Authority/Regulator for complaint about travel agent.

elsanto

Hello,

I am trying to find the body to file a complaint about the online company Lastminute.com AKA BravoNext.

I bought air tickets from them and they were in breach of the agreement about changing flight dates.
They also sell air tickets with accommodation which are under the ATOL scheme.
Does anybody know if ATOL covers flights only? It is a bit like I booked a holiday with Lastminute but without the accommodation.
If you do not think ATOL covers this, do you know who to approach? (I have already complained to Lastminute and I got nowhere with them).
Thanks

eskbanker

ATOL is just a compensation scheme that offers protection if a firm fails: https://www.caa.co.uk/atol-protection/trade/about-atol/the-atol-scheme/

It's not a regulated industry so there isn't a regulator to escalate to, so if you're unhappy with the company then your options are basically:

• complaining to the company itself via their published procedure
• going to an ADR provider if they work with one
• small claims in an appropriate jurisdiction
• possibly chargeback via your card provider

In what way did they breach the agreement?

Alan_Bowen

ABTA can help those who book with its members, but Last Minute is not a member. They are also technically a Swiss-based company making life more complicated. As eskbanker has pointed out,  ATOL protection only becomes relevant if a company fails and the CAA who run the scheme does not investigate complaints. If they have refused to discuss the matter further, consider a chargeback, but you would have to establish a breach of contract and if, and this is an assumption, they are suggesting you purchased a ticket that could not be changed, then there is no breach. Alternatively read their booking conditions, check which legal jurisdiction applies and proceed accordingly

elsanto

Alan_Bowen said:

ABTA can help those who book with its members, but Last Minute is not a member. They are also technically a Swiss-based company making life more complicated. As eskbanker has pointed out,  ATOL protection only becomes relevant if a company fails and the CAA who run the scheme does not investigate complaints. If they have refused to discuss the matter further, consider a chargeback, but you would have to establish a breach of contract and if, and this is an assumption, they are suggesting you purchased a ticket that could not be changed, then there is no breach. Alternatively read their booking conditions, check which legal jurisdiction applies and proceed accordingly

I specifically bought tickets (I paid more) that allowed me to change the dates of departure. They gave me incorrect and confusing information and after I had paid for the tickets. They gave me all kinds of excuses when I asked for the change of date and then they said that it was not possible to change the date. At best, they gave me misleading information when I bought the tickets.

elsanto

eskbanker said:

ATOL is just a compensation scheme that offers protection if a firm fails: https://www.caa.co.uk/atol-protection/trade/about-atol/the-atol-scheme/

It's not a regulated industry so there isn't a regulator to escalate to, so if you're unhappy with the company then your options are basically:

• complaining to the company itself via their published procedure
• going to an ADR provider if they work with one
• small claims in an appropriate jurisdiction
• possibly chargeback via your card provider

In what way did they breach the agreement?

The thing about the card was that it was not a credit card. Does chargeback apply to debit cards?

I bought expensive tickets that allowed me to change the date of departure. When I asked for a change of date, they gave excuse after excuse after I proved them wrong on the previous one. Then they finally told me that the change of date was not allowed and they referred to terms and conditions that were not from Last Minute but from the other company BravoNet. I did not buy the tickets from this company.
When I started my complaint procedure, I tried to download the Last Minute page where I first read the offer about paying extra to allow me to change the dates and it was not there anymore! I then asked Last Minute to let me have a copy of the page and they ignored me.

eskbanker

elsanto said:

The thing about the card was that it was not a credit card. Does chargeback apply to debit cards?

Yes.

elsanto said:

I bought expensive tickets that allowed me to change the date of departure. When I asked for a change of date, they gave excuse after excuse after I proved them wrong on the previous one. Then they finally told me that the change of date was not allowed and they referred to terms and conditions that were not from Last Minute but from the other company BravoNet. I did not buy the tickets from this company.

https://www.lastminute.com/terms/terms-and-conditions-lastminute-group/ clarifies:

Welcome to www.lastminute.com,  a service operated by BravoNext S.A. ("BravoNext"), providing you with travel news, information and offers, including flights with full-service and low-cost airlines. BravoNext S.A. is a Swiss company (company registration number CHE-115.704.228), headquartered at Vicolo de' Calvi, 2, 6830, Chiasso, Switzerland. BravoNext S.A. is registered under the ATOL number 11082.

