Refund of flight/taxes and charges due to changing flight and missing flight

[paydayjoke]

In August I was going to India with a friend and made two flight bookings via kayak. one via BA and one via a travel agency called Crystal Travel. This was because my return date was different to hers and this was the cheapest way.

 

My friend wasn't very well and we needed to change the flights by a few days. This was right around the time when there was strike action announced by BA. We changed hers online for a cost of £230 (minimum change fee is £150!) against an initial ticket cost of around £565

For my ticket, on the BA website it wouldn't let me login until 24 hours before so I called the travel agency. They wanted me to pay something like £380 to change my ticket to the same flight(original cost around £480). It was exactly the same change but they wanted to charge £150 on top of BA's price to change it for me! I did not know at the time that you had to go through the agency to change any ticket.

 

I was not willing to pay this so I thought if I could get hold of BA then they would help me change it on the phone. Unfortunately this proved impossible. I genuinely mean hours spent on hold. This was all due to the upcoming strike action (not affecting my flight period at all). I tweeted them to ask the question and carried on holding. Nothing worked.

OK. I found a new flight one way on air india for around £350 or something and I'd come back on BA. This was more about the principal than the money. Flight was amazing by the way, totally recommend! 

 

My friend had to come home early. We logged on and changed her flight for another £150. I thought I would look at my flight and logged in except it wouldn't let me. I contacted BA via twitter and they said because I didn't travel on my outbound flight my return was automatically cancelled. FUMING! There was absolutely nothing they would do about it even though I showed them https://t.co/CJum59dhag?amp=1 

 

"although most people think the policy seems 100% unreasonable "Emirates and Flybe say they will protect return flights if passengers contact them after missing a flight. AS WILL BA, 'if a customer has a genuine reason'"

 

To me it's a total sham; they didn't inform me they were cancelling my ticket. If I hadn't have checked then I would have ended up turning at the airport to checkin and being told "sorry sir, your ticket was cancelled, if you want to fly today you can buy another ticket for the EXTREMELY generous price of £thousands!"

 

I did have a genuine reason for missing the flight; couldn't contact them to change it. This wasn't a ploy by myself to do a split-ticket trick thing where you use only one portion to get a cheaper overall journey. I kept tweeting @ them on twitter to contact me leading up to the flight but they didn't reply until a couple of days after.

 

Whilst I think this is ludicrous, I figured it was pointless going after any refund but what about the taxes and charges tried to find out how much those were. Crystal Travel wouldn't tell me offered me £32. I made a formal complaint they offered me £95. I carried on at BA asking for a breakdown and it took multiple months and me prodding them when I remembered to finally receive, "I'm sorry you're having problems getting the breakdown of your refund.  I spoke with our Ticketing team and they confirmed your refundable taxes are £139.12.  Your travel agent will deduct any applicable cancellation fees. "

I don't think this is the correct amount. As I didn't fly surely there were no taxes and charges paid therefore I should receive these back right? I have not been able to get a breakdown of the ticket cost so have just sent a SAR to the travel agent. Based off the ticket booked directly of my friend's £565 ticket, £362.22 was for taxes, charges and fees. I get that I didn't fly (I believe it ended up a very full flight and someone on standby likely got my seat).

Do you think I am entitled to more than £95 that the travel agent offered? How do you think I should go about persuing this further?

On another note, do you think my travel insurance might payout for it as I had to change it due to my friend being ill?

 

Sorry for the long post, I''ve tried to stick to the pertinent bits. It could have been longer!

 

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by paydayjoke