Flight Gone Up After Booking

dannyboy20

Hi all, yesterday we booked an holiday with Travel Republic. There are 3 groups (total 9 people) who required 3 rooms altogether. We booked separately on different cards.

Our group booked first. The flight was £248 at the time.

The second group booked 10 minutes later. Same price, and they had a confirmation email saying everything was confirmed.

The third group booked just after these.

Anyway our group and the third group hadn't received confirmation this morning. But i've just logged in and Travel Republic have said the flight price is going up by £198 due to Ryanair not being able to confirm our flight at the requested cost.

I understand this can happen, but we booked first, the second group who booked 10 minutes after us got their flight confirmed at the price that was stated.

The third group are still awaiting their confirmation but i'm pretty sure their price will go up too.

Not happy at all to be honest, especially after we booked first.

martindow

I would suspect that they have small print to cover this situation. Was the first 'confirmation' merely acknowledging receiving your order rather than a real confirmation?

Airline prices will tend to increase as seats are sold.

dannyboy20

No it was a real confirmation with the money coming out of the bank, even though that group booked 10 minutes after we did.

I understand that the prices could change than what was stated but i'm not happy about them changing it when we booked before the other group.

Coraline

I've had this happen quite a few times when I was responsible for booking travel for a company I worked with.

The basic rule with practically any airline is that "fares are not guaranteed until tickets are issued." What martindow says is spot on, most likely the confirmation you received is confirming that they received your order.

Not until the airline receives payment are your tickets issued, and in the meantime prices can go up. I've seen tickets jump 50% in price in the matter of an hour's time.

The small print from Travel Republic's website:


It is important that you understand that payment at the time you are making your booking does not in itself mean that your booking is confirmed. Your booking is only confirmed when we send you our email confirmation of booking. Because we are making live reservations with travel providers we have to have the security that we have appropriate payment from you and hence your initial payment to us is your authority to us to confirm your booking with the travel provider.

peachyprice

dannyboy20 wrote: »

No it was a real confirmation with the money coming out of the bank, even though that group booked 10 minutes after we did.

I understand that the prices could change than what was stated but i'm not happy about them changing it when we booked before the other group.

Travel Republic, or any other travel agent for that matter, cannot give live bookings for Ryan air, they are not even supposed to be selling the flights. (http://www.ryanair.com/en/terms-of-use)

So even though they took your money at the time you booked they will not have actually gone through to RA to book the flights until some time after, which can take days.

It may well be that the second group got lucky with a operator who booked their tickets as soon as they saw they'd paid, but yours wasn't picked up for a few hours later.

dannyboy20

Thanks everyone.

Does the Ryanair website give live bookings? I checked that less an hour before we made the booking and it was the same price £248 each or there abouts.

The 3 groups all booked on the same website, same hotel, same flight etc. The money didn't come out of our bank, it was the middle group who's money came out of the bank and they had the confirmations etc too.

I'd understand more if all 3 groups prices had gone up, but the middle group have paid the price that was shown. Like you say, i'm guessing they just got lucky?

littlereddevil

The best way to book Ryanair is with Ryanair

peachyprice

dannyboy20 wrote: »

Thanks everyone.

Does the Ryanair website give live bookings? I checked that less an hour before we made the booking and it was the same price £248 each or there abouts.

Yes, they are live, but it is possible for them to change from when you start a booking to when you get to pay, although it's less likely on their own website as it's real time.

budgetflyer

Was there 9 flights avail at that price. Checking for 3 may give a different price.

dannyboy20

We did check for 9 flights yes and the price was higher than booking in groups of 3, but we wanted to pay on separate cards anyway.

I've just got off the phone to Travel Republic. She said she had never come across this before, where we booked first then a group who booked after us got the stated price and we didn't (she had the times of both bookings in front of her). She went and spoke to the bookings manager and came back 5 mins later. She said she didn't really understand what he said (?) but the bookings don't work on a timing basis. It could be the other group put their details in quicker or something like that. I'm not sure how, as I helped the other group book it after I did ours.

We can have a full refund anyway or another flight but no change on the price of this flight.

budgetflyer

dannyboy20 wrote: »

We did check for 9 flights yes and the price was higher than booking in groups of 3, but we wanted to pay on separate cards anyway.

There is your answer. There never were 9 flights available at that price.

You are extremely lucky to be offered a full refund.