Authority/Regulator for complaint about travel agent.

elsanto

Caz3121 said:

elsanto said:

Added to this, I did not ger those T&Cs because I did not buy my tickets from the Bravo Next site but from Lastminute. 

those t&cs came from the Lastminute site
I went on there, did a dummy booking, once chosen flights had the option to proceed or change to 'Flexible' 

Above the 'Go Flexible' button you see

"I've read and accepted the Terms & Conditions"

did you accept them without reading them or did you book some other way?

Like I have said it, I  accepted the terms and conditions that were on the Lastminute site, which where different from those by Bravo Next you refer to.

elsanto

Westin said:

Any change to your flight itinerary under these “Flexi” policies has to be done prior to the first flight segment being flown. You can’t change the return once the outbound sector has been flown.

These OTA “Flexi” add on policies, other sold for around £30-£40 pp, don’t change a cheap restrictive air ticket into a fully flexible ticket. A fully flexible transatlantic ticket will often be priced in the thousands £££. 

Those Flexi policies are different in different websites. I looked at a number of them and settled for the one that suited my intention to change the return flight, the time to do it, etc.

elsanto

eskbanker said:

elsanto said:

AND, if they promise they will change the date (I have them about 5 weeks to find the seats) and they so not warn you if these absurd excuse you give, it is THEIR problem: refund if you cannot deliver. That is how businesses operate.
It's no good generalising about your perceptions of businesses in other sectors - I've asked more than once what gave you the impression that LM had some sort of open-ended obligation to exchange your ticket for one on another airline, but you've failed to come up with anything?  Worth bearing in mind that they had delivered the ticket that you originally booked, but claimed not to be in a position to change that, so it's not as simple as not being able to deliver.

You can repeat it as many times as you want but there was NO 'subject to availability' disclaimer in their T&Cs.
I don't doubt that you didn't see one, but my point was twofold: (a) there is such a disclaimer in the flexibility Ts & Cs located by @Caz3121, and (b) there isn't really any need for one anyway, they obviously can't physically put you onto a flight where there's no space.  It's a moot point though if you have proof that there was availability with the same airline.

I repeat, those T&Cs were not on the site where I bought the tickets.
I didn't claim otherwise, but on what basis did you assess whether their flexibility policy was suitable for you?

In any case, like I said the other poster helping, it is good to read all these possible arguments Lastminute can give to be prepared.

The one problem I recognise I have is that the page where I read their T&Cs has disappeared. I told you that they ignored me when I asked them to send it to me (for a reason).
Yes, if you have no evidence of Ts & Cs that support your understanding, but there are Ts & Cs that support the opposite case, then it's not difficult to see what would happen if this was to be scrutinised by any independent body.... 

The last excuse they gave was that one can only change the date of original departure, not return. However, considering I was planning to change my return date, I could not have missed this after I read and re-read their online T&Cs.
But if you have nothing concrete that supports your understanding, then that's just anecdotal again.

Missed your post while cross-posting, but more comments above....

I have covered the thing about 'another airline' a number of times, so I am not going to repeat it.

If anything, they give 'anecdotal evidence'  too as they would need to prove that those were the terms and conditions they had in their site at the time I bought the ticket.

Further, I will tell them to explain why they change the story, giving excuse after excuse before they came to the last one. During the time that they gave this excuses, the original flight I booked had already gone and they gave me no chance to do anything about it:

1- When I asked for the change of date, 2 days before:
 "we need to look at this we'll be back to you"
2- After pestering them, 2 days later:
"you have not given enough notice for the change of date, you should have done it 24 hours before"
3- After I proved I gave notice in time:
"There is no availability of seats"
4- After I showed them there were seats:
"You can only change the original date of departure"

Caz3121

elsanto said:

Caz3121 said:

elsanto said:

Added to this, I did not ger those T&Cs because I did not buy my tickets from the Bravo Next site but from Lastminute. 

those t&cs came from the Lastminute site
I went on there, did a dummy booking, once chosen flights had the option to proceed or change to 'Flexible' 

Above the 'Go Flexible' button you see

"I've read and accepted the Terms & Conditions"

did you accept them without reading them or did you book some other way?

Like I have said it, I  accepted the terms a conditions that were on the Lastminute sire, which were different from those by Bravo Next you refer to.

