Transatlantic airfares

[jezzdogg]

No we actually paid for the tickets on our credit card and the money has already been deducted from my account. I tis not a "hold" on the account for that amount of money ) but an actual charge to the account. We are going to be billed for a flight they will not let us have tickets for. If they were not going to charge our account or crediting our acct as they state by now it should not still appear as per citibank Problem with flying out of Gatwick, is going thru customs, collecting the luggage and transfering to the other airport. If we fly out of jfk to Heathrow and on to Copenhagen I do not have to collect my luggage until copenhagen as American will check my luggage thru to its final destination,. Also we fly into Terminal 3 at Heathrow and the flight leaves from the same terminal. Will have to convince by DH to pay the extra money for the same flight......

[Globaliser]

No we actually paid for the tickets on our credit card and the money has already been deducted from my account. I tis not a "hold" on the account for that amount of money ) but an actual charge to the account. We are going to be billed for a flight they will not let us have tickets for. If they were not going to charge our account or crediting our acct as they state by now it should not still appear as per citibank

If I were you, I would kick up a big fuss with Travelocity. If you made a confirmed booking with them and they took the money from your credit card account, they ought to have been able to secure your tickets during the ticketing deadline. Within their own booking systems, they should have had your reservation confirmed by the airline ("HK", in industry speak) in the booking class that you needed for that fare, before they took your money. It should then have simply been a question of issuing the ticket.

 

You really need to find out exactly what happened. Did Travelocity have HK'd seats for you? In which booking class? What was the fare basis? Did that match what was necessary for the fare basis? What was the ticketing condition? Why was it not met? If it really was a question of Travelocity not ticketing in time to meet the ticketing deadline, why did Travelocity not act faster to issue the ticket? Why was the deadline missed, when Travelocity knew all the time what the deadline was?

 

They will probably try to hide behind their repeated statement that fares are not guaranteed until tickets are issued. But, in my view, this wouldn't be an adequate answer to the problem. That statement is, I think, intended to deal with the problem which may arise where (for example) you have HK'd two Q class seats, and been quoted a Q class fare which was valid at the time of booking - but the fare changed in value before the time the ticket was issued. It doesn't seem to me to be right for them to invoke that provision to cover a situation in which they knew there was a ticketing deadline and they missed the deadline.

 

However, there may be other explanations as well. For example, the top question in my mind is whether there in fact ever was a fare at the level which you quoted - the reason I say that is because the lowest bmi published fare for the route is close to the value which my own search revealed. If there ever was a fare such as the one you booked, something strange may have happened to it at very short notice - but Travelocity ought to be able to explain this to you in much more detail than they have done, including in particular what the fare basis code was, what its fare rules were and exactly when it was withdrawn, with what effect on existing bookings made before it was withdrawn. It is possible that you may find that the fare which you were being offered was, in reality, never actually available for sale to you, which (while still aggravating) may take some of the sting out of the situation.

 

The ideal solution would, of course, be for Travelocity to admit that they have stuffed up, and to get you your tickets for those flights but paying the difference out of their own pockets. Whether or not they would do that will depend partly on the reasons for what happened, and possibly partly on how much pressure you're prepared to bring to bear on them.

 

If you end up looking and booking again, don't forget to use the search facilities on the airlines' own websites. The British Airways website has a very powerful Fare Explorer tool which allows you to specify exactly how much flexibility you have and to see all the combinations for that - you just need to change your country of residence to United Kingdom to see all ex-London fares. The bmi website will similarly show you the fare applicable to each flight during the day. But if you are going to do that, you should have a look at the Scandinavian website as well, because as a rule the operating carrier's fares are usually as low as, if not lower than, the fares charged by any other airline that puts its code on that flight (eg bmi).

[didi7]

Hi Mad for Cruising. I am posting here because I don't know how else to contact you regarding an old thread. You were going to tour Amalfi coast with Marcello and post back how you found it?? When I searched your posts though the last I saw was that in July 2004 you were looking for another driver for Livorno. Did you tour with Marcello? Thanks for any information you can give me. We have booked him for October.