Hi Mark

They have booked us Economy tickets but still cost us £1800.00 I remember the travel Agent saying she got a week full board plus flights to corfu for the price of one ticket.

Still Emirates will refund if First Choice ask them to. So I will be on the phone first thing in the morning.

Lets hope she is in a better frame of mind to help.

But there are usually different fares even in Economy. I suggest you check what fare it is.

Mark

The best advice has been given which is to Contact Ros Fernihough

I will again refer you to the above.

No matter how many thousands of words are posted on here no one is able to do more than post their own personal opinions. We can only advise of possible courses of action you may take. There is no guarantee that they are correct.

Speak with Ros who has assisted many members here on Ht or contact a solicitor with travel law knowledge and experience.

With respect the answer to your problem is not here on HT it requires a professional.

fwh

The responsibility of checking for visa's vaccine is not the Travel Agent but the customer. When I receive any info now from my TA it always states that I this responsibility is mine. I accept this without reservation.
A lot of young people work in TA and how can you expect them to know what vaccine visa etc in needed for very Country.

I do not believe this to be true, the law appears to say otherwise, although I believe that the 'health formalities' referred to at 7(2)(b) mean compulsory vaccinations without proof of which entry would not be allowed into the country concerned. There would appear to be an absolute obligation to provide visa information especially when asked. This is a prime example of why in cases such as this Ros should be consulted.

The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992

© Crown Copyright 1992
The legislation contained on this web site is subject to Crown Copyright protection. It may be reproduced free of charge provided that it is reproduced accurately and that the source and copyright status of the material is made evident to users.

Information to be provided before contract is concluded
7.—(1) Before a contract is concluded, the other party to the contract shall provide the intending consumer with the information specified in paragraph (2) below in writing or in some other appropriate form.

(2) The information referred to in paragraph (1) is:—

(a) general information about passport and visa requirements which apply to British Citizens who purchase the package in question, including information about the length of time it is likely to take to obtain the appropriate passports and visas;

(b) information about health formalities required for the journey and the stay ......

Peter

The reason i asked, is becuase im a first choice travel agent.
Im assuming from what you have said, that your flights are booked through our First Choice Flexi Travel company, as this is who we use for scheduled flight bookings mainly. And is the accommodation booked through Gold Medal??
If this is the case, they have "diy" the booking for you, and it will mean you have a contract with flexi travels terms and conditions, and a seperate one with the accomodation provider, gold medal.
Now, scheduled flights have what we call "fare rules", which stipulates weather a flight can be amended or cancelled, and if so, what the charges are to do so. These should have been read to you at time of booking.
From what you've said, you unfortunatly may not be dealing with a very helpful agent. However, on the other hand, the travel agent has to adhere to whatever the flight booking company say with regards to cancellations or amendments. Regardless of what the airline themselves say. First Choice dont book direct with an airline, they book that airline through a booking company, which in this case im guessing is flexi travel. So, what im saying is, to try and get to the bottom of this. Ask why you cannot amend the flight, becuase you were not advised at the time of booking that it was a restricted fare. Unfortunatly, what emerites have said to you probably wont help as it depends what agreement the airline have with the booking company.
Not sure if any of this will help!

Peter

I found something similar on the ABTA website but this one you have provided is a lot better. You deserve a big kiss for that.

My folder is getting bigger all the time and I cannot wait to speak to Ros on her return from holiday on the 11th August.

"They also have a duty to give the consumer guidance about any health requirements and the passport and visa requirements for your travel as well as information about travel insurance".

Sorry Peter you are right and I suppose I have only looked at what it says on the confirmation the TA has sent. Probably reminding me that I need to sort out visa etc.

Sue

Hi beccafcr

I know all agents are not the same and you get the odd black sheep which drags the company down. I use to work for AOL BB support and you should have heard some of the things we got told about agents.

You are correct the hotel is booked through Gold Medal Travel Group I have just found their website as she never had a brochure to give us.

She told us we could not cancel or transfer the tickets as it was booked through Emirates Netfare (0844 8004818) which I cannot get through to it keeps going to answer machine and i have left messages.

She never mentioned anything about First Choice Flexi but if you do not mind I will call her in the morning and then post on here. If you can give me any more guidance it would be gratefuly appreciated.

Thanks

sandra

i've never heard of the emierates net fare thing you see. Unless its somethin through gold medal flights, im not sure.
Do you still have a copy of your booking forms? they should be on first choice letter head, and it has the passenger names, then a bit on travel insurance. then below that, it has the tour operator and flight details and cost etc.
If there is only gold medal listed, then it must all be through them. becuase to load a booking on our system, we have to put each tour operator code in, so if they have used more than one, it should be listed.
i'll try and help in anyway if you have any questions.

Hi beccafcr

Only thing I have is the booking summary

Travel Details

Operator: Unijet+Flight System Operators reference 00282282001
Date: 6.10.2008
Nights: 15
Rooms: 4 seats

Date Trans No. From etc etc
06.10.2008 EK26 Glasgow
07.10.2008 EK306 Dubai
07.10.2008 EK307 Beijing cap.

