Mis sold Flights - Please help if you can

Nikey027

sorry bob it was one excursion, albeit £50 each though!

we arrived in ho chi minh at 11am, and flew back out at midnight, but giving 3hours to check back in etc.

again thanks

Flugelhorn

did the people you were speaking to know that the calls were being recorded ?

Nikey027

hi flugelhorn, yes i made Vikas at hoodaki aware at the start of the call to cover my !!! im just so frustrated, this really did mean alot to us, especially me, as being able to provide this for my wife on a basic salary was really hard and took me 6months to save up for the whole honeymoon without family help like most others.

I feel deceived and taken for a mug as a business has lied to me, then ignored me just like another statistic. you may not see it from my perspective but yes for me it did ruin our time abroad,

thank you for your reply by the way

hcb42

you didn't pay out £1800 for this 9 hour excursion surely?

You paid that for the flights, you may have been misinformed, or perhaps not misinformed - technically you could have left the airport IF you had researched and got the correct visa beforehand, otherwise you are in no mans land for nine hours. This is standard practice across the world.

you need to chalk this one up to experience unfortunately. You are on to a loser.

If the trip was so vitally important you should have done a 24-48 hour stopover, as with even a small flight delay you would have lost your helmet deposit anywayl

Pollycat

You've had some good advice but I get the feeling that you don't want to take it as it's not what you want to hear.

This is my view - the responsibility for ensuring you have the appropriate travel documentation for the country you are visiting lies squarely with you - the traveller.

Instead of ringing this agent 3 times, why didn't you check out the Vietnam Embassy website and ask them to confirm visa requirements?

Nikey027 wrote: »

Can anybody legally advise me on what stages i should take next please as i feel the tickets have been mis sold to me under false pretenses.

This is not really the place for 'legal' advice - if, despite the advice you've already had (which is 100% against you) you still want to pursue this 'claim', I suggest you contact a solicitor to see if they think 'this would legally stand in court'.

jpsartre

The agent should absoluely not have adviced you about visa requirements. There's a reason why most 3rd party sites refuse to give this sort of advice. The question is whether or not you are prepared to spend hours of your time going to court over £50. I wouldn't, hence my advice in post 2. You can chase it up with Hoodaki and maybe you'll get something out of them like a £50 voucher for future. Again, I personally wouldn't want to spend the time and effort involved.

Voyager2002

Nikey027 wrote: »

Hi all,

He advised there was no need for a visa just provide your passport - and we researched online which confirmed this. So we fly from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh on the last leg of the journey only to find out this is NOT possible.

OK, so you confirmed that the information given by the agent was correct. So your complaint is against the government, which may have changed their visa regulations, perhaps withdrawing a special facility for visa-free travel.

Unfortunately, governments do have an absolute right to decide who can or cannot enter their countries, and such decisions certainly cannot be challenged in the courts of another country. So you are on to a loser here! (I discovered this the hard way: I took a month's unpaid leave from my job and paid for an air ticket all the way to the Sudan, only to find that because a visa clerk had made a stupid mistake I could not be allowed into the country. I was detained for 14 hours and then deported all the way back to London.)

To answer your question: in terms of English law you have absolutely no case. You can of course visit your local court (or MoneyClaimOnLine); fill in the forms; pay the fees; and commence legal proceedings. However, I have absolutely no doubt that any court would rule against you.

Like other posters, I am bemused that you feel that a honeymoon in Thailand was ruined by a minor hiccup on the way back. If Vietnam was such a priority, why didn't you go there instead? And in some ways you had a lucky mistake: Saigon (HCMC) is a filthy polluted hole, and you would not have had time to get to anywhere really interesting.

claire16c

Nikey027 wrote: »

Unfortunatley this was to no avail. He advised there was no need for a visa just provide your passport - and we researched online which confirmed this.

Where did it confirm it?

You need a visa to get into Vietnam it takes about 5 mins on google to find that out.

If you wrongly thought yourself you didnt need a visa, then why is the travel agent to blame?

I understand your frustration because you were excited about seeing somewhere and it all went wrong, plus 9 hours in an aiport is no fun. Ive been to Vietnam myself and its a lovely place and I hope you can go back there another time and spend more time there and get to see it properly.

But I just dont understand why you thought you'd be able to get in without applying for a visa.

sharnad

Next time look up what you need to enter a country before you go rather than just believJng the guy ion the phone. If your wife loves Vietnam do much take her for a holiday there rather than. Few hours. You chose Thailand and you got Thailand

thegirlintheattic

If it was so important why did you not get a longer stop over and do the research?

Even with a 9 hour stop over, by the time you've cleared passport control and allowing time to check back in etc. You've not really got very long.

The embassy is very clear that you do need a visa to leave the airport, and that you need to obtain it in advance.