Travel agent has issued us county court case over refunded flights

NJ69x

The travel agent has also been sent the court case letter to both my mum and dad separately. My dad paid for the flights was the primary traveller and my mum was the second traveller with no personal purchase from the travel agent.

Is my mum liable in anyway in this case? 

HampshireH

You say they are £40 out of pocket but your claim for a refund of part of your initial payment and your costs to get them home are 2 separate things.

You are looking at them as one. When you should have looked at them independently.

You weren't entitled to a full refund of the original amount paid. You should have lodged a formal complaint and sought a refund and any extra compensation to what they were entitled to.

Then they should have phoned their Insurance provided (I cannot see if you answered this previously but did they do this?)

Then if all else failed and they had to buy another flight they should have put a claim in for the costs of that flight.

You have muddied the waters entirely and opened yourself up to this legitimate claim by robbing Peter (agent) to pay Paul (BA). With the original airline happily sat in the middle having been paid for a service they failed to provide.

I cannot see how you can win this in court. You'd probably be better settling it before it gets that far and following the correct route to obtain funds.

An airline only holding records a year is odd but what about all your booking emails etc surely you have all those.

On whose liable. Was the purchase from a joint account and credited back to a joint account?

NJ69x

We did contact the travel agent to request a refund after my parents got back home. They told us to contact the airline. When we contacted the airline they told us to contact the travel agent for a refund. 

Neither party was helpful or wanted to refund us and messed us about so we went directly to the credit card company.

The tickets were purchased by my father on his solo credit card. My mother did not buy any ticket directly, what is her legal position on liability here as they are sending her letters too saying she owes them money?

I would also like to add the credit card company did not refund us straight away and it took a while for them to investigate and contact the travel agent for their side of the story etc before they agreed to refund us. The travel agent at no point offered to refund us for the unused flight even thought it was not cancelled by us. The terms and conditions are very clear on this - they should have refunded us for the unused flight.

Even now they are still demanding full payment back. We do have all the original booking emails and the subsequent emails showing the cancelled flight was done by the Airline.

HampshireH

But did you follow the complaints process. Sounds like they tried to fob you off and that was that.

You have still mixed the two up which is why it's gone to court. You're not entitled to a full refund from the airline as you already flew. You should have been requesting your expenses be covered due to their inability to arrange another flight. Though its odd there was only 2 possible flights in 2 months. Doesn't sound right.

You have avoided the insurance part again. Why didn't they help you?

silvercar

You could tell them you will counter claim for the cost of the alternative flights and staying away for 2 months. They may decide to settle for less or even forget the whole thing.

NJ69x

To HampshireH if you mean travel insurance my parents did not have any.

This was during the height of the first covid lockdown which is why there were only 2 flights in 2 months from Gulf air.

What do you mean by follow the complaints process? Generally if a normal consumer pays for something and it isn't delivered they lose faith in the seller. After getting fobbed off by the travel agent we went directly to the credit card company.

The travel agent wants a full return of their money, not half. They also want 8% interest per year which amounts to hundreds of pounds. 

silvercar

NJ69x said:

The travel agent has also been sent the court case letter to both my mum and dad separately. My dad paid for the flights was the primary traveller and my mum was the second traveller with no personal purchase from the travel agent.

Is my mum liable in anyway in this case? 

I don’t see how your mum can be liable. If it was an adult travelling with a baby, would they also name the baby? Obviously not.

I would inform the court you are going to defend the claim, ask the court how you counter claim for your costs as the airline didn’t fulfil their obligation by transporting you home on another airline at their expense. I would also mention to the court that the first you heard was this letter. The travel agent should have first written to your parents rather than jump state to court.

Pollycat

silvercar said:

NJ69x said:

The travel agent has also been sent the court case letter to both my mum and dad separately. My dad paid for the flights was the primary traveller and my mum was the second traveller with no personal purchase from the travel agent.

Is my mum liable in anyway in this case? 

I don’t see how your mum can be liable. If it was an adult travelling with a baby, would they also name the baby? Obviously not.

I would inform the court you are going to defend the claim, ask the court how you counter claim for your costs as the airline didn’t fulfil their obligation by transporting you home on another airline at their expense. I would also mention to the court that the first you heard was this letter. The travel agent should have first written to your parents rather than jump state to court.

That wouldn't be true.

NJ69x said:

Yes we did get a LBA about 18 months ago demanding full payment, we did not respond to the letter.

bagand96

silvercar said:

NJ69x said:

The travel agent has also been sent the court case letter to both my mum and dad separately. My dad paid for the flights was the primary traveller and my mum was the second traveller with no personal purchase from the travel agent.

Is my mum liable in anyway in this case? 

I don’t see how your mum can be liable. If it was an adult travelling with a baby, would they also name the baby? Obviously not.

I would inform the court you are going to defend the claim, ask the court how you counter claim for your costs as the airline didn’t fulfil their obligation by transporting you home on another airline at their expense. I would also mention to the court that the first you heard was this letter. The travel agent should have first written to your parents rather than jump state to court.

I see the logic that the OP should counter claim even if only to test the resolve of the Agent and how far they intend to take it. 

However is counter claiming that the airline didn't fulfill their obligations a good idea given that the case is bought by the agent?  

silvercar

Pollycat said:

Asilvercar said:

NJ69x said:

The travel agent has also been sent the court case letter to both my mum and dad separately. My dad paid for the flights was the primary traveller and my mum was the second traveller with no personal purchase from the travel agent.

Is my mum liable in anyway in this case? 

I don’t see how your mum can be liable. If it was an adult travelling with a baby, would they also name the baby? Obviously not.

I would inform the court you are going to defend the claim, ask the court how you counter claim for your costs as the airline didn’t fulfil their obligation by transporting you home on another airline at their expense. I would also mention to the court that the first you heard was this letter. The travel agent should have first written to your parents rather than jump state to court.

That wouldn't be true.

NJ69x said:

Yes we did get a LBA about 18 months ago demanding full payment, we did not respond to the letter.

Given an 18 month gap, I would have expected a more correspondence.