Esky the worst travel agency in the world

Ajay_Styles101

Any advice with the following query would be hughly appreciated. I booked a ticket with esky to Medellin, Columbia and took travel insurance. I actually intented to use skyscanner but in the early hours of a September night I incorrectly clicked esky and booked through them. This flight went via Miami and although I had a sponsorship during the 90s and early 2000s to stay and work in the US i was not aware of any current ESTA which is a prerequisite prior to being able to land in an American airport. On the Esky itinerary I was made aware of Columbian Visa requirements but not any transit US Visa requirements. Now there is a certain amount of responsiblity I should accept owing to not being proactively diligent in this case. Therefore, I contact Esky and made them aware and queried if I could still use my return flight. They then stated ""We contact you regarding booking nu: 3710682666 with reference to your query regarding ticket status for the return flight. Please be advised that according to the airline's policy, no show for the departure flight does not exclude you from using the return flight. Therefore, your return flight stays active"", I file all emails. Hence, one would believe the word of the travel agent regarding airline policy. Naive in some respects, I believed them and booked a single from London to Bogota. At the end of the holiday I arrived back in Medellin two days before departure and 24 hours prior to departure I emailed Esky regarding boarding passes and quering why all of a sudden I had two booking reference numbers. I then received numberous emails regarding failed card payments and after hours of back and forth emails I recieved confirmation that the return flight from Medellin to Manchester was confirmed. However, when I arrived at the check out counter I was not able to board because airline policy is the contrary to what Esky lead me to believe with there misappropriation of airline policy. I then had to book another one way ticket. I don't think they are ATOL registered as they are based in Poland. This was a very expensive affair, is any recourse possible? 

eskbanker

I doubt that Esky would be responsible for the cost of replacement outbound flights if that was due to transit visa/ESTA issues, but if they confirmed in writing that the return leg was valid and it wasn't then you should be able to hold them liable for the cost of the ticket.  Have you attempted to do so yet, and if so, what was the outcome?

P.S. Worth editing out your booking reference number from the above post, if you're able to do so (you may need to contact the forum admin team if you can't edit posts yet).

Ajay_Styles101

Thanks eskbanker for your response, I have emailed them a couple of times over the past three weeks. However, I just receive a template response stating "" we have received your message, our consultants will contact you as soon as possible, have a nice day"".
Would it be acceptable to consult my travel insurance or even make a claim, plus I will try and edit the above post now or contact the forum admin team. 

cheers

eskbanker

Ajay_Styles101 said:

Thanks eskbanker for your response, I have emailed them a couple of times over the past three weeks. However, I just receive a template response stating "" we have received your message, our consultants will contact you as soon as possible, have a nice day"".
Would it be acceptable to consult my travel insurance or even make a claim

I wouldn't have thought so - it's unlikely that your travel insurance would cover this sort of thing, unless there's a specific policy term that you've identified?  In any case, travel insurance won't usually pay out if another party should be doing so.

I suspect that you'll just have to be patient, although no harm in chasing Esky regularly - unfortunately this is one of the disadvantages of booking via intermediaries like this, as they'll make noises about having to wait to recover money from airlines before refunding you, so it might be quite a wait....