Conned on booking fees on flights!

Donnie

Moonchild wrote: »

I was intrigued by their online air booker (which implies a bit of money went into the site - it's just a white label engine though). However, their bit, which highlights where you can fly to includes Honk Kong &
Buenos Aries which worries me from the offset.

I believe the TTA operates a trust account (so they do not receive your money until you receive the goods, although a bit more complex) - and emphasis on believe. A lot of reasonable sized companies use the TTA to secure an ATOL. However, an ATOL doesn't protect you for flight only bookings.

However they have a complaints procedure.....

I posted those links in post #5.

Caveat emptor.

dctme

I was cheated by this company as well, 59.70 pounds was over-charged. A rubbish company!

photome

Try to claim back the whole amount and rebook with a "proper"agent. Why cant you still fly the same dates with another agent?

And I have to say that from your first post and the line that says

"Booking fees should be of £65 per passenger except then the fare."

Meant that alarm bells would have rung with me and I would have left them alone unless of course the total price is still less than with any other agent, is it?

George_Michael

Try to claim back the whole amount and rebook with a "proper"agent. Why cant you still fly the same dates with another agent?

They can't rebook with another agent as the flights were for the 2nd November last year, returning next month.

photome

George_Michael wrote: »

They can't rebook with another agent as the flights were for the 2nd November last year, returning next month.

LOL should have checked the date of the OP

Wonder what the end result was, guess we will never know as most people never bother to return to post the outcome

jem1308

I have been dealing with this company now since October 2010 - only one thing i can say JOKE!!! They charged us credit card charge when a debit card was used at 144.79 which we are still awaiting. Our flight was cancelled due to the snow and when we tried to get onto the next flight they told us we had to pay for new tickets which was ridiculous as they already had our money! I had over 60 phone calls to this company and I also discovered it is a London address but the calls are going to Deli. We are still waiting on refund of over 4000! It is a lot of money and I am now very very stressed about the way I have treated and am now resorting to legal action in small claims court. If you can all spread the word this company is extremely bad news and should not be allowed to operate under ABTA!

Alan_Bowen

jem1308 There is no point in complaining to ABTA, they are not members. As mentioned above, they belong to the Travel Trust Association, their address for complaints is shown in #11 above. Surely you didn't pay Economy Travel's a second time, the responsibility to get you to wherever you were going was the airline you had booked with. The only situation that would require the purchase of new tickets is if the original airline had no space available and you chose to fly with a different airline, in that case you should be able to get a refund for the first set of tickets.

The strange thing is Economy do not have an IATA licence which means they can't issue tickets themselves but must have bought them from someone else, adding a mark up along the way. If they are doing things properly they should have sent the original ticket back to the issuing agent in January and they may have made a request to the airline for a refund in the Januray round of airline payments which operates on the 17th of each month. The airline will only refund the following month, so 17th February would be the day the refund appears in the agents bank account, so I am not surprised there is no refund yet.

davyv123

I too have had issues with this company.
We booked a flight with them on the 21st January 2011 2011 - all seemed good, the agent spent a lot of time searching for flights and it *seemed* ok. We confirmed the booking and gave our credit card number. They charged £516 to the account, then called two days later day saying "The flight was over booked, but there's another one at £599". At which point we asked for a full refund - which they agreed to - I have it all in emails.

I have now been chasing them since the 23rd January for a refund - they have "promised to process it", "It will take 3-5 days", "IT takes 7 days" "There has been a glich in the system" the agent "...is on leave".

I phoned the credit card company immediatly when we asked for the refund to see if they could stop the charging - however it had already gone through. The amount has been flagged with the credit card company, and hopefully they will start to pursue once they receive the copy of the emails I have saying the company will refund.
Funny how they can debit the ammount immediatly, but it takes "7 days" to refund!

Avoid them.

jammin_2

Website now down. "Account Suspended".

andrewkno

My Heathrow flight booked through Economy Travels (aka 1der pants) was cancelled by Qatar Airways (or Heathrow airport) during the thin layer of snow just before Christmas 2010. Because I could only rebook the flight out (and not back) for free with Economy Travels, my holiday in the Philippines would have been cut from 3 and a half weeks to only 2 weeks. I agreed with them that I would ask for a refund and sent them the request email that they requested.

I sent that email on 20th Dec 2010. At the time I was told it would take 5 or 6 weeks for the refund to come. I thought that unreasonable and called my credit card company, HSBC, whose card I had paid with. I rate HSBC well as a bank. They said because the company had promised a refund, then they could not refund me directly. OK, I wait.

Now I call, 17th Feb 2011, (not for the first time since the 5-6 weeks were up) and get the run around. "You said you were getting the refund from your credit card company". "We didn't ask Qatar Airways to refund us because you said you would get your refund from the credit card company". "You will have to wait another 4 weeks while we get the refund from Qatar Airways".

I have asked HSBC about it and they are now happy to dispute the payment with them.

P.S. I too thought the email asking for details to be confirmed was peculiar. And they forgot to send the e-tickets, and were iffy about why I was calling them about e-tickets when they had already done their thing. They didn't answer the phone numbers I was given at the time of booking while I was trying to sort out the cancellation. They did answer the sales line though. Funny... Not that phone calls to them result in much as they are keener to talk than listen. No rewards for customer care.