Help! Being charged £227 for mistake

geejaygee

Hello, I recently went through cheapflights.co.uk for a return flight to Toronto, here's what happened. I have now paid the £557 mentioned below, do I have any legal recourse? Here's a copy of my complaint letter with all the information:


I booked a ticket to Canada on Wednesday 9th February and made a mistake. I booked it a month earlier than I should have done. I wanted to be in Canada for the 29th for my father's suprise 60th birthday party (I was one of the suprises). The mistake I made was easy enough to do on the drop down menus. So I booked a flight for the 28th February rather than the 28th March (ref. number 2126):

Departing from Gatwick (LGW) on 28/02/2005 at 0850 , arriving at Toronto (YYZ) at 1200, flight number TS723
Returning from Toronto (YYZ) on 07/03/2005 at 2330, arriving at Gatwick (LGW) at 1140, flight number TS122

For this I paid £287: £283 for the flight, £9 for ASL/Departure Tax and with a £5 online booking discount.

I picked up the confirmation on Friday, and realising there was a mistake, e-mailed straight away. Having had no response, I then phoned the number at the top of the e-mail at your Cheltenham address at 4.30, only to be told by Claire that it would be at the MAnchester number and that the offices had shut. I phoned the Manchester office this morning, where Carole was very helpful. I was hoping to change the dates. The same flight, a month later, with the same company 'Globespan' who my original flight was booked with, were charging £392, a difference of £109. I would ideally liked to have gone for the other flight on your website which left on the 26th, and was only £326, £43 more.

I realised that I had made a mistake, but I was willing to pay for the difference in the flights and an administration fee.

I have had to pay this to change it to the 21st to the 31st March, which is not when I wanted to go, as I will not be able to see most of my family before the 29th, because of the suprise:

£180 for the extra flight cost (although the flight leaving on the 21st with Globespan, at the same time as the flight I am on, on your website, as I write this: costs £427 which is a difference of £144, so I don't understand why I am being charged £36 extra).

£80 for the administration fee from 'Globespan'

£10 for the administation fee from yourselves (at a £15 reduction)

Which is a total of £557.

£161 more than if I had not made the easy error of getting the wrong month on a drop down window.

£227 more than the cheaper flight leaving on the 26th which I would have gone for.

I realised that I made a mistake, and that my accident happened within 21 days of the scheduled flight, but I find it disgusting that I am being charged £227 over the option I would have gone for.

I am disgusted at this, at Globespan, at being told that I couldn't speak to them directly, at being told I had to commit to paying the extra (which I did) today or I would lose my initial £287 and I will seek advice on what to do to gain compensation.

safesound

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news geejaygee but about three years ago I accidentally left my browser open on a flight booking website while I went to the toilet and my five year old nephew decided in his infinate wisdom (he *was* only trying to help) to book me some tickets to orlando (what I was researching prices of). Unfortunately my CC details were stored on the website.
I contacted my CC company literally the second I realised what he had done (about three minutes after he did it) and they told me they would wait for it to go through and then dispute it. The problem is plane tickets are non refundable, and once the website refused to refund, so did my CC. I ended up lumped with a bill for £800 for tickets I couldnt use.
Eventually after about 30 phone calls and treatening everything I could think of my CC agreed to pay half the bill as a "good will gesture". B*st*rds. Needless to say I cancelled the card there and then because of the lack of customer service. (I even had the rep tell me that I should have locked the screen by hitting "alt-ctrl-del", LOL)

Anyway my point is that I wouldnt hold your breath, no matter how much of a fuss you put up, in my experiance they are VERY unlikely to refund/appologise/back down. Sorry.

sharon

budgetflyer

you wanted 28 march but booked 28 Feb. Very easy mistake- hopefully they will meet you halfway with admin fees. If only companies would sometimes realise goodwill is better advertising than being No1 on google! Regarding the flight on the 26th -I think its irrelevent whether its ONE POUND or £1000 as that is not the date you wanted to travel initially anyway, its just that you have now noticed it cheaper.

MarkyMarkD

Cheap flights are cheap precisely because they are unalterable and uncancellable.

If you need flexibility, you pay far, far more for the privilege.

Unless their site is different to every other online booking service I've ever used, they confirm the details after the screen where you enter the dates before you confirm that you want the transaction to go ahead. So you didn't just select the wrong dates (both dates - outward and return) on the website, you then ignored the "confirm these details are correct" screen details and assumed they were correct.

You are lucky they are offering you anything - it's hard luck, honestly.

As for the other poster - credit card company "b*s*t*r*s" - er, I don't think so. You ****ed up - not them. They'd already authorised the transaction before you told them it was incorrect - so they had no legitimate method of charging back the cost to the retailer who had ALSO done nothing wrong.

The "crtl-alt-del" comment relates to windows NT which uses those key-strokes to bring up a "log off / lock your screen" menu. But leaving your PC on, unattended, in the process of booking a flight, with a 5 year old in the vicinity wasn't the most cautious thing you've ever done, surely???

geejaygee

Thanks for the advice.

I'm trying to be Zen about it.

Ready...

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm!

(Enough Oms and the people who cause occasional horror and shock to those who make mistakes will explode like that guy's head in Scanners. Did you see that movie - the head explody moment was good, for imaginative images such as this. Keep ommming!)

SallyD

In short, you clearly entered into a legally binding contract. Anything the trader does for you is clearly a goodwill gesture. Quite honestly, anything the trader offers to do for you is over and above their legal responsibilities.
Pay the difference to put the matter right,put the mistake behind you and go and have a great time with your family.