Dial a Flight Flight Price Rant from Consumer
By Darren Cronian on Thursday, March 6th, 2008

Jeff Lyes and his wife booked a flight through Dial a flight and was charged £356 for a return flight to La Coruna in Spain, departing July 14, returning July 22. The consumer, received the confirmation which includes the Iberia flight number and times.

Dial a Flight Flight Price Rant from Consumer

The confirmation contains the reference “Operated by Click” and with further investigation it appears that the flight is operated by Clickair, a low cost carrier. The next day Jeff visited the Clickair website to find that the price for the exact same flight is £195, saving them £161, so what has happened to that money?

Jeff got in contact with Dial a Flight and was offered a verbal refunded of £25. Tonight I have contacted the company but no one was available to comment.

Watch this space.

Have you had a similar issue when booking flights – feel free to leave your comments.


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8 responses to “Dial a Flight Flight Price Rant from Consumer”

Simon | 7 March, 2008 at 2:01 pm

I suspect this was due to a “bonding fee” being set by Dial a Flight. This basically means that if the flight was cancelled for any reason, it would be Dial a Flight’s responsibility to find you an alternative - if you booked direct with Clickair, it would be the customers.

Of course on the other hand it could just be them marking up the flights!

Darren Cronian | 7 March, 2008 at 2:10 pm

Why wouldn’t the consumer informed of this fee though Simon, either when booking or when complaining?

£161 seems alot for bonding too!

Simon | 7 March, 2008 at 5:24 pm

The customer isn’t usually informed of it directly, but it will be contained in those lovely T&C’s we were talking about the other day!!

£160 is a lot though yes, I’ve seen them at around £25-£50 per passenger before. Of course it could be a combination of the two, or something all together.

Could be none of the things I’ve suggested, but I thought I’d pass on some knowledge, which some people may not be aware of :-)

Darren Cronian | 7 March, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Thanks Simon, it’s useful to know. I can feel another rant coming on ;)

Nick | 10 March, 2008 at 5:40 pm

The thing about flights is there shared by different companies with different fares on the same plane. Looks like in this case an Iberia ticket was booked on a Click air plane. The fare that was charged would be an Iberia fare not a Click air one.

This is a common practice on flights and can happen on a wide range of flights. Always worth shopping around, or getting a independent agent to do this for you

Darren Cronian | 10 March, 2008 at 8:20 pm

Good point about the Independent agent/shopping around. I agree. So the same seat could cost different depending where you booked it?

That doesn’t sound fair trade.

Rohan | 11 March, 2008 at 11:54 pm

I use the local agency or shop around on Google.

Smells fishy does this complain though. Have you heard anything back from the company?

Pete Piper | 21 April, 2008 at 9:06 pm

This flight is a codeshare with iberia and therefore it is Iberia who are dictating the higher fare by matching it with their own rate if it was an Iberia plane. The mark up of from the agent would be fairly minimal. Before rushing into booking, shop around and take phone numbers to compare.

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