A family had their dream holiday to Disney World 'ruined' by an 'airline blunder' - and were left having to fork out an extra £2,600.
The Miller family arrived at Birmingham Airport for the trip of a lifetime with their excited children aged 7 and 13 on May 30 - but were refused boarding by KLM.
Sheldon Miller, 47, had to pay to rescue the holiday after they were informed by airline staff that while they were booked onto a return flight from Orlando, Florida, there was no booking for the outward journey.
It appeared that an alteration to the booking had not been properly registered on KLM's systems - despite Mr Miller getting an email confirmation of the flight change, Birmingham Mail reports.
With their dream trip was in tatters, and with heartbroken children 'in tears', Sheldon booked overnight hotels at Birmingham Airport before shelling out £2,600 for alternative flights with Aer Lingus.
The experience cast a shadow over an otherwise enjoyable holiday to Disney World. And then on the return leg, the family again faced a nightmare journey with KLM telling them they were unable to board their original flight on June 9.
Instead Mr Miller's family were flown by Virgin Atlantic from Florida to Heathrow, to Amsterdam and then to Birmingham.
The angry dad, who is calling on KLM to refund the extra £2,600, said the whole thing had been an 'utterly ridiculous saga'.
The dad, from Nottingham said: "It was the worst customer experience with any company ever by a country mile."
Mr Miller changed the family's outbound flights, initially planned for April 3, after his dad was diagnosed with cancer.
After getting confirmation of the change, and a link to check-in through airline Delta, a partner of KLM, the family were told at the gate at BHX they were not registered to fly on May 30.
The dad said: "After queueing for an hour we got to the check in desk and they told us we weren’t booked in to fly out but we were booked in to fly back and there was no way we would be able to board.
"At that point, our seven-year-old daughter burst into tears and our 13-year-old son wasn’t best pleased either, neither were we.
"We then spent three hours trying to speak to someone at KLM only to be told finally by a call centre rep we had to sort it out through social media as they couldn’t do it. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous in all my life when it comes to business."
Mr Miller tweeted KLM on May 30 saying: "KLM we have turned up to Birmingham Airport only to be told we can’t board our flights to Orlando, because your booking system has failed to allocate our flight date change request.
"After dozens of requests from us on the phone & in writing. No one is helping"
After eventually making it to Disney via the Aer Lingus flight, his family then faced the return journey via Heathrow and Amsterdam before returning back to Birmingham on June 10.
After landing, an exhausted Mr Miller said: "No one has stepped up in any way. The whole experience felt like one massive pass the parcel, with no one at KLM remotely interested in our customer issue, let alone willing to take responsibility for it.
"We still not have had any communication from KLM about the refund of our Aer Lingus flight and airport hotel stay.
He went on: "You cannot charge people return full fare and only deliver one half of a journey and continually keep customers in the dark, passing them from pillar to post and expect them to put up and shut up."
BirminghamLive has approached KLM for comment but has not received a statement on the Miller's situation.
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