Holiday Overcharge And Profiteering

paulfwmorris

Hi I am After some help and advice

 

Back in early October we booked a last minute holiday to go to Turkey going three days later.

The following night Turkey was placed on the non safe list so we decided to change our holiday to Rhodes. We found the holiday online advertised at £2100 for the two of us, as we could not do the changes online, we had to go through customer services which took many phone calls and over an hour wait. The lady told me that she can do the changes but the cost of the holiday had gone up another £300 each due to the flight cost had gone up. As we had a small chance of getting away this year I decided to accept the extra charge and booked the new holiday to Rhodes. When they sent the new e ticket it had the new flights to Rhodes on it BUT it still had the old turkey hotel and was still showing the old price of £2010. For the Turkey holiday, I was not going to go through another hour wait for what could be just a typo. The hotel in Rhodes was expecting us so everything was ok, until I returned home and received my Credit card bill. I had in fact been charged an extra £1766 for the holiday. a total of £3866 for a holiday advertised at £2100.

I have had several e mail correspondences with customer services over this, and their stance is.

They will look in to why I was not sent the correct e ticket with the correct price on it.

The £1766 extra charge is correct as that was the price I had agreed to (it was not).

They say that the price had increase due to demand, but can not provide any evidence of a listed price, (The price for the same holiday next year is STILL £2100)

She is unable to listen to the voice recording (strange.)

They are able to Offer me a £200 refund which is the cost of transferring the holiday, (I did not even know I was charged for changing the holiday!)

They say if I was unsure to what I had paid I should have taken it up with them before I went on holiday, my complaint was they have taken £1100 more than they should have and now they won’t refund it..

 

I most certainly would not have paid almost twice the cost of the holiday again.

 

What can I do as this cannot be right,,

Caz3121

what were the terms and conditions of the original holiday regarding changes? it is not unusual for flights to be non-refundable so would need to be purchased again. Which airline? which travel agent?

zagfles

Dispute it with your credit card provider. The retailer needs to provide proof you authorised the charge, it seems they don't have it as the documentation you received shows a different price and they don't seem to have a recording of you agreeing the price the price you were charged. So where's their evidence that you authorised the charge?

cubegame

You should have gone to Turkey.

zagfles

cubegame said:

You should have gone to Turkey.

Insurance might not have covered once off the corridor, plus Turkey's face mask rules were OTT, all outside public spaces even beaches. And from what I've heard they tend to deal better with people who think they're above the law.

OP made right call except for the price which even at £2k was silly, we went for £300 for 2 of us around the same time.

paulfwmorris

Caz3121 said:

what were the terms and conditions of the original holiday regarding changes? it is not unusual for flights to be non-refundable so would need to be purchased again. Which airline? which travel agent?

Hi Caz

it was all booked through BA Holidays. the lady on the phone told me i could change my holiday due to the new restrictions,

i did query the price with her, as it was still advertised as £2100 on the website, which i still had on the computer in front of me, but i was not able to book it online, she said she could refund my holiday and i could try and book the new one to Rhodes myself, but she said there were a lot of people changing at the moment, which could be why it will not take the booking on line. so i agreed to pay the extra £600. i was not expecting the £1766 credit card bill.

bagand96

@Butts is the forum BA Holidays expert and champion...