Does it sound likely or unlikely that we’ll win our Section 75 claim against an airline?

Jumblebumble

Jlawson118 said:

Back in March, myself, partner and our toddler were due to go abroad with a reputable, well known airline/holiday provider. 

At no fault of the airline to begin with, we’d ended up getting to the airport later than planned due to a sudden accident closing the motorway down whilst on route and arrived at the check-in desk just over an hour before our departure was due.

Our bags were weighed, boarding passes printed, then took our boarding passes back, changed something and then was informed by airport staff that the gate had closed and we wouldn’t be travelling. This was 50 minutes before departure where the airline specifies that gates close 30 minutes before departure and check-in closes 40 minutes before departure, suggesting we would still have had enough time to get to the gate. They’d also let passengers later than us go through. 

We’d had issues checking in online a few weeks prior to travelling where customer services advised we should check in at the airport. The other passengers they allowed to travel had pre-checked in which kind of lead me to believe they’d oversold the flight. 

The staff were trying to rebook us onto the following day’s flight, but told me I had to phone a number. Tried numerous times and couldn’t get through, then finally did for an agent to tell me I’d phoned the wrong number, she gave me another one to dial, which was the one I’d spoken to her on. 

We gave up trying. There is more to it than this but trying to keep it as short as possible.

I put in a complaint with the airline to try and at least get re-booked onto a flight or potentially vouchers for another time, but was just getting AI generated responses back not acknowledging a single point I’d raised or piece of evidence, and so at the beginning/middle of April after gathering as much evidence as we could, we raised a chargeback through the credit card. 

We checked the status of it the other day where it was saying the airline has until a certain date in June to respond and dispute, and if they don’t then we’ve won. I’m just on edge with it and waiting because it was a lot of money to lose for an airline that refused to help us in any way. 

Perhaps the airline knew that the security queues were too long for you to be able to get to the gate before it closed
I would start with a SAR including the CCTV of the check in desk and put in a claim for IDB

la531983

Jumblebumble said:

Jlawson118 said:

Back in March, myself, partner and our toddler were due to go abroad with a reputable, well known airline/holiday provider. 

At no fault of the airline to begin with, we’d ended up getting to the airport later than planned due to a sudden accident closing the motorway down whilst on route and arrived at the check-in desk just over an hour before our departure was due.

Our bags were weighed, boarding passes printed, then took our boarding passes back, changed something and then was informed by airport staff that the gate had closed and we wouldn’t be travelling. This was 50 minutes before departure where the airline specifies that gates close 30 minutes before departure and check-in closes 40 minutes before departure, suggesting we would still have had enough time to get to the gate. They’d also let passengers later than us go through. 

We’d had issues checking in online a few weeks prior to travelling where customer services advised we should check in at the airport. The other passengers they allowed to travel had pre-checked in which kind of lead me to believe they’d oversold the flight. 

The staff were trying to rebook us onto the following day’s flight, but told me I had to phone a number. Tried numerous times and couldn’t get through, then finally did for an agent to tell me I’d phoned the wrong number, she gave me another one to dial, which was the one I’d spoken to her on. 

We gave up trying. There is more to it than this but trying to keep it as short as possible.

I put in a complaint with the airline to try and at least get re-booked onto a flight or potentially vouchers for another time, but was just getting AI generated responses back not acknowledging a single point I’d raised or piece of evidence, and so at the beginning/middle of April after gathering as much evidence as we could, we raised a chargeback through the credit card. 

We checked the status of it the other day where it was saying the airline has until a certain date in June to respond and dispute, and if they don’t then we’ve won. I’m just on edge with it and waiting because it was a lot of money to lose for an airline that refused to help us in any way. 

Perhaps the airline knew that the security queues were too long for you to be able to get to the gate before it closed
I would start with a SAR including the CCTV of the check in desk and put in a claim for IDB

Or they could just tell us the missing bits of the story that would no doubt draw more clarity to proceedings.

m0bov

Op long gone....

Jlawson118

la531983 said:

Bit confused as to why you mentioned Section 75 in your title but then made reference to a 'chargeback', the two are very different things.

Which is it?

Admittedly got confused between the two. I initially thought we had raised a Section 75 claim on the credit card as we just raised it to the bank and they processed it through as a dispute but they'd processed it as a chargeback but since posting this, they've responded that there isn't enough evidence from either parties to raise a chargeback through Mastercard, but asked if we'd like to go down the S75 route to which we still are.

Jlawson118

Aylesbury_Duck said:

I would expect your card provider to ask what the reason for turning you away was.  Did the check-in staff provide any reason?  You seem to have complied with the time deadline.

Their dispute was that we didn't arrive at the airport in time. Admittedly we were cutting it loose after having to divert due to a very last minute motorway closure, but we were still at baggage drop 20 minutes before they claim they closed

Jlawson118

Hoenir said:

Jlawson118 said:

suggesting we would still have had enough time to get to the gate. 

So you were still at check in and nowhere near the departure gate........ Anything beyond that is presumption. 

They state on their website that baggage drop/check-in closes 40 minutes before departure. We were at the desks 1 hour and 10 minutes before departure. We would have made it

Jlawson118

TELLIT01 said:

Was the OP provided with any written explanation of the reason for refusal to allow them to board?  I suspect, like the OP, that the flight was oversold or an assumption was made that they were a no-show and their tickets had been resold.  Does the OP have any evidence to support their claim that they were there 50 minutes before the flight time?

No written explanation. The flight being oversold has been our presumption but we've got no proof. Unfortunately our evidence is lacking as we didn't think it would come to this, but we have screenshots of phone calls made to try and re-book the flight timestamped before the gate had closed. And currently trying to get CCTV footage from the airport and times our car entered the car park on ANPR

Jlawson118

born_again said:

As flight went ahead. No chargeback. Even if you were turned away.
S75, you would need to prove why you were turned away, even then it is a long shot.

Have you tried your travel ins?

Haven't tried travel insurance yet as I believe we'd be turned away due to still being on time. The bank dispute is still ongoing but if all else fails, I think that'll have to be the next step

Jlawson118

MattMattMattUK said:

From the limited information you have provided I suspect that both Chargeback and Section 75 would fail. 

What's limited and what do you want to know?

Jlawson118

m0bov said:

There's more to this. easyJet, I'm mean the holiday provider, normally re book you there and then and provide accommodation if needed. It's very common for flight to be overbooked. In fact most flights are, checking in at the airport, late in the process often means your put on standby for the next flight.

From experience I'd say you might of kicked off and they sent you away with a phone number.

I won't name the airline, but their company is split into Flights only, and Holiday packages. Because we'd booked via Holidays, the check-in staff told us we needed to contact a telephone number, and wrote it down on the back of one of our boarding passes. We presumed it was because it was a holiday package and so it affected the hotel and transfers etc.

We didn't kick off I can assure you that. We complied and was just gutted we were late. Was happy to book onto the next day's flight and even pay the extra charges. It wasn't until we couldn't get anywhere with customer services on the phone that we looked into arrival times and realised we were on time