Flight price change after payment

conf101

Hi all. I'm wondering if anyone can advise me on this.

My brother got a Skyscanner alert today for return flights to New York for €275. We both separately had a look at the deal and checked out different flight times, etc. This evening we went to book them and the booking went through an Irish company called e-travel.ie.

Filled in the whole booking form, payed by Visa Debit, all fine and dandy. Then on the flight confirmation screen we get this message:

Your reservation was confirmed. The Confirmation number is: [REMOVED]
Aer Lingus confirmation number: [REMOVED]
Virgin Atlantic confirmation number: [REMOVED]

We have confirmed your seats but there is a problem storing the fare as the price changed from €275.00 to €493.00.
Please contact us on 01-4081900 to either make an additional payment or cancel the booking.

This is all after the €275 has been taken from my card. Throughout the booking there was no mention of the price being provisional or subject to change.

Are they fully within their rights to do this or do I have any way of getting the flights for €275? I've looked through the e-flights.ie website and their T&Cs but can't find anything helpful (obviously I could have missed something). I know I can get a refund but I'd rather not and I can't afford to pay €493 for the flights.

Thanks in advance for any help.

hdowney

Sounds like they might be connected/affiliated to a crowd called e-dreams who are notorious for this kinda thing. Google them or look them up on TripAdvisors forums and see all the complaints.

conf101

hdowney wrote: »

Sounds like they might be connected/affiliated to a crowd called e-dreams who are notorious for this kinda thing. Google them or look them up on TripAdvisors forums and see all the complaints.

Thanks for the tip. Seems like they could be the same crowd alright.

endofrainbow

Many of the online 3rd party agents do not have access to live pricing so basically it's an *invitation to buy*.

E275 for flights to NY? that alone should have been a red flag.

conf101

endofrainbow wrote: »

Many of the online 3rd party agents do not have access to live pricing so basically it's an *invitation to buy*.

E275 for flights to NY? that alone should have been a red flag.

Of course it was a red flag. Still worth trying though.

Having spoken to the Consumer Protection Commission it's definitely not an *invitation to buy*. They entered into a contract as soon as they accepted my payment and only notified me of the price change after payment. That puts them in breach of that contract and of the Consumer Protection Act.

I might not get any joy here, but etravel.ie are definitely in the wrong here.

slimjimmc

conf101 wrote: »

Thanks for the tip. Seems like they could be the same crowd alright.

I doubt it, e-dreams.com is based in Spain with offices in Italy and a registered office in London.
e-travel.ie are Core Travel, Dublin. Fully Irish based, run and owned. They also trade as businesstravel.ie or eflights.ie

On the face of it, you have confirmed flight bookings and payment so it seems you have binding contract for €275. However I would check with each airline directly to verify those bookings are truly confirmed rather than just reserved unconfirmed.

conf101

slimjimmc wrote: »

I doubt it, e-dreams.com is based in Spain with offices in Italy and a registered office in London.
e-travel.ie are Core Travel, Dublin. Fully Irish based, run and owned. They also trade as businesstravel.ie

On the face of it, you have confirmed flight bookings and payment so it seems you have binding contract for €275. However I would check with each airline directly to verify those bookings are truly confirmed rather than just reserved unconfirmed.

Yeah I discovered that last night alright.

I've used the booking number to log in and see the flights on Virgin Atlantic, so the booking is there. But Virgin have said that the booking is there but tickets haven't been issued so that's where our problem is.

allibastor

Thinking of using sky scanner, any joy on the issue above?

dudara

Skyscanner are fine, they just provide flight info and links to purchase from the retailers.

The above case is interesting. Flight prices often move up and down, depending on demand and supply, but it does seem *odd* that your flight price increased once you had booked. It might be worth contacting Virgin with the details of your original booking, and see what they say.

conf101

allibastor wrote: »

Thinking of using sky scanner, any joy on the issue above?

You'll have no issues with Skyscanner. They just search a large number of airlines and third party sites to get you a range of options. Your booking doesn't actually go through Skyscanner and my issue has nothing to do with Skyscanner, it's all to do with e-travel and how they're set up.

weisses

If seats are confirmed and money is taken then logically that should be binding ?! ... It probably isn't