Travel question: Who do we claim from after our dream Australia trip was ruined?

Q A friend and I were due to fly from Hobart to Melbourne with Qantas at 6am on 17 March for a connecting Qantas flight to Adelaide so we could join the Ghan train to Alice Springs. The flight was delayed by over four hours due to a battery that would not charge. As soon as a problem became apparent I spoke to a member of the staff who said he would try to get us transferred to a Virgin Australia flight that would enable our journey to Adelaide to proceed. But authorisation was denied.

In the end Qantas had to fly an engineer in from Melbourne to resolve the issue. We missed the Ghan train, for which we had paid almost £2,000. Qantas have denied recompense. Our insurance will not settle the claim as Qantas provided accommodation in Melbourne for the night and then flew us to Alice Springs, the final destination for the train. Can you please advise on what we can claim, and from whom?

Name withheld

A Your experience sounds awful: anxiously watching the minutes tick by, with the growing realisation that your dream rail trip through the outback had hit the buffers.

Airlines generally maintain that “consequential losses” as a result of disruption are not their responsibility, and consumer protection for airline passengers in Australia is weaker than in Europe. So I suggest you to try again with the travel insurance route. Without knowing the exact terms of your policy, this strikes me as the sort of unexpected event that a good-quality insurance policy should cover. So ask the Financial Ombudsman Service to rule if the insurer is behaving reasonably by not paying out.

The fact that the airline provided you with a night in a hotel after it caused you to miss the train, and also flew you to Alice Springs to catch up with your itinerary, is nothing like a substitute for your lost experience.

I should caution you that the insurer might challenge your complaint on two grounds. First, given the complicated journey from Hobart to Adelaide, did you leave enough slack in the journey before the Ghan departed? Next, did you take all reasonable steps to mitigate the loss? Specifically, when Qantas refused to fly you on Virgin, did you enquire about buying a ticket (for, I imagine, around £200 each as a last-minute purchase)? The ombudsman may take your responses to these questions into account before deciding whether or not the insurer should pay up.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder