Travel agent has issued us county court case over refunded flights

NJ69x

Hi my elderly parents booked flights to India via a London based Travel agent in early 2020 flying with Gulf Air to India. The cost of the return flights was £890 in total.

Then covid happened and the airline subsequently cancelled their return flight due for April 2020. The airline rescheduled twice more in May and June 2020 and cancelled the flight both times. 

After the second cancellation and being left stranded in India for over 2 mints my parents booked a one way return flight with British Airways for £930.

Upon return to the UK we contacted the credit card company who the flights were paid for with and after an investigation we were given a full refund of £890 for the original flights.

Nearly 3 years later a week ago a letter came from the county court telling us the travel agent is taking us to court demanding £890 plus 8% interest since 2020. The travel agent is claiming the flights were non refundable.

We have no experience of dealing with this kind of issue and could really do with some help on how to proceed? I contacted Citizens Advice but they couldn't offer much help.

We paid for return flights as a package and they weren't honoured by the airline. We incurred an even higher cost on the subsequent return flights with BA (in addition to the extra cost of staying in India for 2 extra months). 

We have 4 more days to reply to the county court either accepting or disagreeing with the claim. Can anyone with travel legal knowledge please help us and advise us on this. My parents are in their 80's and this is causing them a lot of stress.

Thanks in advance for any help.

born_again

Did you contest this via travel agent & airline before going to CC & just what was their reply?


Sadly this is one of the issues of going via CC to claim money back.
As they are not a legal right. So as travel agent has not contested, they have a legal right to take you to court to claim the funds back they lost.

You need to dig the T/C of the flights out & see if they actually were non refundable. As that is really you only point you can fight on.
Not sure that they can claim 8% interest though.

Pollycat

NJ69x said:

Hi my elderly parents booked flights to India via a London based Travel agent in early 2020 flying with Gulf Air to India. The cost of the return flights was £890 in total.

Then covid happened and the airline subsequently cancelled their return flight due for April 2020. The airline rescheduled twice more in May and June 2020 and cancelled the flight both times. 

After the second cancellation and being left stranded in India for over 2 mints my parents booked a one way return flight with British Airways for £930.

Upon return to the UK we contacted the credit card company who the flights were paid for with and after an investigation we were given a full refund of £890 for the original flights.

Nearly 3 years later a week ago a letter came from the county court telling us the travel agent is taking us to court demanding £890 plus 8% interest since 2020. The travel agent is claiming the flights were non refundable.

We have no experience of dealing with this kind of issue and could really do with some help on how to proceed? I contacted Citizens Advice but they couldn't offer much help.

We paid for return flights as a package and they weren't honoured by the airline. We incurred an even higher cost on the subsequent return flights with BA (in addition to the extra cost of staying in India for 2 extra months). 

We have 4 more days to reply to the county court either accepting or disagreeing with the claim. Can anyone with travel legal knowledge please help us and advise us on this. My parents are in their 80's and this is causing them a lot of stress.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Do you mean the cost of the flights were £890 for both outbound and inbound flights or the return flight only was £890?
If the former, your parents should not have claimed the full amount as they did use the outbound flights.

400ixl

What process did they go through?

Sounds like they used the outbound flight, is that correct? So they use that leg of the ticket.

Did they go through the process with the airline to book them on a flight with another airline, or get an agreement with them that they would reimburse any costs of booking an alternative themselves? Or did your parents just take it upon themselves to book an alternative?

Where was the travel agents involved in this re-booking of the alternative flight?

If the airline didn't book the alternative flight, did you go down the EU261 compensation route as your first port of call, or your travel insurance to reclaim these costs? Or did you jump straight to a recharge or S75 claim with the card provider?

Again, what involvement was there with the travel agent prior to this, did you go through their complaints procedure?

elsien

As above it was unreasonable to expect the refund for the full amount when they had used one leg of the flight. 

Why were they left stranded for two months? There must have been other flights back in that time - what support did the travel agent offer when you/your parents contacted them about the return? 

Have they had no communication with the travel agent at all in the interim? 

Mark_d

NJ69x said:

Hi my elderly parents booked flights to India via a London based Travel agent in early 2020 flying with Gulf Air to India. The cost of the return flights was £890 in total.

Then covid happened and the airline subsequently cancelled their return flight due for April 2020. The airline rescheduled twice more in May and June 2020 and cancelled the flight both times. 

