BOOKED BY MISTAKE
Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder
Q My daughter kindly booked her sister and sister’s boyfriend a day trip to Ireland as a present. During her first attempt at booking the booking froze and this error message popped up: “Start same search”. My daughter did so but the internet was still slow so she tried again on her laptop as initially she had tried on her phone. The second attempt worked and when she checked her emails both bookings had gone through.
Immediately she contacted the agent but was told there was nothing they could do. I feel this event is so unfair when someone was doing such a nice gesture. I couldn’t believe they could not accept this was not my daughters fault and it was clearing a system error. Is there anything you can help/suggest to possibly get some money back for my daughter on one of the bookings?
Lisa Ainsworth
A Sorry to hear about your daughter’s experience. I fear she has been caught by a trick which affects a large number of passengers. Some online travel agents pay search engines to appear first when someone taps in the name of the airline, before the official airline site. Often people don’t realise that it’s not the airline – until they pay more than they should and/or discover that customer service is unforthcoming.
Had she booked direct with the airline, she would have been able to cancel one of the reservations within 24 hours, free of charge, without quibble – at least on Aer Lingus, British Airways and Ryanair. As things stand, I think the best plan is for your daughter to contact the card issuer and say that the company wrongly took the money twice and demand that one transaction is refunded.
I hope she is able to get her money back.
Every day, our travel correspondent, Simon Calder, tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder