A Brit has been "trapped" in Thailand after his return ticket to the UK was cancelled two weeks before the flight.
Paul Henstock, a taxi driver from Nottingham, was hoping to soak up the sounds and sights of Bangkok in what promised to be the holiday of a lifetime.
The 54-year-old's big plans came unstuck when he received a message on August 31 explaining that his flight back home with airline Scoot had been cancelled, Nottinghamshire Live reported.
Paul, who had already been in Thailand for almost two months at that point, immediately called the lastminute.com agency to arrange another way back home.
"I booked a ten-week holiday to travel Thailand", Paul said. "I should fly home on September 11, which is just in a few days - but on Wednesday morning I woke up to a text from lastminute.com saying that my flight was cancelled.
"I kept buying SIM cards, it took an hour. And then it took 42 minutes to ring Singapore (airline Scoot), and I was basically offered the money back which was about £480 or a travel voucher and again - it would not put me on another flight. They could not do it.
"The cheapest direct flight on that date is £1,285. I was angry because I can basically afford to sort it out, but there were also families on that flight.
"If you think of two parents with two children who now need to get back to work, they cannot. They have been dumped on an island."
Paul has the added pressure of leaving the country by September 18, when his visa expires.
"The only way I managed to do it and get it at a decent price is to fly back on the 18th, the day my visa expires," he continued.
"And I have got to fly to Finland and change it back to the UK. And it still cost me just under £800, so £480 does not even cover this flight."
Paul said he wanted to warn others after his experience.
"I am not a millionaire, but I will take the hit," he continued.
"But others cannot afford it. A family would need to pay £5,000 just to get back home for work and they would get only £2,000 from the airline to do it. So I am in a much more fortunate position."
Paul said he saved money for a long time to have his "holiday of a lifetime" in Thailand. It comes after he ended up in hospital in Manila for 14 weeks back in 2018, and that he had to teach himself to walk again.
"This was my dream to get back on a surf board which I did achieve, silver clouds at the end of a rainbow and all that," he said.
"I saved my money hard and this was my big thing and they just dropped it right on me."
The Mirror has contacted Scoot for comment.