After the second cancellation and being left stranded in India for over 2 mints my parents booked a one way return flight with British Airways for £930.

Upon return to the UK we contacted the credit card company who the flights were paid for with and after an investigation we were given a full refund of £890 for the original flights.

Nearly 3 years later a week ago a letter came from the county court telling us the travel agent is taking us to court demanding £890 plus 8% interest since 2020. The travel agent is claiming the flights were non refundable.

We have no experience of dealing with this kind of issue and could really do with some help on how to proceed? I contacted Citizens Advice but they couldn't offer much help.

We paid for return flights as a package and they weren't honoured by the airline. We incurred an even higher cost on the subsequent return flights with BA (in addition to the extra cost of staying in India for 2 extra months). 

We have 4 more days to reply to the county court either accepting or disagreeing with the claim. Can anyone with travel legal knowledge please help us and advise us on this. My parents are in their 80's and this is causing them a lot of stress.

Thanks in advance for any help.

You say that the credit card company gave you the refund of £890.  Presumably their investigation concluded that the travel agent was in breach of contract an hence you were due a full refund for the flight contract.  The credit card company would have then taken action to recover the funds from the travel agent.

I would approach the credit card company and discuss the issue of the county court claim with them.  Technically the money was recovered from the travel agent by the credit card company, following the outcome of their investigation rather than as a direct result of your claim.  For this reason I think the credit card company needs to be involved here.

Why did it take the travel agent three years to issue a claim?  The fact that the flights were non-refundable is simply not relevant.

In my opinion the travel agents are just trying their luck.  If they couldn't justify their position as part of the credit card company's investigation...how can they justify their position three years later?

unforeseen

It sounds more like the CC company did a charge back rather than a S75. Why do you think that there is any in depth investigation since it's no cost to the cc company. Any claim the travel agent has is against the cardholder as the transaction was reversed leaving them without payment.
As for leaving it for 3 years. They could have left it for up to 6 if they wished. 

NJ69x

Hi thanks for all of the replies, I'll answer all of the questions asked to try and be more clear on what happened:

1. yes we did contact the travel agent after the return flight was first cancelled. They told us to contact the airline to reschedule. We did that twice but on both occasions the airline cancelled the return flight.

2. Even if the flights are technically non-refundable surely there must be protection for the consumer when the airline fails to provide the service paid for. 

3. The cost of the full inbound and outbound flights for 2 people was £890. This is the grey area as although we used the original outbound flight we were left paying £930 for the return leg with a different airline because Gulf air left my parents stranded in India and messed us around for over 2 months failing to fly them back.

4. the process we went through was a credit card chargeback for failure to provide the service/goods we paid for. I think giving the airline 2 months to arrange a return flight was more than reasonable before looking for an alternative solution to get home.

5. we have not done any EU261 compensation or had any compensation from the airline Gulf Air - is that something we qualify even though it's a middle Eastern airline? The second time they cancelled less than 14 days before the flight. Is there a time limit to claim if we are eligible and how do we do that?

6. the travel agent was not helpful in repatriating my parents, they said it's nothing they can resolve and I had to try and deal with the airline. The only contact I had from the travel agent was after the chargeback when they phoned my dad demanding a return of £890 or they would take us to court. This was approx 2 years ago.

7. We have emails from Gulf air cancelling the return flight and also proof we paid £930 to return by British Airways. There was no financial benefit for us to do this, we had no choice as my parents were stuck in a foreign country for 2 months and airline/travel agent didn't honour the flights we had paid for.

We plan to contest this as I don't think it's right the travel agent should be refunded. We have an option to counter claim - do you think we have any option to counter claim for losses incurred (2 months of hotels plus £930).

Grumpy_chap

Did your parents have any travel insurance?

Why did they not pursue the statutory EU compensation?

Mark_d said:

You say that the credit card company gave you the refund of £890.  Presumably their investigation concluded that the travel agent was in breach of contract an hence you were due a full refund for the flight contract.  The credit card company would have then taken action to recover the funds from the travel agent.

The OP states:

NJ69x said:

4. the process we went through was a credit card chargeback for failure to provide the service/goods we paid for. 