Which specific terms were they referring to?

elsanto said:
When I started my complaint procedure, I tried to download the Last Minute page where I first read the offer about paying extra to allow me to change the dates and it was not there anymore! I then asked Last Minute to let me have a copy of the page and they ignored me.

Do you have the URL of the page?  There are archive sites where it may be cached and available for retrieval.

Flexibility with airline tickets is normally secured directly via the fare codes of the actual tickets, rather than via a separate retailer offer, do you recall what the offer was called?  Did they issue you with the actual tickets prior to your request to change dates, and if so, which airline and what fare code were involved?

elsanto

eskbanker said:

elsanto said:

The thing about the card was that it was not a credit card. Does chargeback apply to debit cards?

Yes.

elsanto said:

I bought expensive tickets that allowed me to change the date of departure. When I asked for a change of date, they gave excuse after excuse after I proved them wrong on the previous one. Then they finally told me that the change of date was not allowed and they referred to terms and conditions that were not from Last Minute but from the other company BravoNet. I did not buy the tickets from this company.

https://www.lastminute.com/terms/terms-and-conditions-lastminute-group/ clarifies:

Welcome to www.lastminute.com,  a service operated by BravoNext S.A. ("BravoNext"), providing you with travel news, information and offers, including flights with full-service and low-cost airlines. BravoNext S.A. is a Swiss company (company registration number CHE-115.704.228), headquartered at Vicolo de' Calvi, 2, 6830, Chiasso, Switzerland. BravoNext S.A. is registered under the ATOL number 11082.

Which specific terms were they referring to?

elsanto said:
When I started my complaint procedure, I tried to download the Last Minute page where I first read the offer about paying extra to allow me to change the dates and it was not there anymore! I then asked Last Minute to let me have a copy of the page and they ignored me.

Do you have the URL of the page?  There are archive sites where it may be cached and available for retrieval.

Flexibility with airline tickets is normally secured directly via the fare codes of the actual tickets, rather than via a separate retailer offer, do you recall what the offer was called?  Did they issue you with the actual tickets prior to your request to change dates, and if so, which airline and what fare code were involved?

Hi, thanks

Since you mentioned the thing about the chargeback, I went to check and realised that I paid with Paypal. They have got a buyer's protection scheme, and it is international, so I will raise a dispute with Paypal.
I may need to prove things that you mention so I need to collect that information.

I still dispute what you say about the Lastminute disclaimer about BravoNet. There is no mention of this anywhere on their web pages where you purchase the tickets. BravoNet have a separate website and I used the Last Minute site.

No, I did not bookmark the URL of the page. I have tried archiving search but could not find it. Maybe I will try again.  The thing is I think the old page has the same address as the one they have now, with different, information but they changed the data.

Below is what Lastminute said about the ticket type I bought AFTER I paid for the tickets. The information on the Terms and Conditions they mentioned was different from what they said on the information page I mention above and I did not spot it. That is why I said that, at best, they gave misleading information at the time of purchase.

Another argument I have is the number of excuses they gave me when I asked for a change of date, like: "we could not find seats for you". This was on my return flight and I have kept snapshots of the airlines ticket pages showing there were seats, so much so that I had to buy them again.

Another breach: 'Priority Assistance'. They only talked to me on their annoying chat window on their site and, by the time they told me they could not change the date, the flight had already gone! So what if I had decided to return on the actual flight date I originally had if, for instance, it was true that there were no other seats. I did not get the chance.

The airline for departure was Delta and for the return it was Air Canada.

Flexible travel

You've purchased our Flexible fare which includes these fantastic perks:

The chance to change the date & time of your flight, without penalty fees

The ability to make changes to your booking without handling fees

Priority assistance

To find out how to use these services, please read the Terms and conditions of the fare.

