Charter meals- charging when they shouldn't

legburger

Hi

Can anyone help. I booked a seet through flyThomascook to fly to brazil on a mytravel flight. They asked me if I wanted a meal, I said yes, they charged me, then when on the airplane everone got one, whether you paid or not. Mytravel stewardess said I shouldnt have been charged for it. Thomascook, said they sell their tickets without meals, and it is not up to them what Mytravel decide to do. (exception of North American flights)

It seems I was mis sold this, not a huge amount of money, but still a con by a reputable company I think- anyone got any sugestions as to what I should do?

Thanks

Andrew

THETRAVELAGENT

when thomascook take seats on myt flight or fac/tom they pay upfront at price agreed they always inc meals for pax

cooks then try and claw back from the client the extra cash but i feel this is not very good practice if myt would give you meal for free anyway

tell thomascook you will have to take this further unless they send you a copy of manifest to clarify which pax had pre booked meals and not ( i am sure they wont be able to)

they will surely refund the monies then otherwise you will have to take it further only airline that doesnt normally do this is xl as most of there flights now dont have meals unless you pay onboard this ois known on xla flight nukbers with vv on the end i,.e xla4046v

if you were my client i would be getting it back if you have booked with them direct them seem to shrugg ppl off for some reason

ask to speak with the call centre manager not some supervisor who will not do anything

hope this helps

legburger

HI Thanks for the info, really helpfull. Just feel the airline is trying to pull a sligh one, not good for their image!

However I dont understand the follwing: "you will have to take this further unless they send you a copy of manifest to clarify which pax had pre booked meals and not "

How would this help, surely only Mytravel will have this, and as I am complaining to TC, that wont help? Do I need to ask for a list of their passenegers who didnt pay the upgarde fee and ask why they got meals.

Also where do I take it further- I have a bee in my bonnet!

thanks

Andrew

WiseInvestor_2

It would be against the Data Protection Act to give you the passenger manifest

I agree though - it's unfair that others get for free what you've paid for. However, can you be sure that a meal wasn't included in their Terms & Conditions rather than being an optional extra?

i_love_it

Hiya legburger

Damn the day they introduced meal or no meal!! I work in the industry and will try to explain some.

Charter airlines renouned for their all in passenger package holiday had an identity crisis some years ago. They are now trying to compete in every market, easyjet and ryanair have a strong identity, as do BA, yet the charters like thompson, thomas cook, first choice, my travel, their values and service guidelines have become somewhat vague, they dont know where they belong.....

Charters always offererd in flight meals, but in a bid to appeal to the new age traveller (ie get me from a to b for the cheapest fare) they brought in a no meal discount. ( by doing this, meals are not extra, they are deducted if you opt out, this is important)

Crew on board hate this, passengers hate it, some are not aware that they will spent their pre flight airport experience in queues being fleeced of their pack lunch for security reasons.

the charter booking system is not so sophisticated, so, it means some will get the option to loose meals for a discount, but others won't, ie if they book with a broker or other 3rd party company, meals will be included even if the price is cheap, purely because of poor communication systems to opt out, also internet bookings get a meal, again due to the inabilitily of the system tracking, they get booked loads from these sources, but they are not yet sophisticated to deal with special requests.

It makes the system very unfair. I'm a cabin crew veteran and long serving supervisor, but the young and more inexperienced crew you may interact with are never fobbing you off, they genuinely dont understand how it works, and sometimes put their own spin out of frustratation of continually being questioned.

From a passenger point of view, it may well seem unfair to have opted out of the meal through you direct booking only to be sat amounst people who where not expecting one cos they booked 24 hours ago on internet for half what you paid and get handed one anyway. Its not a scam, as an employee we think its wrong, don't beat up the cabin crew, write in.... we'd like to serve you all dinner and get less hassle...leave easyjet to their overpriced stale sandwhiches and fly with charter and get a novelty over salted meal for 6 quid,(if that 6 quid was already in the price you would book book anyway) (it passes half an hour even if you dont eat it) after 2 to three hours queuing with our new airport rules, most people will eat anything.... spread the word.

Hope it helps and sorry for long post

We do get a clear list of who is to have a meal and who isnt, it is the passengers themselves who are unsure, because of the complicated booking system.

>Like I said, crew will always try to explain, but it is difficult cos it is wrong, are managers listen to you , not us!!!!!!

Write in if you think something is unfair or unclear

milkydrink

legburger wrote: »

Hi

Can anyone help. I booked a seet through flyThomascook to fly to brazil on a mytravel flight. They asked me if I wanted a meal, I said yes, they charged me, then when on the airplane everone got one, whether you paid or not. Mytravel stewardess said I shouldnt have been charged for it. Thomascook, said they sell their tickets without meals, and it is not up to them what Mytravel decide to do. (exception of North American flights)

It seems I was mis sold this, not a huge amount of money, but still a con by a reputable company I think- anyone got any sugestions as to what I should do?

Thanks

Andrew

I don't see the big deal here, they asked you if you wanted one, you said yes, you were charged & they gave you one:rolleyes: .

I always pay the extra for the meal if its an optional extra, as I think its a way of passing time on the flight & you get soimething edible & a hot tea/coffee.

But I've never looked around to work out who got what? Did they pay? I certainly wouldn't think of questioning the air stewardess about did the others pay? Did EVERYONE on the plane have a meal? Did you walk around & check everyone had one before you questioned it?

i_love_it

kimevans wrote: »

I don't see the big deal here, they asked you if you wanted one, you said yes, you were charged & they gave you one:rolleyes: .

I always pay the extra for the meal if its an optional extra, as I think its a way of passing time on the flight & you get soimething edible & a hot tea/coffee.

But I've never looked around to work out who got what? Did they pay? I certainly wouldn't think of questioning the air stewardess about did the others pay? Did EVERYONE on the plane have a meal? Did you walk around & check everyone had one before you questioned it?

Hiya kimevans, i wish all our passengers were like you, but unfortunately not, every flight people do question how do we know who's paid for meals and how come he got one and I didn't, most passengers are hungry when it comes to serving meals, most will ask to buy one if available, some will try it on and say they booked one, even move seats in a bid to get one accidentially, leaving us short.

All or none should be the way forward, i really hope it reverts back to this!

foolishme

hi

i have booked thru mytravel and airfights direct flights to jamaica. both of these companies have meals as an add on,£17 each.
as you can imagine when the whole family is flying this then adds up to near £100, so i wanted to do my homework on this but got no clear answer.

in july 06 when i flew the agent stated that meals have to be included on long-haul flights so not to worry.

when i booked 2 wks ago,the same company stated that meals were only included as part of a package holiday and as mine was flight only i would have to add the price on. at this point i would also add that my daughter who is just 2 would not eat this food but i was told that if i booked 1 meal i would have to book a meal for each of my family????

i still said no, then the weekend before i flew out i panickd and phoned to add these meals on, but agent said this was not possible, cnt remember why.

so to the point of my post, when collecting my tickets at the mytravel desk,i asked about the 'no meals' on my ticket, the reply was 'dnt worry, by law we have to provide a meal for flights over 6 hrs',
i did get a meal bth there and back.

not too sure where this info would be found tho, i guess somewhere hidden in t&c, i neva came across it tho.

legburger

No frills thrive on easy to understand low fares, it seems the charter industry could learn a thing or two from them.

legburger

Well today they wrote to me and offered a refund!