MUST WE PAY FOR A BOOKING ERROR?
Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder
Q My son turned up at Heathrow for a British Airways flight to Geneva, in order to go skiing, only to discover when he got there that he had booked not for 6 April but 6 June. Despite this being a genuine mistake, they charged him £360 extra to get to Geneva and another £260 to get home five days later. This is on top of his original flight price. An expensive mistake, but I’m furious with BA. He’s 23. How can they can get away with this?
Name withheld
A I empathise with your son’s experience, having managed inadvertently to book a flight from Heathrow to Belfast 11 months after the date I intended to travel (when I booked, I remember thinking, “that’s a very cheap deal...”).
That mistake cost me £180, and your son paid even more – illustrating the fact that fares often soar in the last few days and hours before a flight departs. Such errors illustrate one of the many benefits that travel agents can bring.
However, I don’t share your fury with British Airways. Once the mistake had been identified, your son had a choice. BA is free to charge whatever fares it wishes, and your son is at liberty to accept the price or not. He could take up BA’s offer of a seat to Geneva for £360, or see what other airlines were offering, or decide not to travel.
Similarly, many alternative flights were available for the journey home. For example, I saw that easyJet had seats from Geneva to Luton on the return date for £106.
For future trips it is worth bearing in mind that easyJet allows passengers to transfer some of the value for a flight they can no longer take to a different flight. British Airways does not do the same with its very lowest fares.
One other consideration: had your son tried to check in online 24 hours before departure, he would have identified the error much earlier and been able to consider all the possibilities. I appreciate, though, that he did not receive the usual email alert from BA 24 hours ahead, because the airline was not expecting to see him for a couple more months.
Finally, I presume that he still has the flights for June? I urge him to visit Geneva then. The city and surroundings are lovely in early summer.