Making a complaint when company will not change consumer's contact details

wotnott

The company booked the flight. There was no travel agent involved as far as I am aware.

I wanted to make a complaint in relation to my Passenger Rights and airline's Duty of Care.

As detailed in my other post linked to at the top of this thread, the airline declined to fully reimburse my expenses incurred during a delay. The implication is that the subsistence claim I made is not reasonable, which I would dispute.

The Claims people are not contactable directly. They use a DoNotReply email address and are not contactable by phone. I spoke to Customer Services by phone but cannot submit a complaint (at least not one that I will get a response to) because my email address is not on the booking. This system seems flawed.

DullGreyGuy

eskbanker said:

I'd suggest referring the matter to their data protection officer, highlighting that their refusal to recognise the invalidity of the email address used for the booking is incompatible with their obligations under the Data Protection Act, and formally requesting that they either change it to yours or make other adjustments to allow you to proceed with the claim:

Privacy policy | easyJet

How is it incompatible? They have the name and email address of the person that made the booking. The former is still accurate and fairly unlikely the OP knows their former colleague's new email address to update it and it doesn't really help them anyway.

Does easyJet take passengers email addresses? Even if they do they certainly aren't mandatory and so equally not mandatory that easyJet subsequently add one. 

Presumably the former manager of the employee that's left has access to their former employee's email box and so it shouldn't be hard to ask them for the email response you say has gone to that box.

wotnott

DullGreyGuy said:

Presumably the former manager of the employee that's left has access to their former employee's email box and so it shouldn't be hard to ask them for the email response you say has gone to that box.

It wouldn't, but as I said I'm not going to waste their time with this. It is not their problem.

eskbanker

DullGreyGuy said:

eskbanker said:

I'd suggest referring the matter to their data protection officer, highlighting that their refusal to recognise the invalidity of the email address used for the booking is incompatible with their obligations under the Data Protection Act, and formally requesting that they either change it to yours or make other adjustments to allow you to proceed with the claim:

Privacy policy | easyJet

How is it incompatible? They have the name and email address of the person that made the booking. The former is still accurate and fairly unlikely the OP knows their former colleague's new email address to update it and it doesn't really help them anyway.

Does easyJet take passengers email addresses? Even if they do they certainly aren't mandatory and so equally not mandatory that easyJet subsequently add one. 

Presumably the former manager of the employee that's left has access to their former employee's email box and so it shouldn't be hard to ask them for the email response you say has gone to that box.

I'd contend that a policy of fixing an email address associated with a booking and refusing any attempts to update this is in breach of their responsibility to keep personal data accurate and up to date - the fact that the email address relates to another person doesn't change the fact that EasyJet consider it to be the sole means of contact for OP and is therefore effectively denying OP their passenger rights because of this.

You may be right that in this case OP could potentially work around this, but as a point of principle EasyJet should accommodate such situations, and my point was that the DP officer should be more likely to accept this than front line call centre staff....

powerful_Rogue

I remember this thread. You spent £11 on food and they will only reimburse you for £6.

£6 seems reasonable to me, enough to purchase a meal deal for the delay. If i'm away from my work location between 5-10 hours, I can claim £6.50 for subsistence. This has only just increased from £4.25 which is was for many many years.

Is the time and energy you're putting into this worth it over £5?

wotnott

This thread is not about delays or compensation. I didn't mention it in the original post.

My question is whether the airline's policy of only responding to the email address on the booking is legitimate. It seems to me that it does not make the distinction between the contracting party and the passenger and may effectively deny passengers their rights. (Plus potential data protection issues - I would agree with eskbanker on that.)

jon81uk

wotnott said:

The company booked the flight. There was no travel agent involved as far as I am aware.

I am trying to make a complaint in relation to my Passenger Rights and airline's Duty of Care.

As detailed in my other post linked to at the top of this thread, the airline has refused to fully reimburse my expenses for a burrito during a 4.5 hour delay. They have imposed a £6 limit which is not clearly stated anywhere and of which I was not informed at the time. The implication is that the subsistence claim I made is not reasonable, which I would dispute.

The Claims people are not contactable directly. They use a DoNotReply email address and are not contactable by phone. I have spoken to Customer Services by phone but cannot submit a complaint (at least not one that I will get a response to) because my email address is not on the booking. This system seems flawed.

Ah you mentioned travel agents in the first post so I got mixed up.

EasyJets compensation policy is here and only mentioned a £3 limit. 
Delays and cancellations | easyJet

£3 seems stupid as can't get more than a cup of coffee for that, but thats their policy. Ideally you should have got a voucher at the time to avoid all the expenses faff.

CAA says "A reasonable amount of food and drink (often provided in the form of vouchers)" but no guidance on that, but you can't get food AND drink for £3, might be worth a complaint to CAA if EasyJet won't change their £3 policy.

wotnott

The response I got to my claim stated "the amount you have claimed for is not paid in full but as per the reasonable limits set out on Easyjet website." The closest the website comes to stating reasonable limits is £3, so on that basis the limit should be a blanket £3. Which is not consistent with the regulations and is therefore, I would suggest, unlawful.

But anyway, that's a bit off topic. This thread was not about compensation.

jon81uk

wotnott said:

The response I got to my claim stated "the amount you have claimed for is not paid in full but as per the reasonable limits set out on Easyjet website." The closest the website comes to stating reasonable limits is £3, so on that basis the limit should be a blanket £3. Which is not consistent with the regulations and is therefore, I would suggest, unlawful.

But anyway, that's a bit off topic. This thread was not about compensation.

I did indeed get a cup of coffee at Gatwick two weeks ago for less than £3.

Your best resolution is to either ignore your booking and contact EasyJet complaining that you don't think their £3 policy is compatble with UK law. Do it as general complaint here Contact us | easyJet Airline Contact Form
Or contact the CAA stating you don't think EasyJet policy is compatible with UK law and try to get them to take action. Maybe see if your MP will help too.

powerful_Rogue

The OP got £6 from easyjet. Maybe that is the new rate and their website hasn't been updated.