In February I booked a 15:25 flight Barcelona to Santiago de Compostela for Saturday Sept 24, 2011 for two people. Started out as a 9.25 Euro fare but with all the extra's worked out at 163 Euro for 2. Still a little bit cheaper than other airlines but not much. We were on a fight schedule as our long distance bus was scheduled to arrive at the airport at 14:35. In March Vueling advised that they had changed their schedules and we were now in a 14:45 flight. We told them that the 14:45 flight was not acceptable as we could not get there in time due to the bus timetable. We asked them to put us on the next scheduled flight which at 7:25 Sunday morning a much less popular time. This was very inconvenient for us we had to cancel accommodation in Santiago de Compostela organise accommodation in Barcelona and loose half a day of out planned trip in Santiago de Compostela. We asked for some compensation for the inconvenience as well as giving us an alternative time that we could make. We pointed out that if we had wanted to change from the original time then they would charge us, so since they wanted to change the time then they should pay us something. Unbelievably their response was that since the new flight they offered was less than two hours different from what we had originally bought they would charge us 83 Euro each for the seat portion instead of the original 9.25 Euro made up of a change fee and higher price. Simply dishonest when they have made a change to suite them. I cannot find this two hour rule anywhere in the fare conditions. We emailed them back three times, told them we were not going to pay them more money for inconveniencing us. We asked them to refund our money since they had said that they were not going to supply what we original bought and we were not interested in any of the alternatives they offered. They have ignored all of our requests.
We also bought cancellation insurance through them. Strangely the page on their website does not exist, and two emails to the insurance company have been ignored. Probally we cannot claim on the insurance because the insurance company will say that Vueling changing our booking to a time that we cannot make was a deliberate act. Deliberate acts are not covered.
It looks like financial transactions with Vueling only go one way. They will take your money but never give it back even if they cannot or will not deliver.