Gotogate issue

lcc86

Had flights booked to Iceland for last week, I received an email in April asking me if I want to cancel my booked flights and receive a voucher to rebook as and when it's possible. On 29/04 I took up the offer and received an email confirming my choice, saying I dont need to do anything until the time comes to rebook.

Last week I received texts saying my flights are running as scheduled and I'm due to fly, it even gave me my seat number and everything. I've tried calling gotogate and can't get through at all. I also can't email them as their website doesn't seem to work properly. I've emailed Icelandair directly to see if they can help and am awaiting a response but I'm sure they'll direct me back to gotogate. When I log in to gotogate it redirects to booking.com and there's no record of my booking. I've contacted my insurance company on the off chance they can help get to the bottom of it.

Just wondering if anyone else has had similar problems? I've also seen something on gotogate's website that says when you want to use your voucher they will charge €30 to sort everything out with the airline but there was no mention of that in the email they sent me.

Life__Goes__On

Did you receive the voucher, or is it on your account.

lcc86

Life__Goes__On said:

Did you receive the voucher, or is it on your account.

Neither. I just received an email to say I'd get a voucher and didn't need to do anything, and when I check my account there's no record of my original flight booking. There are records of other historical bookings, it looks like I've never had any booking at all on my account, although I have still got all the original emails as proof.

Life__Goes__On

If you paid via a card do a Chargeback, showing cancellation and state you never received the voucher as agreed to, so are now claiming a refund.

lcc86

Still nothing from gotogate, been trying to call them but can never get through. A lot of negative reviews have popped up on trip advisor so avoid avoid avoid! Requested a charge back, hopefully the card company will accept it.

7manred

I booked 4 Virgin flights for New York departing 6th May through Gotogate, of course due to COVID 19 these flights didn’t go, After many frustrating calls and emails with Gotogate they are still refusing to give me a refund and only offer flight changes up until 8.2.2021 ( a year after my booking) My bank says they don’t have an agreement with Gotogate so Carnot charge back. Virgin say that they don’t receive payment until a few days before departure therefore the refund is with Gotogate. I have written to the civil aviation to ask that they investigate! Can anybody help or give me any suggestions.

Thanks

Alan_Bowen

Bad news all around I am afraid. GotoGate is not a UK based company, and the CAA, therefore, have absolutely no jurisdiction to help you at all. They have no UK based trade associations you can complain to and seem to want to charge you to offer any help at all, although few who did pay seem to think it did them any good anyway. The only slight hope is that Virgin haven't refunded, they take on average 120 days from date of departure so it seems unlikely they would have refunded yet. The other issue is the fact that Virgin claim they only paid for your flights a few days before departure because from mid-March EU and UK citizens were banned from entering the US and Gotogate should not have paid for tickets that were presumably only issued long after the ban had come into effect.
On that basis get the exact dates from the airline and go back to the card issuer and argue that Gotogate broke their contract and failed to act with due care by delaying payment to the airline to a point when the flights were not operating and they were fully aware of that situation and should have returned the money to you. I don't think there is anywhere else to go. And never book with an overseas-based agent again!