Emirates stranded us in a foreign country, sold our tickets to double profits.

On 20 September 2019 we were on our way to Cape Town Airport (Cape Town to Bangkok for our 5 yr anniversary) when our vehicle had engine trouble. The vehicle was brand new and only 2 days old. Telephonically Nissan advised us to very slowly drive home and not switch the engine off. The car was limited to 20km/h. We could not stop our vehicle as we were driving through a high crime area.

We missed our flight and were told there were no other flights for the rest of the weekend from the Emirates agent at CPT airport.

In order not to cancel our one month stay in Thailand, I immediately purchased new online tickets on the very next Emirates flight which left 4 hours after our original scheduled flight, even though I was told by Emirates that there were no more outbound seats available for the next few days.

Emirates was aware of my situation and as there were another two Emirates flights with available seats they should have offered them to us in terms of airline Flat Tire Policy.

At that time I was unaware of this policy. Emirates knew I had immediately purchased replacement outbound tickets, but kept quiet. We arrived in Thailand. We thus paid twice for the flight when Emirates could easily have accommodated us on the following aircraft which had available seats.

On arrival at immigrations department in Bangkok we were asked to provide evidence of a return flight on the Visa application documents. We showed our Emirates return tickets and provided evidence on the cellphone app which showed the flight was all paid for and confirmed. With this information we were granted our Visas to enter Thailand.

For the following 4 weeks while in Thailand, confirmation of our return flights was posted on our cellphone Emirates app. We had no reason to believe that anything was wrong.

The day before departure I proceeded to check us in online but each time I tried to check in, even though it said I could, it would give an error. It just kept saying that I could not check in more than 48 hours before the time.

I logged in via the website and retrieved my booking which also showed our flights and seats confirmed and it gave the same error. After clicking on numerous links I came across an itinerary which said that all my flights had been cancelled due to operational reasons and I must contact Emirates. I had no idea what this meant.

I messaged my parents in South Africa to contact Emirates as I could not make any calls. My father spoke to an agent at Emirates who told him that all our fully paid for return and connecting flights were cancelled a month ago by Emirates without informing us.

At no time did I receive any emails nor was I informed that Emirates had cancelled our return flights. Emirates must have been aware that we had arrived in Thailand on their one-way flights as they had kept our return tickets open and valid for our entire stay. Because of our departure mishap, we constantly monitored this.

In no way were we informed of this. Even my online Emirates account and cellphone app confirmed that the flights and seats were still valid and fully paid for.

This was completely unwarranted. We had paid for our flights, paid extra for expensive 8 pre-booked seats and had also paid double for our outward bound flight. Emirates had lost nothing but had on the contrary doubled up on their profit.

We were stranded in Thailand. Our Visas were due to expire in days. We had to return to our jobs.

I tried to book more return flights back home but Emirates had nothing available for a few days.

I had no money left after a lengthy holiday and was forced to borrow money in order to buy tickets to South Africa on Qatar Airlines at 3 times the price of my original emirates flights.

We were also penalized for 20kg excess luggage on Qatar that would have been allowed on our Emirates flight. We were still required to leave 6kg of our belongings behind. Which we've lost for good.

I have paid twice for my tickets, my return tickets were confirmed by Emirates for my entire stay in Thailand, I was never informed about the Flat Tire Policy. I was never informed about their policy of cancelling ALL the return connecting tickets should we have missed the outbound flight. On the contrary, Emirates had confirmed our return tickets and seats throughout our stay and these were even used as legal documents in order to obtain visas in Thailand. The immigration officer confirmed that our Emirates return tickets were valid.

Emirates was aware that we were in Thailand, as we purchased new outbound tickets the same day and therefore knew that we were going to use our return tickets. Emirates held our return tickets open and valid for our entire stay in Thailand and notified us of this up until minutes before departure, but then wouldn’t allow us to check in for the flight.

By doing this, Emirates is informing the world that their recorded confirmation is not valid at all; they can strand customers in foreign lands without allowing them to fly home on their purchased tickets and can never be trusted.

Furthermore if our seats were booked in our name then the computer would not have allowed them to be allocated to anyone else, (minutes before departure) so the airline took our money, refused to allow us to embark and departed with additional customers in our paid seats thus earning extra money for which they gave nothing in return.

My wife was so distressed and shocked at what Emirates had deliberately done to us and that we were forced to borrow so much money (that we still need to pay off) that she was physically sick the entire night before our departure and the 2 day trip home was incredibly traumatic for both of us.

All the above could have been avoided if we had been given replacement seats on another outbound flight as mentioned above and Emirates not reselling our return flights and seats a month later to double up on profits, not informing us they were planning on stranding us in a foreign country with no way to get home.

I have date stamped screenshot files of the Emirates app showing our confirmed seats and flights hours before departure. I also have date stamped screenshot files of our confirmed booking with confirmed seats and flights back home retrieved from their website only hours before our flight was intended to leave.

I insist on being refunded the total loss, as set out above, suffered by me. I have contacted Emirates twice about this issue, They have just ignored me.