Denied onboarding

saver_111

Hi 
I got denied onboarding to a return flight to the UK. my couple of kids passport expired by 14 days. At the time of the booking the passports were valid. I booked using a telephone booking. I lost £2000 for the journey. 

I was returning back to the UK and there was only one transit where we were going to be coming out of the airport. We are UK citizens. 

Any ideas to recover some or full money.
Not insured for travel.

Alan_Bowen

I am sorry that you appear to be the author of your misfortune. The passports have to be valid at the time of travel and you admit they had expired, airlines face fines for carrying passengers who do not have valid entry documents and I suspect the staff are told not to carry anyone who does not have valid documentation.

Insurance would not help in this case, the obligation to have valid documents always rests with the traveller. I assume you contacted the local UK Consulate and got emergency documentation to travel at a later date, did you ask the airline, and it obviously wasn't a British airline, if you could delay travel by 24-48 hours to get things sorted out? That I think was your only hope, otherwise a very expensive lesson. Check before travel not at the airport. If it is a decent airline you could write and plead your case, but they appear entirely within their rights to say no

LunaLater

There’s no-one for you to recover money from; the airline were correct to deny boarding to anyone without a valid passport.

Why didn’t you renew?

saver_111

I had booked using an agent who I got in contact straightaway within 4-5 hours of the incident he approached them but they denied rescheduling.
the airline staff said if the passports had been expired by 7 days then they would have allowed.

I also went back to the airline office at the airport to request if they could do something about it but did not have any luck..

the passport were of children and 1 adult who was travelling with had valid passport. 
we were travelling to UK so heading back to country of citizenship. 

Westin

It sounds like this problem was self created. Why are you looking to pass blame and recover the costs from your error?

Not that it would have helped with your mistake but you also should have had travel insurance for your trip.

eskbanker

saver_111 said:

I had booked using an agent who I got in contact straightaway within 4-5 hours of the incident he approached them but they denied rescheduling.
the airline staff said if the passports had been expired by 7 days then they would have allowed.

I also went back to the airline office at the airport to request if they could do something about it but did not have any luck..

Sounds like you did all that you reasonably could once the error came to light, but, in the absence of any goodwill gestures from the airline (who'd have been under no obligation to make any concessions unless you'd booked fully flexible tickets rather than cheap ones), there isn't anywhere else to turn, so you need to suck it up I'm afraid....

400ixl

If it was child passports then the 10 year rule doesn't apply as they would only be 5 year passports.

So how could they have been valid for travel for this purpose when booking but not when used. The date the passport had to be valid for was the date of travel, not the booking, even at the time of booking.

I don't see where there can be any blame put onto suppliers. Even if you had travel insurance it would not cover this.

Caz3121

saver_111 said:

I was returning back to the UK and there was only one transit where we were going to be coming out of the airport. We are UK citizens. 

what country was the transit?...you mention coming out of the airport so was this separate tickets (referred to as self-connections) if so then the further issue is that, whilst you may have had more chance on a direct flight to UK (although still not guaranteed and would likely have involved airline confirming with immigration that they would accept you) you would not have been able to enter the intermediate country so were correctly denied boarding.
Whether tickets can be changed/refunded comes down to the fare rules of the tickets purchased, if these were non-changeable then nothing can be done.
Unfortunately apart from possibly some taxes that may be refunded this is likely to be an expensive error.

saver_111

country of transit was istanbul. we booked the ticket for the trip -single trip to uk stopping at istanbul for transit.
no one makes expensive mistakes like this 
now i am having to apply for emergency travel document and embassy is asking me to attend an interview in a different city involving taking a expensive domestic flight with whole family 

eskbanker

saver_111 said:

no one makes expensive mistakes like this

?  With all due respect, you did....

saver_111 said:

now i am having to apply for emergency travel document and embassy is asking me to attend an interview in a different city involving taking a expensive domestic flight with whole family 

It wasn't clear from the use of the past tense in your initial posts that you're still in Turkey, but yes, if the UK embassy needs to see you in person then that will presumably be in Ankara.

DullGreyGuy

saver_111 said:

country of transit was istanbul. we booked the ticket for the trip -single trip to uk stopping at istanbul for transit.
no one makes expensive mistakes like this 
now i am having to apply for emergency travel document and embassy is asking me to attend an interview in a different city involving taking a expensive domestic flight with whole family 

People make expensive mistakes like this all the time, the forum is littered with stories of people not realising they needed a visa or forgot to buy insurance and then needing to cancel. News papers too, mainly to highlight the persons folly and help others not make the same mistake. 

On the minor plus side, no insurance makes no difference. Insurance doesn't cover you for messing up and not checking expiry dates so they wouldnt have helped even if you had bought it.