Has anyone used this flight site before?

LilacLillie

I'm searching for flights and have just come across this site called 'bravofly'.
What I am looking for is coming up at £177 cheaper than BA for the same flight, but I've never heard of them myself before.
So have you, or have you ever used them?
If so I'd appreciate some feedback please.
Thanks in advance
LL

http://www.bravofly.co.uk/vg1/home.do

Diamond_Olly

The big downside is that this is not a UK company - so not covered by ATOL, not registered with ABTA.

tisha

there is another one i keep looking at called edreams really cheap flights, but again not in this country, any one heard of them or used them

codger

BravoFly is part of an Italian conglomerate. Although the group's various websites refer to their headquarters being in Amsterdam, the company is in fact Swiss registered by virtue of an address in the Italian / Swiss border town of Chiasso.

Any UK consumer complaint against BravoFly that might ultimately require legal redress must be resolved through a Swiss court.

BravoFly appears to function as a screen scraper in that it uses its own proprietary search engine to trawl -- ostensibly -- for up-to-date European flight and hotel accomm prices.

But BravoFly's operating model is different from the norm.

For example: one of the best flight screen scrapers is SkyScanner. It locates flights and prices, updates the prices to "live" status and then, if the SkyScanner user wishes to make a booking, transfers that booking over to the airline website concerned. Any monies paid are therefore paid direct to the airline.

By contrast, flight bookers like, for example, Airflights, or Travel Republic, handle the entire process, so that what you see on screen is what you pay.

BravoFly follows neither of the above practices.

It quotes a price and asks you to make your booking if that price is acceptable. Your booking, therefore, is with BravoFly.

But because BravoFly is NOT a flight booking agency (like Airflights) there is no guarantee at the time you make your payment that the price is actually valid -- and so there is no guarantee that your flight booking is actually valid.


After payment, you will receive a reservation reference number. But this is not an airline booking number. Instead, it is BravoFly's own customer order number. You must now await a further email from BravoFly confirming that your flight booking has been verified by the airline involved.

Whilst this may well turn out to be trouble-free, in a recent instance of which we have personal knowledge, the fundamental weakness of the BravoFly "model" was exposed, viz:

A booking was made on a Friday afternoon for a flight leaving the UK the following Monday. After payment, BravoFly advised by email of payment confirmation and their own reference number, and also advised that the airline's own actual confirmation would follow soon.

No such confirmation arrived. As time was short, a call was made to BravoFly's customer service desk on the Saturday morning. But the line rang out unanswered because customer service is available from Monday to Friday only.

And if the connection had been made, BravoFly charges a standard £1.50p per minute for providing that customer service.

A call was then made to the airline in question to check the status of the booking. The airline reported that it had received no booking from BravoFly.

Later that morning, BravoFly emailed to say it had cancelled the booking. It said the price being charged by the airline was significantly higher than BravoFly had expected. BravoFly would refund the monies paid in due course.

Nevertheless, BravoFly was still quoting the same price, for the same flight, with the same airline, 24 hours later, when even a cursory check of that airline's own website showed that the "real" flight price was still £100 more.

BravoFly's practice of quoting and then charging for flights whose prices it is seemingly unable to verify at the time of payment is unacceptable.

As is the £1.50p per minute telephone charge.

Considering the number of excellent UK-based flight search / flight booking websites already in existence, and the ATOL and ABTA protection offered (BravoFly is neither ATOL nor ABTA registered / licensed) it remains a puzzle as to why this Italian / Swiss company has opened a UK website at all.

flight_problems

Hi, I used Bravofly to book some flights and upon checking the reservation details I realised that there was a typo in one of the names. I contacted Bravofly who told me to immediately cancel the reservation and re-book.

I cancelled the flights and I was told that I might not get a full refund however they would contact me to let me know the amount. Bravofly eventually got back to me after being prompted and they told me that I would only receive 90 euros out of the 1400 euros spent on the flights.

Please do not use this site as the wording on there site is not very clear and upon booking they did not tell me that no refund would be available.

I am not sure where to take this complaint now as they are not responding to my emails.

lovesgshp

tisha wrote: »

there is another one i keep looking at called edreams really cheap flights, but again not in this country, any one heard of them or used them

Used edreams last year when wife went to Thailand to visit her son. No problems at all. Believe it is Spanish registered, so not covered by UK regs.

Tojo_Ralph

Warning: ..... "Old thread from 2008 dug up so that user could have a rant" alert!

tux130582

did you ever get your money back from Bravofly.com? They are scammers

Janapp_2

I tried Bravofly 3 times. I always received a prompt email confirmation, and the tickets info appeared on "checkmytrip". The problem I had is that on Nov 2013 I called the customer service tel number in the UK, and I could not get through. The phone number does not seem to work or exist. I had to dial the overseas number in Italy 4 times before I could get through, and the first thing which the electronic answering service wanted to know from me was my credit card details in order to charge me another 6.11 euros in advance. (I hang up.)
My advice: use Bravofly for tickets which do not cost a lot of money because you may end up not being able to change, cancel or ask for a refund. I say from personal experience.

Voyager2002

lovesgshp wrote: »

Used edreams last year when wife went to Thailand to visit her son. No problems at all. Believe it is Spanish registered, so not covered by UK regs.

You were fortunate: the web is full of posts by people who experienced problems with eDreams, while their lack of customer service means that resolving such problems is effectively impossible. I would not consider booking with them, nor with Opodo which they now own.

lovesgshp

Must have been Voyager2002. Admit I never looked them up before the booking, but it did go through without problems for the flight from Rome to Bangkok. The other flights were booked direct ( Ancona to Rome on Alitalia, Bangkok to Phuket with Thai )
It was the only time I ever used Edreams, so that was the reason I commented on them. Sorry so many others have had problems.