Opodo Responds.. Finally!
By Darren Cronian on Sunday, July 22nd, 2007

Apologies for the lack of blog posts around here this week but I’ve had problems with my ISP, yes Orange, have left me without the internet for two days, and decided to offer people free laptops when they signed up to broadband, so current customers couldn’t get through to contact them.

Opodo Responds.. Finally!

Anyway, good news, Opodo, finally replied to my email about the price airlines charge when someone needs to change a name on their ticket;

Thank you for your recent email inviting Opodo to respond to your discussion points.

Please accept my apologies for the delayed response. I can assure you that when we receive such a query to correct a name spelling, our first response is to always phone the airline to assist our customers.

Travel agents like Opodo are required to seek airline authorisation when amending name spellings on bookings. Individual policies for all airlines vary greatly.

As an agent, we are governed by the airlines and any fare rules agreed at the time of purchase. We are duty bound to comply with the fare rules / airline instructions and are unable to override any such decision.

Whilst I appreciate that this answer does not cover all angles of your discussion, I hope that this answer helps clarify the position of a travel agent.

So in other words, it’s the airlines fault, and yet British Airways or Jet2 refuse to answer my email about how much they are charging consumers, when they need to change booking information either due to human error or reasons out of their own control.


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5 responses to “Opodo Responds.. Finally!”

Steven | 23 July, 2007 at 7:38 pm

Having worked as an agent previously Darren, I have to say that Opodo’s comments seem to sum up the situation accurately. When I was in sales I lost count of the number of times that I had to explain to customers that the charge was not coming from my company, but was heading on into the coffers of an airline. I think you will find quite a high proportion of agents that have no idea why these charges are so high.

As Martyn Lewis has done such a sterling job for consumers recently on the matter of overblown (and apparently illegal) admin charges for banking, maybe it is time someone set him loose on scheduled airlines.

Darren Cronian | 25 July, 2007 at 2:50 am

Yes Steven, good points, and I do agree, but what you forget is that Opodo is owned by a number of these airlines!! So, I am sure more could be done from their perspective about this issue.

Martyn Lewis - never heard of him. I have heard of the consumer cases for admin charges for banks though.

Steven | 31 July, 2007 at 5:47 pm

The only thing is Darren, in no way could these airlines get away with offering preferable booking conditions solely via Amadeus, or just to Opodo. And they obviously do not have the incentive to do this across the board.

So it appears that the only way this change will occur is if it is forced upon them by regulation or court precedent. Unfortunately, even if this does come to fruition, I have no doubt that the loss of earnings will be made up in some other manner.

Thats why I used the example of the admin fees, and the banks’ creative charging.

Steve | 1 August, 2007 at 9:10 am

The reason airlines do not allow name changes / or charge a high price (such as the low cost carriers) is maybe to do with the resale of seats.

Imagine you as a customer bought 10 bargain seats well in advance and then decided to resell on ebay for a profit, with name changes in place this would net someone (and not the airline involved) a fair profit.

You do not mention why you need to change / cancel your ticket? Anything classed as a genuine reason would be covered by a decent insurance policy leaving you only the £50/100 excess out of pocket.

It seems to me you have too much time on your hands and are just having a whinge!

Steve | 1 August, 2007 at 9:22 am

Having just searched through your site for the original article (which wasn’t referenced at the top oft his page… hmm perhaps I should start a witchhunt against the author and ISP!)

Your original blog refers to a name amendment although you don’t (as far as I can see) mention what exactly needs amending.

MOST airlines, BA included will allow you to travel on a misspelled name, ie Stehpen or Mihcael etc… they do have common sense in that area….problems may come if going to the USA with their stringent entry procedures (for which Opodo/BA will probably get the blame too!) here they may insist on the name being as per passport. (Which you can get a replacement for about £50)

However even if people don’t fully read terms and conditions, if they just acted in a way that wasn’t click happy, if they took the effort to check what they have typed and god-forbid actually know what name they have on their passport these things would not happen!

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