lastminute.com flight booking issue Post Reply

[VickySW18]

My husband and I are going to a friend's wedding in Portugal this June and I made quite a significant error by booking the wrong weekend! Normally I book flights directly with the airline but in this case I did it through lastminute.com because outbound is with Monarch and return is Thomson Fly so it worked out cheaper. I realised within a couple of hours of booking that I had the wrong weekend and called up lastminute.com to see if I could either cancel or change the dates. Over two weeks later I received a reply saying neither was possible and would cost me more in both cases so I might as well book new flights and forget about the old ones (£580 down the drain!)

Surely this can't be right? Shouldn't I at least get the taxes back? Not sure what to do now so any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

[juliantenniscoach]

Ok now this is not carved in tablets of stone but in my experience with Norweigen, BA and Monarch that I have been able to change flight details within the business day of booking. You should get the taxes back though perhaps subject to an admin charge. I would contact the airlines direct and failing that make a complaint via ATOL.

Good luck.

[boonkoh]

Most airlines do have a 24 hour grace period to cancel bookings without penalty for mistakes.

I am not sure about Lastminute.com as they are just a reseller (Online Travel Agent in the industry lingo).

What did they tell you when you rang up a few hours after the booking? Did you get confirmation that they will refund?

If after speaking to Lastminute.com you don't get a resolution that you find is fair, you can always complain to the ombudsman - you will need to find out which one deals with flights/online travel agents. In your final communications with Lastminute.com, let them know you are still unhappy with the resolution and will be contacting the ombudsman. This sometimes makes them concede as they do not want to go through the hassle or a formal dispute resolution with the ombudsman.

[dudette]

The grace periods are usually for things like very minor and obvious spelling mistakes. I'd be extremely surprised if they'd allow you to change dates - you could just have changed your mind rather than made a mistake for all they know. Most flights list the booking conditions when you book and if you booked a non-changeable, non-refundable fare then it is just that - you can't change it. The reason the fares are so cheap is precisely because they're non-refundable. Flexible fares where you can change dates are much more expensive.

I don't think you'd have a leg to stand on when it came to making a complaint so I think you'll just have to write this one off and be more careful next time. I book flights a lot and I always check, double check, and triple check before I send payment for this very reason. I'd say your only possible grounds for complaint are that Last Minute didn't make the booking conditions clear on their website.

The Telegraph Travel section has a very helpful Q and A column for people with complaints against the travel industry and they maybe could help but having read it for years I think the answer is very likely that they can't! Sorry.

[dudette]

Having just re-read your post, I do think you're right about the taxes - you only pay them if you fly, so you should be able to get those back and that is definitely worth pursuing. I'm not sure what the procedure is but you would probably need to cancel the flights first or else wait until after the flight date to show you didn't turn up. I'd have thought Last Minute should be able to help you with that and if not then you would I think have grounds for complaint. And the Telegraph might be able to help with this if Last Minute don't. Probably worth a google to see what the rules are and what the procedure is.