Disproportionate fees to change name

amandaleeds

I'd bought two flights with Tui and in the few days before the flight my friend had to cancel as his parents fell ill so i asked around to see if someone wanted to take his place if they just covered the cost of the name change.

I went into my booking online and it showed it would cost me £50 so I checked with the new passenger that they were happy to pay this (as it seemed a lot to charge for me to simply login and re-type a name) and they said yes. The next day I went into my online booking but it now wouldn't let me change the details and said I had to do it over the phone.

I called the customer service team and was told it would be £90, not £50 which I couldn't understand as the online booking showed a fee of £50, plus I pointed out that the flight only cost £99 so this was disproportionate. She then recommended that I change the details when I arrive at the airport as it would only be £70 then which would save us a little bit of money. I reluctantly agreed and on the day we arrived at the airport to do this, only to be charged £90 (and I later found out if we'd booked a flight on the spot it would have been less than this).

I've complained to Tui only to be told that the ts and cs on the site state that the fee is £90 but this wasn't what the online booking section showed and this seems incredibly unfair given the cost of the flight? I know parking charges have to be reasonable and in proportion to the loss incurred by the company so I don't understand how it's fair to charge this? I said I'd have paid the £50 even though that seemed unreasonable and asked if they could refund the difference but they said no.

When I tried to make an independent complain to the CEDR aviation, it said I'd be charged £25 if they didn't agree with my complaint. This also seems strange as surely that puts people off complaining and lets companies do what they like?

I have a sinking feeling there's nothing I can do though.....

jpsartre

So what do the T&C say?

TBagpuss

I think it is worth re-reading the t&c's first. It may be that the cost rises if the change is made closer to the date of the flight, and that you can't do that online, or that the online change is intended to let you correct errors such as typos, rather than changing to a completely different passenger.

So: read the T&Cs and then if you still feel they were unreasonable, make your compliant, being as specific as you can (i.e. are you saying that the charges were inconsistent with the t's & c's, or that you were given misleading information, for instance)

It sounds as though you were given incorrect information as you were told changing details at the airport would save £20 compared with doing so on the phone, but it didn't actually cost you any extra.

Did you ask at the time about the cost of booking a new ticket and cancelling the original?

richardw

Have you got a screenshot of the £50 online charge?

amandaleeds

Annoyingly I didn't take a screenshot of the £50 online charge - the info wasn't easy to find on their website but I've finally found the ts and cs which states it's £50 if you want to change it way ahead of the departure date and this was the week we were flying so I'm suprised it even said £50 to start with. I hadn't seen these as it was easier to log in to the account and see what it said when I tried to change the name.

We didn't ask about booking a flight that day instead of paying the £90 as we'd had no sleep all night (had to travel all night using various forms of public transport due to travelling the day the beast from the east came so I was amazed I'd made it to the airport) and they didn't suggest looking into it for us. To be fair I was pretty annoyed because we'd been told it would be £70

Looking at the ts and cs, it would have been cheaper to change the date, destination or time of the flight as that's a proportion of the flight cost.

I appreciate this is stated in the Ts and Cs but it seems grossly overpriced for something that is so simple, a little like extortionate parking charges or letting companies charging £75 to change the date on a contract. I was quite suprised they are legally allowed to do this as I was expecting the fee to be more like £25.

So it seems I don't have a leg to stand on but in the future I now know it's cheaper for me to cancel a ticket (maybe seeing if I can claim on travel insurance?) and buy a new one! Our end result was that we ended up essentially almost paying twice the price of the flight I'd originally booked.

Gloomendoom

amandaleeds wrote: »

I appreciate this is stated in the Ts and Cs but it seems grossly overpriced for something that is so simple, a little like extortionate parking charges or letting companies charging £75 to change the date on a contract. I was quite suprised they are legally allowed to do this as I was expecting the fee to be more like £25..

There is a bit more to it than at first meets the eye. The charge is so high to deter agents from bulk buying seats in advance when prices are low and reselling them later at the a higher price. This is only worthwhile if the charge to change the name on the ticket is relatively low.