Help! KLM Charged £4000 for economy Class Flight!

DVardysShadow

fluffnutter wrote: »

If you paid on your credit card and get no joy with KLM, you could try taking it up with your card supplier under the Consumer Credit Act.

TBH though OP, I really did have difficulty understanding your post and I'm still not sure what's happened.

Agree with all this. OP, you really do need to get a better narrative of events put together which demonstrates what price you were led to expect and which deals with the time line in a comprehensible way. You may need this for your credit card company. And for £4000, it would be effort well spent.

neil_mcd

Hi everyone. Like i mentioned - long story short...

I have written out a full transcript for all phone conversations that is considerably longer than my post so far.
In terms of expected price I was only ever quoted up to 100€ as a transfer fee.
The last I heard back from their ticket office was that due to switching a more expensive flight for a cheaper flight they would be able to waive the transfer fee all together.
i.e. the cost of my return would be absorbed the cost of my original booking.

Naturally this sounded too good to be true.
I therefore asked for everything to be double checked and printed out the online booking information.

I'll trying to keep things succinct. As DVardysShadow points out a comprehensible narrative is essential should I be forced to persue this further.

One question - I was told by Servicair that KLM record all their phonecalls.
Has anyone heard more on this?

Caz3121

Can you confirm

you originally held a Stavanger - Calgary return ticket with KLM
you travelled out to Calgary on that ticket
on your return you needed to fly back to Stavanger from Edinburgh intead of Calgary

how did you travel from Calgary to Edinburgh
do you have travel insurance for this?

The numbers certainly sound incorrect and even if they charged you for business the business seat you didn't get that as you were sat in economy so there is downgrade compensation here

isplumm

neil_mcd wrote: »

Hi everyone. Like i mentioned - long story short...

I have written out a full transcript for all phone conversations that is considerably longer than my post so far.
In terms of expected price I was only ever quoted up to 100€ as a transfer fee.
The last I heard back from their ticket office was that due to switching a more expensive flight for a cheaper flight they would be able to waive the transfer fee all together.
i.e. the cost of my return would be absorbed the cost of my original booking.

Naturally this sounded too good to be true.
I therefore asked for everything to be double checked and printed out the online booking information.

I'll trying to keep things succinct. As DVardysShadow points out a comprehensible narrative is essential should I be forced to persue this further.

One question - I was told by Servicair that KLM record all their phonecalls.
Has anyone heard more on this?

First thing I would do is call my cc & put the amount in dispute!! Get them involved NOW!!

Mark

Heliflyguy

To really understand what you have been charged for you would have to have a copy of both original and exchanged fare and e-ticket showing all the booking class/fare basis/fare/route/airlines etc.
Some fares require that if a higher class is or must be booked then that higher fare be calculated back to point of origin and the additional charged, not saying this is the case for you.
To be honest it would be very unlikely that an airline would waive a change fee, my guess is that the agent that took your call messed up, I mean if they told you the price difference in flights Edinburgh - Stavanger being cheaper than Calgary - Stavanger after you had already flown from YYC (I presume that you were in EDI) then you cant have much faith they are going to get the rest correct and how can an extra leg (again I presume a little) be cheaper, you certainly cant downgrade a class.
Also I fail to see how they can quote EDI (via AMS?) SVG at 4000 (£ or euros) even if you purchased a new 1 way ticket and ditched the old one unless you get to sit on the pilots lap and fly yourself home.
Its all very confusing to be honest.

neil_mcd

Hei there, thanks to everyone who has commented so far - there has been some movement, but I'm not ready to settle.

To clarify, I attempted to reroute a return flight that was originally scheduled to fly Calgary - Amsterdam - Stavanger. I needed to fly Edinburgh - Amsterdam - Stavanger instead. I was able to organise this rerouting over the phone, directly with KLM. I was informed that they would be able to reroute me free of charge as i was trading a long expensive flight for a short cheaper flight. On completing this rerouted flight i was subsequently billed £4000.

