Travel Republic price increase after booking

lexilex

Hi all,

I booked a trip for my parents last night using Travel Republic. They're supposed to be going on the holiday in a week.

I booked flights, accomodation and transfers with them. I received confirmation for both hotel and transfers straight away, but not for the flight.

When we still hadn't heard anything tonight I thought we best check what was going on. Turns out the flight has increased and they're saying they must pay this.

I book a lot of holidays, I seem to be the family travel agent, so I'm not stupid, I know flight prices fluctuate a lot. The flight is with Ryanair, and I know they're they worst for changing prices when you're looking and it's all based on supply and demand. The holiday had already increased by £20 when we was looking but they were prepared to pay it that.

I use Sky Scanner to check flight prices and know for a fact the flight was the price we paid until late last night, hours after booking.

It seems to me Travel Republic have left it late to book the flight part of the holiday and that's why there's been a price increase. Annoyingly it's took us to contact them to find this out.

So, my question is, where do they stand? The price increase isn't huge, but it's the principle, and they're very prepared to cancel the holiday if they are able to.

The other part which has annoyed me is they're making out the reason the flight wasn't booked is because the card was declined. My parents have just been in touch with their bank and they haven't even attempted to take any money, nevermind had a transaction declined.

Sorry for the rant, but any help would be brilliant. Customer services are closed until tomorrow so I'm trying to find out exactly where they stand now.

Thanks!

Mr_Wang

lexilex wrote: »

Hi all,

I booked a trip for my parents last night using Travel Republic. They're supposed to be going on the holiday in a week.

I booked flights, accomodation and transfers with them. I received confirmation for both hotel and transfers straight away, but not for the flight.

When we still hadn't heard anything tonight I thought we best check what was going on. Turns out the flight has increased and they're saying they must pay this.

I book a lot of holidays, I seem to be the family travel agent, so I'm not stupid, I know flight prices fluctuate a lot. The flight is with Ryanair, and I know they're they worst for changing prices when you're looking and it's all based on supply and demand. The holiday had already increased by £20 when we was looking but they were prepared to pay it that.

I use Sky Scanner to check flight prices and know for a fact the flight was the price we paid until late last night, hours after booking.

It seems to me Travel Republic have left it late to book the flight part of the holiday and that's why there's been a price increase. Annoyingly it's took us to contact them to find this out.

So, my question is, where do they stand? The price increase isn't huge, but it's the principle, and they're very prepared to cancel the holiday if they are able to.

The other part which has annoyed me is they're making out the reason the flight wasn't booked is because the card was declined. My parents have just been in touch with their bank and they haven't even attempted to take any money, nevermind had a transaction declined.

Sorry for the rant, but any help would be brilliant. Customer services are closed until tomorrow so I'm trying to find out exactly where they stand now.

Thanks!

About 12 years ago I got ripped off by Airtours on an AI to Mexico.

Since then I have traveled to every corner of the world and have notched up some 42 countries, all of which have been booked direct. I have never been ripped off.

Point being, take it on the chin, and learn from it. Anything with 'Agent' in the name is screaming at you to avoid it.

mcc100

It's no help to the OP but I only ever book flights directly with the airline.

It is almost always the cheapest way to book, and once you click on the confirm payment button you know that you are paying that price and no more.

jpsartre

Tell them to pay the £20, chalk it up to experience and book direct next time. Ryanair don't want 3rd parties to sell their tickets anyway so TR are selling tickets they know violate airline T&C. They almost certainly won't be able to cancel the holiday since hotel/transfers were likely booked separately.

lexilex

Thanks for your replies.

Not sure if I made it clear but the holiday went up £20 from beginning to price up different hotels etc yesterday, to actually booking, which my parents were happy to pay. It's then gone up again since we booked with Travel Republic.

I would normally book seperately for myself if I wasn't going through a nomal package holiday, but my parents feel happier if everything is booked together, which is why I chose Travel Republic.

Suppose I will just have to wait and see what they say tomorrow.

jpsartre

Like all 3rd party sites, TR do not have live access to prices so it's possible that a price has gone up before they can confirm the booking. It's a risk you always run when yoiu book through a middle-man.

TR don't sell packages, they just sell you all the various elements of a package separately.

lexilex

jpsartre wrote: »

Like all 3rd party sites, TR do not have live access to prices so it's possible that a price has gone up before they can confirm the booking. It's a risk you always run when yoiu book through a middle-man.

TR don't sell packages, they just sell you all the various elements of a package separately.

Yes I know that, dynamic package isn't it? They still prefer to have everything booked through the same company.

They make out their system is 'live', which it must be to a point as it did change yesterday whilst I was looking. I just think they haven't booked the flights immediately after receiving my booking, because the flight price didn't change until today.

I do wonder if the flight had gone down between me booking with them and them booking with Ryanair whether they would have been in contact to refund me the difference. I am thinking not.

jpsartre

lexilex wrote: »

They still prefer to have everything booked through the same company.

Explain to them that their contracts are with the individual providers anyway so in effect, they haven't booked everything through the same company. If they want that they need to book a proper package.

withabix

This has got more to do with Ryanair trying to stop travel agents from selling their flights at all.

Ryanair do not let any travel agents have access to live data and prices, because Ryanair want exclusive rights to rip passengers off themselves and to prevent travel agents from saving their customers any money.

The only way to avoid this is to boycot Ryanair.

lexilex

jpsartre wrote: »

Explain to them that their contracts are with the individual providers anyway so in effect, they haven't booked everything through the same company. If they want that they need to book a proper package.

They are aware, I think they just like to keep it simple. They're the same when buying multiple things from Ebay, they insist everything is from seller, I've never understood why.

Doesn't really help with this situation though.

jpsartre

lexilex wrote: »

They are aware, I think they just like to keep it simple.

Funny thing is they've made things more complicated for themselves since they now have to go through a middle-man every time there's an issue with any of the things they booked. But getting them to realize that may not be so easy