We’re still waiting for our money back after ticket blunders we couldn’t fix
DENTAL nurse Lorna Golebiewski had to spend £1,100 on a new flight when lastminute.com refused to change the name on her ticket.
She realised she had booked flights to South Africa in her married name which did not match her passport.
Lorna, 25, noticed the mistake more than a week before she was due to travel to Durban with husband Seth and friend Chloe for a wedding. She had already paid almost £500 for ticket, which included a stopover in Johannesburg.
Lastminute.com requested her marriage certificate and a copy of her passport, which she sent. She says it reassured her it would to sort it out.
But Lorna, who lives in Devon, says she had to keep chasing the company, calling up to three times a day just to explain her situation again.
Each time she was told she would have an answer within 24 hours and was promised calls back that never came.
Lorna says she had time to get a new passport, which would be cheaper than a new flight, but was advised this would not be necessary. The day before she was due to travel lastminute.com emailed Lorna saying it would not amend her ticket.
It explained she could not change the name because of the airline’s terms and conditions. Yet on BA’s website it says it will do so for free. Lorna contacted BA which told her lastminute.com was responsible for the tickets so it could not help. Another seat on the same flight would cost £3,500 so she found another ticket costing £1,100 on a plane leaving three hours later.
Lorna says: ‘ Had I booked with the airline direct this would not have happened. There was a mistake on my part but I tried to sort it out in good time. I put trust in lastminute.com which assured me it would solve the problem.’ Lastminute.com claims it was unable to change the booking due to the airline’s ‘rules and policies’ and so could only reimburse the unused taxes and a £50 goodwill gesture. Murray Harkin is still trying to get his money back five months after searching for flights with TravelSupermarket. The PR director used the firm last July to compare the cost of flights from Athens to London for a September holiday. The cheapest option cost £152 with Cobalt Air if he booked through Gotogate, which he had never heard of. After paying he received an email with his booking confirmation. Straight away, Murray noticed a silly error with his name. It had ‘ email’ added to the end. But after asking Gotogate for his name to be corrected, he was told he would have to buy another ticket, which had since risen to £270.
Murray, 53, refused and booked a ticket for £191 using another website, putting his experience down to bad luck.
But when he arrived at the airport, staff told him they would have let him on the plane regardless because the mistake was so obvious.
When Murray, of Hastings, East Sussex, complained to Gotogate he was told to contact the airline. Five months later he is still £152 out of pocket.
He says: ‘I am just going to use websites and airlines I know from now on.’
Gotogate says that because Murray booked non-refundable tickets, it could not give him his money back for the ticket he could not use. It says it tried to apply for a refund to Cobalt on September 17, but the airline did not reply then filed for bankruptcy a month later.
It has now apologised and offered to refund Murray as a gesture of goodwill.