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A man hit out at an airline after he was slapped with a £220 charge for ringing the customer's service line.

Lewis Richardson, 35, was stung while trying to change his flights for a family holiday in Spain.

He spent more than an hour-and-a-half on the phone to Wizz Air's customer service line, not realising he would be charged at a premium rate.

READ MORE: Spain holiday hotspots look to bring back 'some sort' of Covid restrictions

After the call he ended up with a £220 phone bill and still didn't manage to sort out his Luton to Malaga trip.

Now he says he's boycotting Wizz Air after the charge.

He added: "My first and only experience with Wizz has been a total car crash.

"It's just been one thing after another, and to top it all off, I've been charged £220 for calling their customer service line – and they didn't even help me."

Lewis and his family booked a holiday for August last year but were unable to travel on the day they planned for personal reasons.

The dad-of-two, from Bracknell, spent £975 on flights.

But after reading Wizz Air's flight change policy he was confident he could amend the booking easily.

Phone records show he was on the phone to the airline's customer service for 100 minutes, just over an hour-and-a-half.

But he claims, after being told contradicting information from separate phone operators, he would have to book new flights to travel.

Lewis then shelled out an additional £450 to secure new seats and flew to Spain on August 6.

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The domestic energy assessor said: "I rang customer services thinking I'd have to pay a slight additional cost to change flights.

"But after waiting half an hour each time to speak to someone I was given conflicting information.

"The first operator told me I had to wait until the original flight had taken off to change my booking, and when I called again once it had, I was told I needed to do it before.

"Having already spent nearly a grand on flights, I then had to book completely new ones which set us back another £450."

Lewis and his family made it to Malaga as planned, after a flight delay, and enjoyed their trip.

They stayed for a week, flying back on August 13.

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But when his phone bill later arrived, he was enraged to find he'd been charged £200 for the calls he made to the customer service line.

Lewis said: "The delay flying out was horrendous, and I was glad to see our flight back was on time.

"But my relief was short lived when we were held on the plane for an hour and a half because they had a lack of ground staff available.

"We finally got off, and our luggage was no where to be seen. Four hours later it did finally arrive, but by that point everyone was fuming.

"The next day I checked my phone bill and I'd been charged £220 for calls to their customer service team. And my complaint about this has since been ignored.

"All in all my experience with Wizz Air was shocking, and it's safe to say I won't be using them again in the future."

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Lewis' phone bill shows five calls to an 09 number, which is listed online as a contact for Wizz Air's UK call centre.

Four calls on August 1 and one on August 3 were charged at a total of £223.06, he added.

A spokesperson for Wizz Air said: "Wizz Air looked into Mr Richardson's claim and found his compensation was rejected due to an isolated internal error.

"The customer service team contacted Mr Richardson and the case has now been resolved. Wizz Air sincerely apologises for the inconvenience caused."

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