The flight I wanted to change was on our return but even this message, after I bought the tickets, does not mention any difference between the departure and return flights, which is what they claimed after I complained.

eskbanker

elsanto said:
I still dispute what you say about the Lastminute disclaimer about BravoNet. There is no mention of this anywhere on their web pages where you purchase the tickets. BravoNet have a separate website and I used the Last Minute site.

It's not something that you can realistically dispute!  BravoNext is the legal entity, which is explained in various places on the lastminute.com site, including the footer of each page, and a bit further down the main Ts & Cs page linked above it's even more obvious:

the "Flights'' comparison and reservation service is provided by BravoNext S.A ( registration number CHE-115.704.228), a company incorporated under Swiss law [...]

Anyway, you'd obviously need to ensure that you act against the correct entity if you end up taking court action, but until then it's a simple fact that you dealt with BravoNext, however little you were aware of it.

elsanto said:
Below is what Lastminute said about the ticket type I bought AFTER I paid for the tickets. The information on the Terms and Conditions they mentioned was different from what they said on the information page I mention above and I did not spot it. That is why I said that, at best, they gave misleading information at the time of purchase.

[...]

Flexible travel

You've purchased our Flexible fare which includes these fantastic perks:

The chance to change the date & time of your flight, without penalty fees

The ability to make changes to your booking without handling fees

Priority assistance

To find out how to use these services, please read the Terms and conditions of the fare.

That wording is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so - it's not difficult to see why purchasers might believe they had the right to change dates, but the use of "the chance to change..." could be interpreted as being less than a firm commitment.

elsanto said:
Another argument I have is the number of excuses they gave me when I asked for a change of date, like: "we could not find seats for you". This was on my return flight and I have kept snapshots of the airlines ticket pages showing there were seats, so much so that I had to buy them again.

I suspect that this comes back to the fare code issue again - were the alternative tickets you spotted definitely the same code as those you'd originally bought?  It's quite plausible that LM would effectively be saying that they couldn't find seats within the same or equivalent fare code, as any right you had to change dates wouldn't be completely unconditional and would always be subject to availability on a like-for-like basis.

elsanto

eskbanker said:

elsanto said:
I still dispute what you say about the Lastminute disclaimer about BravoNet. There is no mention of this anywhere on their web pages where you purchase the tickets. BravoNet have a separate website and I used the Last Minute site.

It's not something that you can realistically dispute!  BravoNext is the legal entity, which is explained in various places on the lastminute.com site, including the footer of each page, and a bit further down the main Ts & Cs page linked above it's even more obvious:

the "Flights'' comparison and reservation service is provided by BravoNext S.A ( registration number CHE-115.704.228), a company incorporated under Swiss law [...]

Anyway, you'd obviously need to ensure that you act against the correct entity if you end up taking court action, but until then it's a simple fact that you dealt with BravoNext, however little you were aware of it.

elsanto said:
Below is what Lastminute said about the ticket type I bought AFTER I paid for the tickets. The information on the Terms and Conditions they mentioned was different from what they said on the information page I mention above and I did not spot it. That is why I said that, at best, they gave misleading information at the time of purchase.

[...]

Flexible travel

You've purchased our Flexible fare which includes these fantastic perks:

The chance to change the date & time of your flight, without penalty fees

The ability to make changes to your booking without handling fees

Priority assistance

To find out how to use these services, please read the Terms and conditions of the fare.

That wording is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so - it's not difficult to see why purchasers might believe they had the right to change dates, but the use of "the chance to change..." could be interpreted as being less than a firm commitment.

elsanto said:
Another argument I have is the number of excuses they gave me when I asked for a change of date, like: "we could not find seats for you". This was on my return flight and I have kept snapshots of the airlines ticket pages showing there were seats, so much so that I had to buy them again.

I suspect that this comes back to the fare code issue again - were the alternative tickets you spotted definitely the same code as those you'd originally bought?  It's quite plausible that LM would effectively be saying that they couldn't find seats within the same or equivalent fare code, as any right you had to change dates wouldn't be completely unconditional and would always be subject to availability on a like-for-like basis.

