ebookers - stay away from them!

Pollycat

pendragon_arther wrote: »

I used them once to book a ticket to Kenya. A week before I was due to leave to visit my wife a civil war broke out over there due to rigged election vote counting. Being white and married to a Kenyan I would have been a good target for the opposing tribe. It was too dangerous for me. E-bookers wouldn't refund my ticket even though I couldn't go. But they did refund the taxes. I vowed to never use them again.

'couldn't go' as in the Foreign Office advised against all travel or 'decided it wasn't safe to go'?
In the first instance, your travel insurance would have paid out.
If it was the latter and you didn't have a flexible ticket, I'm not surprised that ebookers wouldn't refund.
Even if you'd booked directly with an airline on a non-flexible ticket, you wouldn't have got a refund from them.

NiftyDigits

pendragon_arther wrote: »

Thanks for your highly supportive consumer point of view.

You've got it wrong on this one. Take note of what you are being told. It's not down to the travel agent. If you buy the cheapest, there is a reason as to why it is cheap. The tickets are heavily restricted. But likely you didn't bother to read the ticketing conditions...just at the price.

SW17

pendragon_arther wrote: »

I used them once to book a ticket to Kenya. A week before I was due to leave to visit my wife a civil war broke out over there due to rigged election vote counting. Being white and married to a Kenyan I would have been a good target for the opposing tribe. It was too dangerous for me. E-bookers wouldn't refund my ticket even though I couldn't go. But they did refund the taxes. I vowed to never use them again.

Did you ever use the airline in question again?

rvd48

i've booked virtually all my flights using southall travel. call them up a few times to barter and say i've found it cheaper elsewhere and they price match.
will always continue to use them.

pendragon_arther

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team)

Pollycat wrote: »

'couldn't go' as in the Foreign Office advised against all travel or 'decided it wasn't safe to go'?
In the first instance, your travel insurance would have paid out.
If it was the latter and you didn't have a flexible ticket, I'm not surprised that ebookers wouldn't refund.
Even if you'd booked directly with an airline on a non-flexible ticket, you wouldn't have got a refund from them.

No, the FO didn't consider it such any emergency because not enough people had been killed. I couldn't get from Nairobi to Migori because all the roads had been blocked with bolders and burning tyres. Had I stayed in the city I probably wouldn't have got out alive.

NiftyDigits wrote: »

You've got it wrong on this one. Take note of what you are being told. It's not down to the travel agent. If you buy the cheapest, there is a reason as to why it is cheap. The tickets are heavily restricted. But likely you didn't bother to read the ticketing conditions...just at the price.

My bad. At the time I though that because travel agents block-book tickets with airlines they would be the ones to talk to. It's a shame they didn't advise me on some of the points raised here though.

But now I've found out how wonderful Ebookers really are I'm going to pop down to Southall, have a vindaloo and book all my future flight with them.

NiftyDigits

Southall? The Indian owner sold it in 2004. It really does appear as if you are the childish one. Stop digging...you're making yourself look bad. One can only imagine as to how you treated the staff at eBookers.

Book direct if you want to have a relationship with the airline.

Voyager2002

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Book direct if you want to have a relationship with the airline.

True, but in these cases that would not have helped at all. Airlines do not allow changes to inflexible tickets; agents can do nothing about this; consumers can either pay very high prices for flexible tickets or get angry with airlines and be prepared for occasional losses.

NiftyDigits

Voyager2002 wrote: »

True, but in these cases that would not have helped at all. Airlines do not allow changes to inflexible tickets; agents can do nothing about this; consumers can either pay very high prices for flexible tickets or get angry with airlines and be prepared for occasional losses.

Not quite true. Buying direct from an airline often offers less restrictive conditions. So a rebook/reissue may be allowed,albeit at a cost, whilst a refund may not.

joerugby

We've used Ebookers many times as they have administered the travel element of the Natwest your points programme.

They have always given good service.

In fact in one case where we had booked a hotel with them and we were unable to travel due to illness they went out of their way to negotiate a refund on our behalf depute it being a non-cancellable booking. This saved us making a claim on insurance.

I have been happy with their service