Advice: booked holiday now company want to cancel due to THEIR error!

kelly4509

Could anyone offer any advice on the following please:

I booked a holiday yesterday using https://www.airfaresbasement.co.uk. The price of the holiday - 10 days in New Orleans - was £408. I paid via visa card and received a confirmation email. I also telephoned them this morning to confirm the booking.

I have just received a phone call from someone from Global Travel Group who informed me that due to an error with the airlines system (continental airlines) I had been charged incorrectly for the flight as they had omitted to add on taxes etc. The corrected price will almost double the cost of my holiday. Apparently Global Travel were only aware of this when they tried to confirm the flight details at 4.30pm today and continental had put a 'stop' on it. Global Travel spoke to the airline who refused to honour the price.

The guy on the phone has given me 3 options: either pay the extra, book a different location or cancel with 48 hours and get a full refund. He said according to their website terms and conditions - http://www.airfaresbasement.com/terms.asp - they can cancel a booking with 48 hours, though I cannot see this.

I have not made any decison but asked for the guys contact details and informed him I will call back tomorrow after seeking advice. I am going to contact trading standards first thing in the morning.

monkeyspanner

I would print a copy of their terms and ask them to give you a specific number for the clause in their terms and conditions where there is this 48hour get out. Otherwise they have made a contract of sale with you. If this is the case they should either honour your booking or provide compensation. I would stand firm and if necessary take them to the small claims court make sure you print all documents and make a record of all conversations and the name of their employee you had the conversation with. If you do accept a refund make sure you do not sign a waiver of your rights.

Note that if the court deem their conditions of sale as unfair you may stiil have a valid case.

grumbler

They do have something it their T&C, although I doubt that such clause is legal:

We do not make claim that the information contained in this web site is accurate, comprehensive, verified or complete, and shall accept no liability for the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in the web site or for any reliance placed by any person or party (including but not limited to any third party) on the information contained herein. Furthermore and for the avoidance of doubt, should a manual input “pricing” or “description” error occur, we reserve the right to inform you, cancel your booking for “nil” cost and give you the option to re-book at the higher price or lower price (as dictated at the time).

Similar question was discussed in this thread: Cancelled Order - Where do I stand?

rlc22

I think a lot of it depends on the wording of their confirmation email.

If it literally says, your holiday has been booked, thanks for booking etc, i don't know that there's anything you can do. To be honest, I would definitely go to trading standards and fight it as Global Travel might decide to back down (will depend on how confident their legal dept are feeling about their position!)

Until very recently I worked in the travel industry and during my last few days I encountered some problems with Global Travel, so I personally would never choose to use them.

Rachael

shammyjack

rlc22 wrote:

I think a lot of it depends on the wording of their confirmation email.

If it literally says, your holiday has been booked, thanks for booking etc, i don't know that there's anything you can do. To be honest, I would definitely go to trading standards and fight it as Global Travel might decide to back down (will depend on how confident their legal dept are feeling about their position!)

Until very recently I worked in the travel industry and during my last few days I encountered some problems with Global Travel, so I personally would never choose to use them.

Rachael

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Global Travel the one who runs all the scamming cheap promotion holidays through its subsijuries ? The get a holiday for free or so many points and then rip everyone off with undisclosed charges . PIPEX Points comes to mind as an example !

shammy

LB1985

I'd give Consumer Direct a call - see http://www.consumerdirect.gov.uk/ for details.

budgetflyer

Its all above board Imo . Errors and ommisions happen. As the t+cs state "manual input error"

TRAVELMAN_2

Works both ways! Recently some collegues saw flights in Mat to Sharm for £45 including tax & stupidly booked them for customers-only to be told a day later it was an error. Did you not think £400 odd quid was a little too cheap??! Sorry....they have covered themselves & mistakes do happen.

Rather than wasting time, money & emotion just accept the fact that s**t happens & find yourself another deal. There is no way on earth they'll honour the holiday if they make a loss. Would you?

trisha

A similar thing happened to me once, I booked a flight online, it was a really good fare from Manchester to Las Vegas, I got confirmation, then checked my booking online and saw the price was £700 more for the two of us, my husband got on the phone and said no way was he going to pay it as it was due to their incompetence that someone had obviously inputted the wrong fare on the web site, he stuck out and threatened them with the press if they didn't honour the agreement. They eventually backed down and agreed to it.

I would stick out for it if I were you.

photome

One of their terms does state that airfares are not gauranteed untill tickets are issued, and I agree with another poster that the price you have paid seems very cheap.

If this company is the one behind a lot of scams( i dont know that it is) do you really want to go with them anyway, wouldnt it be better to get the refund?

vincefenlon

I am doing tourism management degree and currently doing law and contract law. One thing that might be important which allows them to get out of alot of problems is that the "offer to treat". This basically means that they dont have to accept your offer (asking price) on whatever grounds they want. It goes back a long way and therefore they could use this. Depends if they said for example "thank you for your order we will process it" then they could just say they are deciding to accept your offer.

not sure if its relevant or not to this matter