Chargeback is simply the CC taking money from the vendor and refunding it back to the consumer.  Very little investigation by the CC - unlike S75.

bagand96

NJ69x said:

Hi thanks for all of the replies, I'll answer all of the questions asked to try and be more clear on what happened:

2. Even if the flights are technically non-refundable surely there must be protection for the consumer when the airline fails to provide the service paid for.

This is correct.  Non-refundable only applies if the passenger wishes to cancel the ticket.  If the airline cancel the flight then they should arrange alternative flights or cancel the reservation for a refund of unused flights.

NJ69x said:

3. The cost of the full inbound and outbound flights for 2 people was £890. This is the grey area as although we used the original outbound flight we were left paying £930 for the return leg with a different airline because Gulf air left my parents stranded in India and messed us around for over 2 months failing to fly them back.

There isn't really a grey area unfortunately.  A refund would be due of the cancelled India-UK part of the booking.  However the portions of the reservation already flown (UK-India) would not be refundable as those flights had been provided as contracted.  The cost of replacement flights doesn't change this.

NJ69x said:

4. the process we went through was a credit card chargeback for failure to provide the service/goods we paid for. I think giving the airline 2 months to arrange a return flight was more than reasonable before looking for an alternative solution to get home.

The problem here is you paid the agent. The chargeback has effectively reversed the payment withdrawing the money from the agent's account.  However the agent are not the people who've failed to provide the service.  it's Gulf Air that have done that.

The agent should have supported you in cancelling the India-UK booking with Gulf Air and recovering your refund.  Did you ask them to do this at any point?  I fear that legally the agent's contract with you was to arrange your tickets with Gulf Air and their legal team will argue that they fulfilled this.

NJ69x said:

5. we have not done any EU261 compensation or had any compensation from the airline Gulf Air - is that something we qualify even though it's a middle Eastern airline? The second time they cancelled less than 14 days before the flight. Is there a time limit to claim if we are eligible and how do we do that?

EU261 won't apply as you correctly say it's a non-EUK/UK airline operating a flight starting outside the EU/UK.  What you should do though is have a look through Gulf Air's T&Cs to see what they say about when they cancel a flight and refund options.

NJ69x said:

6. the travel agent was not helpful in repatriating my parents, they said it's nothing they can resolve and I had to try and deal with the airline. The only contact I had from the travel agent was after the chargeback when they phoned my dad demanding a return of £890 or they would take us to court. This was approx 2 years ago.

Unless this was a package holiday then the agent had no responsibility to help repatriating your parents (arguably a decent agent would have helped sourcing flights, but not at the agent own cost).  The agent should however have helped you recovering a refund from Gulf Air for the cancelled flights.

NJ69x said:

7. We have emails from Gulf air cancelling the return flight and also proof we paid £930 to return by British Airways. There was no financial benefit for us to do this, we had no choice as my parents were stuck in a foreign country for 2 months and airline/travel agent didn't honour the flights we had paid for.

We plan to contest this as I don't think it's right the travel agent should be refunded. We have an option to counter claim - do you think we have any option to counter claim for losses incurred (2 months of hotels plus £930).

The problem is a court can only look at things from a legal stand point, even if they are sympathetic to the service failings or lack of help.

You need to check the T&Cs of the contract with the agent and airline.  It's very likely they'll say they (agent) only act as an agent in arranging the tickets with the service provider (Gulf Air).  It's Gulf Air who failed to provide the service and should re-imburse, although the agent who arranged the tickets should have helped. Agent isn't liable for your replacement flight costs and Gulf Air may not be either. 

However your chargeback action has removed the entire booking cost from the agent even though part of the booking was used.  Nearly all of that money would have been paid to Gulf Air (agents make a tiny % commission) and they've probably not been able to recover it from the airline so they're out of pocket. Although you may think it's right the agent should have refunded you, unless there is a law or a contract term that states it then the court may find in their favour. 

Might be worth seeing if you have any legal cover on home/travel insurance etc.

I do sympathise with you, it was an unprecedented time with government enforced travel restrictions and nobody wanting to have to pay the price of that. Many banks in the end got quite chargeback happy, without much investigation as it was an easy out for them.

elsien

I’m also not sure it would be considered reasonable to rack up two months worth of hotel bills, rather than arranging a flight with a different airline to come home more promptly.
and I don’t think you can hold the agent responsible for hotel, bills and argue that as a reason for charging back the full amount on the flights.