I’m Glad you are being swamped Darren, unfortunatly the general public do not see the pitfalls that travel agents generally have known about for Donkey’s years and often don’t read the booking terms and conditions of the flight, holidy booking or see the pitfalls of Dynamic Packaging them selves.

The Conditions are often very complex, can involve Mileage, stopovers that are and aren’t allowed, rules as far as name changes, Changes before or after a flight etc etc. In Short there can be 10,001 different ways of constructing an air fare and each fare has it’s own terms and conditions and extra costs that could be involved.

Why struggle as a DIYer and Spend Hours looking, Searching and then having to Pay as much as the full ticket price again when a DIYer has cocked up, when all it takes is to go to your Friendly Travel Agent spend five minutes explaining your wants needs, budget etc and let them do the hard work.

Great points Lee.

If I was to book my flight through you, and then I found that I had given my name incorrectly to you, would I be responsible for payment from you as the travel agent and the airline?

I should add that it’s less likely that I would giveyou the incorrect spelling of my surname and that’s why I mentioned travel agents at the bottom of my blog post.

Thanks for the tips.

I never check the booking conditions of the airline and I suspect 99% of other travellers dont neither.

Yes Darren, you would be liable for Costs. The First thing our Consultants ask when a client comes in is for a name address etc. We do this before we ask any other Question. We the ask the Client for the name Exactly as it appears on the Passport. Quite often Clients book for friends and tell us their friends name is Bill.
But Quite often you might find for instance that good old “Bill” was christened by his parents Quinton ( No offence to any Quinton’s out there by the way) but doesn’t choose to use that name. So additional charges could apply to change the name.

As long as our Consultants do the name Check, and then we ask the client to sign a Check list form about other terms conditions such as Health Insurance, Visas etc, then their should be no Problems.
If our Consultant made the mistake, then yes we would cover the charge.

It’s less likely to happen if you are booking through a travel agency.

We always book the family holiday through a local independent travel agency for this reason.

Thanks for the information Lee.

I agree with Simon that it’s less likely to happen if you book through an agency, and whilst I booked a superb holiday last year with Lee’s company, you have to weight up which type of holiday suits you.

Certain times of the year it’s cheaper to DIY than to Package up.

I disagree Darren.

I’m going a little off topic but DIY holidays sound the cheapest option, but when you weight up the risks involved, it pays to book through a travel agency, and an independent travel agency at that.

The question we aren’t getting answered here is

Why do airlines feel the need to charge you for a brand new ticket plus admin fee if you mess the original booking up. We all understand we’d have to pay an admin fee but to charge us again is surely not fair trading.

I do think its our responsibility to check our booking information but for airlines to charge again is not on.

Lessons learnt.

Great discussion going on here folks.

Here’s my opinion:

It’s our responsibility to make sure the booking information is accurate.

Airlines don’t double charge - what they charge is the difference between the price when you booked the flight and the price when you change the booking information.

This is covered in the booking t&c’s so its important you read them before booking.

I’m not saying this is right - it’s just something we have to check when booking.

Yesterday I booked a flight with my local travel agent. Dates and times in writing were given to them and the booking made for June 2008. Unfortunately they made the booking for May not June and I missed it when I checked and signed. This morning after realising the mistake I asked if the booking could be changed, the answer was ‘ The airline does not allow changes’ I will have to cancel the booking with no refund and book againm thereby paying twice. Is there anything I can do? The agents are trying but with little luck so far.

Perhaps I am not very bright, but having bought a return flight from British Airways and having missed the outbound part, I was misguided enough to believe that I would still have the right to use the return. Not so . . .

Somewhat fortuitously I happened to phone British Airways customer services centre, just before finalizing the online booking I’d set up for my new outbound flight. Had I not had this moment of foresight I may well have found myself buying two one way tickets at inflated prices. Strangely I only called because I got a sudden sneaky feeling I might fall victim to some handy little BA loop hole that allows the company to sell the same seats twice. It’s sad don’t you think, that this is something I have come to expect from BA?

I accept that I missed my flight for personal reasons and it was clear British Airways has no interest in why. However I was willing to book a new outbound flight with the company in the expectation that I would use the return element of my original flight. I was somewhat dismayed to find that British Airways has found a way to exploit common yet unavoidable situations and in the process managed to rob me of something I bought and paid for in good faith. If this were a train or a coach, I would not be penalized for missing one element of my journey.

Sadly for BA this is the final straw and one of various issues I have with the company’s customer service and policy. Having sat on the phone for five minutes, waiting to be dealt with by what transpired to be a surly bloke who has no interest in representing BA or ensuring its customers are satisfied, I listened to repetitive, patronizing marketing blurb over and over again - telling me how to use the website, how wonderful the company is and how it always puts its customers first!

All I can say is when British Airways claims: ‘there’s other ways and there’s BA’ it’s damn right – not however for the reasons it might like to think.

For me, from here on in, there will always be ‘other ways’ and they won’t be British Airways. I may not be the company’s best client, but I’ve travelled regularly with it in the last few months, long haul business, nationally and internationally and this is the second time in that period I’ve had good cause to complain.

I can almost imagine that British Airways has a group specifically employed to dream up every possible scenario that would allow the company to sell it’s seats twice, never give refunds and no doubt carbon offset the same seats as many times as it sells them.

The company refuses to refund for easily made mistakes with online booking. I’m sad to say there’s no customer feel good incentive to book with British Airways whatsoever – it comes across as a money grabbing business that looks after number one, plays irritatingly dreadful music which is far from soothing – and is totally misguided if it thinks people want to listen to its misleading marketing rubbish every time they call up.

can some tell me how long sould i wait before booking my flight to gran canaria in aug ive got a week there and a chance of another but wont know untill june

Gareth,

The nearer it gets to your depature date, the more expensive it will be. August is peak time for flights because of the school holidays.

I would personally start to look for your flights now. Use sites like http://www.kayak.com that will save time searching.

In March this year I booked two British Airways DIRECT return flights from Manchester to New York. They are Premium Economy. Needless to say I paid up front.
Last week BA decided to tell me that the JFK to MAN leg had been cancelled and they have rerouted me via LHR.
Instead of arriving back in Manchester at 05:00 I am now getting back at 08:45 – assuming that the transatlantic flight is on time and I make the connection.
Had I booked the ‘new’ flight then the cost would have been less than the original booking..
(1) BA refuse to return the difference.
(2) They refuse to compensate me for any inconvenience.
(3) Can I have a refund of monies paid and go elsewhere.
Thanks
Mike