As said, this was from the Lastminute site (I have never looked on a bravo next site) the information came from lastminute.com, making a sample booking and clicking the information above the ‘go flexible’ button…try it and see if you see something different 

elsanto

Caz3121 said:

elsanto said:

Caz3121 said:

elsanto said:

Added to this, I did not ger those T&Cs because I did not buy my tickets from the Bravo Next site but from Lastminute. 

those t&cs came from the Lastminute site
I went on there, did a dummy booking, once chosen flights had the option to proceed or change to 'Flexible' 

Above the 'Go Flexible' button you see

"I've read and accepted the Terms & Conditions"

did you accept them without reading them or did you book some other way?

Like I have said it, I  accepted the terms a conditions that were on the Lastminute sire, which were different from those by Bravo Next you refer to.

As said, this was from the Lastminute site (I have never looked on a bravo next site) the information came from lastminute.com, making a sample booking and clicking the information above the ‘go flexible’ button…try it and see if you see something different 

I have already looked and I have said it:
1- The link to the T & Cs I read was in the same Lastminute site, not the Bravo site
2- It was a text on a page, not a PDF document you could download.
3- I do remember text that was different, for instance that your flight change had to be no more than 30 days either way relative to the booked flight date. 
4- I asked Lastminute to let me have a copy of that page with the T & Cs they had at the time I booked the flight. They never answered (for a reason).
 

eskbanker

elsanto said:
If anything, they give 'anecdotal evidence'  too as they would need to prove that those were the terms and conditions they had in their site at the time I bought the ticket.

Further, I will tell them to explain why they change the story, giving excuse after excuse before they came to the last one. During the time that they gave this excuses, the original flight I booked had already gone and they gave me no chance to do anything about it:

Although I suspect that this thread has already gone some way beyond its useful life, it would perhaps be worth considering exactly what action you propose to take and via what channel?

If you're complaining to the company itself, then you can include all sorts of empty posturing and dogmatic rhetoric (although obviously that's not to say that it's a productive route), but once you're dealing with a court (or any other independent body) then it would all be about the important stuff, like facts - the onus is very much on you to establish a breach of contract rather than for them to prove or explain anything, so if you are unable to show this then your case is unlikely to get anywhere if it's essentially based on Ts & Cs that you believe you saw but can't supply....

elsanto

Caz3121 said:

elsanto said:

Caz3121 said:

elsanto said:

Added to this, I did not ger those T&Cs because I did not buy my tickets from the Bravo Next site but from Lastminute. 

those t&cs came from the Lastminute site
I went on there, did a dummy booking, once chosen flights had the option to proceed or change to 'Flexible' 

Above the 'Go Flexible' button you see

"I've read and accepted the Terms & Conditions"

did you accept them without reading them or did you book some other way?

Like I have said it, I  accepted the terms a conditions that were on the Lastminute sire, which were different from those by Bravo Next you refer to.

As said, this was from the Lastminute site (I have never looked on a bravo next site) the information came from lastminute.com, making a sample booking and clicking the information above the ‘go flexible’ button…try it and see if you see something different 

I have said several times that the T&Cs you are looking at are not what I saw a few months ago on their site.

elsanto

eskbanker said:

elsanto said:
If anything, they give 'anecdotal evidence'  too as they would need to prove that those were the terms and conditions they had in their site at the time I bought the ticket.

Further, I will tell them to explain why they change the story, giving excuse after excuse before they came to the last one. During the time that they gave this excuses, the original flight I booked had already gone and they gave me no chance to do anything about it:

Although I suspect that this thread has already gone some way beyond its useful life, it would perhaps be worth considering exactly what action you propose to take and via what channel?

If you're complaining to the company itself, then you can include all sorts of empty posturing and dogmatic rhetoric (although obviously that's not to say that it's a productive route), but once you're dealing with a court (or any other independent body) then it would all be about the important stuff, like facts - the onus is very much on you to establish a breach of contract rather than for them to prove or explain anything, so if you are unable to show this then your case is unlikely to get anywhere if it's essentially based on Ts & Cs that you believe you saw but can't supply....

I have already gone through the complaint with the company route. Now I have gone to Paypal.
The onus on me is to show that they misled me in terms of their conditons to change the date.
The onus on them is to prove that they gave me the correct information for which they will need to show the page with T&Cs they had at the time I bought the tickets and which they have refused to let me have.