Bad & good surprises after the holiday

8 April 2024

Point 1: Finnair

As a reminder: On the day of departure, we found out just 4 (!) hours before departure that our Finnair flight to Helsinki had been cancelled.

We were rebooked for the following day. Because the connecting flight was no longer suitable, we lost 1 day of vacation, which also meant for us:

• the non-cancellable hotel stay in Helsinki was gone
• Only with luck could I avoid a "no show" disaster at the rental car company, because then the entire rental car booking would have been "lost". So we paid for 1 day of rental car for free
• We also had to pay for our cottage in Levi in full for one day that we were not there
• All in all, the damage was limited to just under €400, but that was gone - and one day of vacation too.

Our cancelled flight was considered "delayed" because we were rebooked for the following day.

After a few emails, we got home and received the good news that Finnair would retroactively pay us compensation of €400 per person. Just a few days later, we had the €1200 (3 people) in our account!

So big praise to Finnair and thank you for the quick processing!

Point 2: Rental car (Green Motion, Rovaniemi)

Looking back, booking the rental car was less pleasant. I usually book through the booking platform " biller-mietwagen.de " and always choose the package that covers all insurance. So far, I have never had any problems.

Already in Helsinki, one day after returning the rental car, I received an email saying that "new damage" had been found on our rental car. As a reminder: we had already taken over the car with several unrepaired damages, scrapes and scratches!

The Finnish rental company Green Motion sent me a whole series of WhatsApp photos in which, thanks to reflections, you couldn't see anything at all on the freshly cleaned car. The only place on the car where no damage had been marked in advance was marked in the documents (strange, what a coincidence!).

With a lot of squinting and magnifying the image, we thought we could see a small white scratch in the black paint. We're still not sure to this day.

"New Damage - During check in of the vehicle we found new damage on the side of the car. (see attachments). Your excess liability is 2000€ per damage which is the maximum we can charge you for the damage repairs."

We find the suggestion that they could charge me up to €2000 for the repairs cheeky, especially since the whole thing seems to be a scam at the end of the season. I have read in many Google reviews that many holidaymakers before me had the same experience. Everywhere there was supposedly damage amounting to €500. Strange...

I'm now wondering whether all the scratches, dents, and dangling metal that our car already had when we took delivery were also claimed as damage... but were obviously never repaired. Rip-off???

A day later I received the bill. I had to pay €545.60 for the scratch, my €500 deposit was immediately retained and the €45.60 was debited from my credit card! 😡😡😡

So the same thing happened to me as to many holidaymakers before me. It's really so annoying!!! We have no idea how this scratch came about and neither caused it nor noticed it. Since the car was usually parked in the car park in the ski resorts, it cannot be ruled out that someone got stuck with skis or ski poles. On top of that, the car was so dirty from snow and road dirt, frozen over - even if we had specifically looked for the scratch, we would definitely not have found it!

So for the first time I have to deal with the insurance for my rental car. Luckily, as always, I booked everything properly.

Big praise to AXA, who paid the damage in full without any problems and without any further questions after filling out a questionnaire! 💪🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

So all the annoyances we had before and after the holiday turned out well for us!

Lucky!!! 🍀🍀🍀😅