Advice needed please on travel rights

Jaysie

My siblings, our spouses and our children plus my 80 year old mum resolved to travel to Lagos Nigeria in July 2025 for my dad's 85th birthday.

To this end I started sourcing tickets last August and secured tickets for all 13 passengers on the 3rd of September through Ticket Lords (www.ticketlords.co.uk). I was assured that they were genuine and were ABTA/ATOL bonded. I was only required to pay a £500 deposit.

In January 2025, I started calling trying to pay the balance and have been given the runaround since. They keep on saying call back in 48 hours, call back in one week, Lufthansa have technical issues etc.

I have been in a flood of tears daily and can't even tell my family what has happened as I was entrusted with this task. Today I have been told by Ticket Lords thst I can either stump up £13,000 or take my deposit and go.

Companies shouldn't be allowed to treat people like this and I'm writing to see if anyone knows how I can get this company to honour the deal made 9 months ago.

Please help advise as I am desperate. Accommodation has been paid for.  I am disabled and the stress from this saga has exacerbated my condition. I don't know what else you'd do or where to turn for help in getting these charlatans to honour the original price they quoted. 

 I have emails from them showing they confirmed the booking at the price agreed. When i paid the deposit 9 months ago, they sent an email saying the full payment needs to be made by 26th of March 2025. I have been trying to pay the full balance since January and again i have emails and WhatsApp messages to show. It is only since yesterday that they said they would give me back my deposit and the sale isn't guaranteed till tickets are issued 😪. Thanks for your time.

sheramber

Have you checked how much the flights would cost booking direct with Lufthansa?

Ayr_Rage

What was the original price they quoted?

Have you compared prices for booking direct with the airline on the same dates?

Mark_d

It is not right that you lost out on your tickets, because of a fault between Ticket Lords and Lufthansa.  As Ticket Lords are a booking agent rather than a reseller I'm not sure what you can do. At least you get your deposit back.
Perhaps try booking.com

marcia_

 I wouldn't even bother with any travel agency. Book directly with the airline 

sheramber

from their booking conditions

- Ticket Lords LTD reserves the right to adjust prices in line with airline pricing, currency fluctuations, taxes, or fees imposed by suppliers until tickets are fully paid and issued.

Booking direct with the airline is often cheaper as third parties  add on their cut.

There may be a problem getting 13 seats on the same plane but you search on Lufthansa'a site  to check what is available.  https://www.lufthansa.com/gb/en/homepage

You may need to book more than one flight and split the party.

It is not your fault that the ticket seller has let you down.
As this is stressing you out, I would ask one of the travelling party to help you look for new bookings, explaining that the ticket seller has let you down.

TELLIT01

After being given the runaround by the agent I would certainly not want to hand over another £13k.  Book direct with the airline.

Voyager2002

Just be thankful that you are getting your deposit back.

Book directly with an airline: see what fares are offered by Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines, as well as the obvious ones.

Jaysie

sheramber said:

Have you checked how much the flights would cost booking direct with Lufthansa?

Thanks for your response. I have checked snd it is now over £1k per person.

Jaysie

Ayr_Rage said:

What was the original price they quoted?

Have you compared prices for booking direct with the airline on the same dates?

Thanks for your response. I was quoted £7,500 for all 13 tickets - ~£550 per passenger given it was booked so early.

DullGreyGuy

sheramber said:

Booking direct with the airline is often cheaper as third parties  add on their cut.

Can you give any examples of where booking direct is cheaper? 

Direct bookings represents about 1/3 of all bookings so airlines won't !!!!!! the people that supply 66.7% of their business by under cutting them all. 

"Their cut" is also a bit of a fallacy as by engaging in direct sales the airline takes on a host of additional costs around marketing, customer service, sales staff etc. Its very possible for a third party to have a much more efficient operation than the airline's and so they make their profit because their cost per sale is £20 less than the airline's hence same price gives them profit. As one example a while back VS were advertising for flights on search so paying circa £4 for me to click onto their website but VS dont even fly to my destination so was pure waste. Had I clicked on booking.com instead there is little chance that they couldn't have offered me a flight. 


In most cases with most airlines the price is the same direct or indirect. Where I have seen differences its the indirect which have been cheaper.