In any event, the company I dealt with, on the payment, was the one that I paid to from Paypal:

Contact information LMNEXT UK

The receiver of this payment is Non-US – Verified

http://www.lastminute.com/

lmnextuk@lastminute.com

Payment sent to lmnextuk@lastminute.com

It clearly says UK

There was no mention anywhere, in the t&cs I saw on the website or the new ones they sent me later, or the new ones they put on their site, about the change of date being subject to availability and, like I said, I found the seats with another airline. Furthermore, they did not even offer me alternative dates if it had been true that they could not find seats. Those flights were not very busy. I told them I was fairly flexible in the dates. AND, the new date I wanted was about 6 weeks away.

eskbanker

elsanto said:
In any event, the company I dealt with, on the payment, was the one that I paid to from Paypal:

Contact information LMNEXT UK

The receiver of this payment is Non-US – Verified

http://www.lastminute.com/

lmnextuk@lastminute.com

Payment sent to lmnextuk@lastminute.com

It clearly says UK

I'm afraid that really doesn't make the difference that you seem to believe it does!  However, if you paid by PayPal, that rules out chargeback....

elsanto said:
There was no mention anywhere, in the t&cs I saw on the website or the new ones they sent me later, or the new ones they put on their site, about the change of date being subject to availability

Even if the Ts & Cs are silent on that, surely it's implicit that they can't change dates if there's no availability?!

elsanto said:
like I said, I found the seats with another airline.

I don't recall you saying that, but if you had a booking with airline A, date flexibility doesn't mean that you should expect them to change you onto airline B?

elsanto said:
Furthermore, they did not even offer me alternative dates if it had been true that they could not find seats. Those flights were not very busy. I told them I was fairly flexible in the dates. AND, the new date I wanted was about 6 weeks away.

It doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation to seek an available flight on the same airline and with the same fare code, so IMHO that's what you need to be able to demonstrate.

elsanto

eskbanker said:

elsanto said:
In any event, the company I dealt with, on the payment, was the one that I paid to from Paypal:

Contact information LMNEXT UK

The receiver of this payment is Non-US – Verified

http://www.lastminute.com/

lmnextuk@lastminute.com

Payment sent to lmnextuk@lastminute.com

It clearly says UK

I'm afraid that really doesn't make the difference that you seem to believe it does!  However, if you paid by PayPal, that rules out chargeback....

elsanto said:
There was no mention anywhere, in the t&cs I saw on the website or the new ones they sent me later, or the new ones they put on their site, about the change of date being subject to availability

Even if the Ts & Cs are silent on that, surely it's implicit that they can't change dates if there's no availability?!

elsanto said:
like I said, I found the seats with another airline.

I don't recall you saying that, but if you had a booking with airline A, date flexibility doesn't mean that you should expect them to change you onto airline B?

elsanto said:
Furthermore, they did not even offer me alternative dates if it had been true that they could not find seats. Those flights were not very busy. I told them I was fairly flexible in the dates. AND, the new date I wanted was about 6 weeks away.

It doesn't seem an unreasonable expectation to seek an available flight on the same airline and with the same fare code, so IMHO that's what you need to be able to demonstrate.

Thanks.

What I am saying is that they cannot use the excuse that it is not a company operating in the UK, for instance if I take them to court. I think I found an address for Last Minute in the UK. 
Also, Paypal deals with complaints regardless of where the claimant or respondent are in the world.

In any event, Paypal charge high fees, to be able to pay with them, in order to offer services like complaints for bad service (or goods that were not delivered) involving wanting your money back. I am just putting my case together.
Companies are writing Terms and Conditions, that keep getting longer and longer, in order to cover their !!!!!! when the complaints come. So saying things like "there are no seats" is totally unreasonable if they did not warn you about this in their T & Cs.
Last Minute deal with a lot of airlines. Once again, Their T & Cs do not say it has to be the same airline.
Buyers cannot be expected to detect all small traps that the sellers put for them. Consumer law caters for this, like on the extra insurance for a loan scandal.

I could not have made a mistake missing things in their page offering the added fare for being able to change your dates because I was already planning to do so and it was on the return flight (I did not know when we would be able to return) so I was careful to check all the details relating to what I wanted to do.