I am still in the process of following up my claim with KLM. I am asking for them to reimbursed the £4000 as this is not what i had agreed to when i rebooked the flight. The £4000 seems to have come from a back calculation to point of origin in order to upgrade me to a higher flight class in order to allow me the possibility to reroute my return journey - spot on Heliflyguy...

Ok, your first thought here may well be - did he really expect to be rerouted for free?? No i did not. the transfer fee story sounded plausible, and when i was informed that this too would be waived, I was indeed skeptical. I double checked all details with the agent at the time. Afterwards i printed off my online booking details.

What i believe happened next was that the agent who took my call did indeed mess up. It seems that the KLM back office doggedly recalculated the cost to undertake this rerouting regardless that it would have been considerably cheaper to just book a new flight entirely. The agent i spoke to informed me that the recalculation had been successful, and that the transfer fee i was expecting to pay had been waived - again this is most likely true. My guess again is that ne negated to mention 'recalculation successful, fee waived, but i'm sorry to say the ticket price is now ~£4000 - is that still ok?'.
Let me again stress that this is pure speculation on my part.

KLM did offer this:

Allow me to explain that while at Edinburgh you have requested our reservation team to change your airport of departure to Edinburgh instead of Calgary, which was not feasible, due to fare rules. Therefore and, after our agents recalculated the actual fare, the final amount was actually much higher than the amount you had originally paid for.
I regret that there was a misunderstanding but, in fact the recalculation for the original fare is correct, considering that you were departing from Edinburgh instead of Calgary.

I double checked all details with the agent at the time. I was not informed about that change in fare charge. Misunderstanding? Not if they don't inform me of this.

However, based on a goodwill gesture, we have agreed to refund the total amount of [~£3500] ([~£4000] - [~£500] - one way fare from Edinburgh to Stavanger). Please provide us with your IBAN number, Swift code/BIC, and your bank name.

As i have already paid £700 for the return flight, I am not too happy at settling for an additional £500 on top. Not only in that KLM charge the same fare for a oneway and return ticket, or that £500 is expensive even for a KLM flight from Scotland to Norway, but if they had been straight with me in the first instance then there is no way i would have flown with them. Indeed my preferred route is Aberdeen - Stavanger with Scandinavian Airlines.

My issue today is that KLM are currently dragging their heels in regards to responding to my correspondance. Their last email was received on 7th July, which pointed back to their correspondance on 26th May (the partial refund) asking again for my bank details (blatently ignoring the fact that I specified that i would only accept a full refund to my credit card).

It is now over 4 weeks since i initiated this claim, and one month since their last response (I have emailed them three times in this period). I can only contact them via email. What is my next course of action? I should exhaust all reasonable steps to resolve this issue myself before I take this to the consumer watchdog. I could resubmit my claim in writing (rather than their standard email claim system). I could submit a new complaint to complain about the complaint sevice.

Does anyone have any suggestions on where i stand legally here? Essentially i agreed to one price and was charged another - simple as that. As this was agreed over the phone, unless KLM has the conversations recorded then there is no real hard evidence either, way - just common sense and all the documents etc i have to back up my side of the arguement...

Suggestions?? Neil

robpw2

i would accept their offer of 3500 , i assume that you did in fact fly on the plane in business class ??

neil_mcd

I did not fly business class. I flew economy. I do not feel that £500 ontop of the £700 i have already been charged is acceptable.
It would cost less that £200 to fly from Aberdeen with SAS.

Cheers, Neil

drrat

As others have said dispute the transaction with your credit card company. They are generally good at resolving these disputes and falling on your side.
Remember by paying by CC, you are effectively buying from the CC company as they have been the ones charged £4000. So they will be on your side. Unless KLM can prove the £4000 liability the CC company will take no crap from them.

neil_mcd

Hei drrat,

Thanks for your suggestion - i have of course notified them of this issue. I did read elsewhere that another CC user disputed and had his credit returned, only to be billed for non-payment by the company? I'm currently taking this to be a last resort...

Neil