlvuLF6UlMQ

Update:

We're in Amsterdam. We showed up at the Calgary Airport 3 hours early for a domestic flight and the gate rep was super helpful and seated us together with tickets through to Amsterdam. No jiggling by Carla or wiggling by me was necessary.

Arrived in Amsterdam at 5:30am. Went straight to our hotel and they gave us early check-in with no additional charge. One again no jiggling or wiggling required. Two thumbs up to the WestJet rep and the front desk woman at Hotel Jakarta.

Rant over.

In life things usually work out. With that belief and a little good humor, life goes on. Read my "disaster" trip this week. Turned out wonderful.

Something similar happened to me when I was traveling back from Amsterdam. Received an email from KLM the night before departure (in Dutch). Can't read Dutch but I can read numbers and I figured out my 10:30 a.m. flight had been cancelled and my niece and I were now on the 8:30 a.m. flight. Which I could live with, though I had wanted to avoid getting up in the middle of the night to fly home. However, the part that made my hair stand on end was that when changing my flight, KLM had also changed my seats from Comfort + to the last row in the Main section. I called the Delta Skymiles customer service line and after about an hour, the rep was able to override KLM's system and seat us in Comfort + for the Amsterdam-Atlanta flight. But it was a stressful couple of hours.

Allan, glad you made it and your thoughts were worse than reality. Looking forward to your TR!

Pleased to hear you made it.

Looking forward to your trip report.

Update.

• Found out why our flight was changed. https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/05/klm-cancels-flights-after-maintenance-procedure-error/ KLM grounded 7 planes due to not following proper maintenance procedures on one type of aircraft. We got bumped from our flight and rerouted because KLM put a smaller aircraft into service for our flight.
• Not that we need them now, but we also got our ETAs. It took about 34 hours to be approved.
• River cruise starts tomorrow, but the travel gods don't want us too comfy. We got an email that we've had our ship switched. The cruiseline rerouted ours down a different river. They insist water levels are fine and our new ship is a replica of our original ship. Not that we'd know the difference as this is our first river cruise.

I am glad you made it through but disappointed there was neither jiggling nor wiggling.

May your river cruise be delightful. I am sorry that this trip has started off with so much extra annoyance

It's good to know that the flight mess was safety related.

We took a barge cruise in Burgundy many years ago. When we checked in, we were advised that due to lock maintenance we would only be on the canals the first 2 days, followed by 4 days on the much larger River Saone. While we had a nice time, it was not quite the experience we were hoping for. But, we made lemonade.

Hope you have a lovely time!

Allan,
what a nightmare. I hope by now your trip went well and you were able to relax. That would send me through the roof. I don't know if travel insurance would have helped, or if your cruise line allowed you to book through them. I always book through the cruise line so they sort out the details esp if these things happen while you are away. What an awful start to your trip.

Allan,
what a nightmare. I hope by now your trip went well and you were able to relax. That would send me through the roof. I don't know if travel insurance would have helped, or if your cruise line allowed you to book through them. I always book through the cruise line so they sort out the details esp if these things happen while you are away. What an awful start to your trip. I'm headed to Europe for a River cruise up the Danube. I'll check my flights.

And where are you now? Cruising or cursing?

Do hope you are relaxed and enjoying the trip!

And where are you now? Cruising or cursing?

We're pulling into Basel in a couple of hours and then we disembark. We head to Colmar for the weekend, then to Lucerne and Zurich before flying home next Friday. No cursing since we arrived in Amsterdam. We can hope the flight home goes smoothly.

or if your cruise line allowed you to book through them.

We initially looked at that option but it was too restrictive and vague in their terms that I was having trust issues. They wouldn't have booked our flights until closer to the trip and they were very vague when I asked for details if they'd fly us direct or put us on some multi connection flight. We prefer to book earlier in the planning process and limit connections.