Your holiday extreas

Supplier description res no. dur board location
GOLD Novotel 443829 14 BB Bejing

ok, that confirms it. your flights are definatly booked through first choice flexi travel (formerly unijet flights)
and accommodation seperatly through gold medal.

so you have 2 different terms and conditions to work with. Flexi's for the flight, and gold medal for the accommodation.
so therefore, you need to get the agent to clearly establish what the fares terms and conditions are with regards to amendments and cancellations. (which should have been advised at time of booking)
can you get into the travel agents? and sit there whilst they ring flexi and explain why you want to change, and that emerates have advised you it is a changeable fare, and can they confirm this? becuase flexi have seperate agreements with each airline and each fare type they sell you see. if flexi then come back and say the fare is defiantly not changeable, then i fear you may be stuck.
its not so bad if you can at least change destinations.

your not travelling within 8 weeks are you? becuase that makes it a bit harder also.

I have already tried this she called someone called **** when we where there and advised that is was because of health issues and we would like to change destinations but **** said we cannot change destinations, change the tickets names or cancel the tickets.

I then came home and phoned Emirates and spoke to two very helpful agents and they said their contract with first choice has nothing printed in the cancellations/refunds terms and conditions so it was down to first choice but emirates were willing to refund to the travel agent. The travel agent in Falkirk said she spoke to the same person at Emirates I did and they confirmed there was no problem about issuing a refund but it was down to First Choice, so she went away and called Heather again who still said no.

I spoke to an Emirate supervisor again tonight and she said we were to get First Choice to issue a cancellation notice to them and they would refund the money to them.

Do you think it better if I go in tomorrow and try again?

thanks

sandra

yes, definatly. it sounds like you've got the agent onside, but its flexi that are refusing to budge.
the agent needs to speak to a supervisor at flexi, or someone even higher up. becuase there is some issue somewhere with the communication between flexi travel and the airline.
but if flexi keep refusing, then this leaves the agent powerless to help. they can only refund something/change something upon recieveing an invoice from flexi to show the change.
i can see how they probably cant cancel and do a full refund, but cant see why the destination cant be amended with emerates implying its a flexible fare.

Thank you I will go and see them tomorrow morning and let you know the outcome.

Hi beccafcr

I have just returned from the Travel Agent and yes you are right the flights have been booked through First Choice FlexiTravel.

I got another agent called Christine and she was really helpful but as you said at the end of the day it is now to the main office.
One agent she got through to said yes we can cancel at £55 per flight ticket and £50 per person for the hotel a total loss of £410 but we would still get £2700 back which i thought was great. They transferred Christine to the person who would do the paper work to be told the flight ticket cancellation cost would be £1473.62 I said no as the tickets only cost us £1778.00 so she said she could take something of it and the lowest she could go to was £1207.00 plus £200 for the hotel cancellation.

I asked for the terms and conditions on cancelling as Emirates advised they were willing to refund and it would be between £25 and £55 for adminstration work. but she said they were not willing to give us the terms and conditions and they should have been issued and explained on the day of booking which they were not.

Christine checked the back office and in a file for us is the confirmation invoice dated 16.01.08 which the dates of flights and yes the booking summary was wrong.

She has also printed me of our e-tickets and it has Flexitravels number on it so I am away to phone them.

thanks

sandra

Hi beccafcr

I have tried to speak to Flexitravel customer services direct but they will not talk to me directly it has to be the shop who calls them due to the data protection act. Is this true?

I was right the booking summary was wrong on the cofirmation invoice we were given this morning it has the right dates, i wonder if the hotel is booked right.

on the e-ticket it says fare type:economy restricted.

***Sorry but we can allow the copied text due to copyright restrictions***

but again I do not know if this is the right terms and conditions.

its true they wont speak to you directly. Thats accurate.

if it says economy restricted then that would imply to me that there are very limited changes that can be made to the flight ticket, if any at all.
However, the fare rules should have been explained to you at the time of booking. I fear this is the only argument you have now. that if you had been advised at time of booking that you couldnt make any changes to the fare, then you may have booked a different kind of ticket.
The rules definatly should have been advised at time of booking.

So at first they said you could cancel at £50 then they changed their mind??

Hi

Last week they said we could NOT cancel and loose the lot no refunds are available and no tranfers to another place or change the name on the tickets.

Today they said we could cancel and it would be £55.00 per person so we were transferred to the relevant department but she then worked it out to be £1472 which includes taxes etc. Travel Agent advised that was a lot to loose so the cancellations said they would reduce the cancellation fee to £1207 and that was the best they could do. The hotel will allow us cancel at a cost of £200 (£50 each).

on there website http://www.fcflexitravel.co.uk it has cancellations/refunds for Unijet but it says it is subject to the fare condiditons but I cannot find this.

Is there someone else we can contact?

the fare conditions are what should have been explained to you at time of booking.

you said it says restricted fare, so usualy that implies limited or no changes.

and have they said you definatly cannot amend to a different destination with emerites?

After this, the only option I can see is to write a complaint letter to retail customer services, detailing how unhappy you are with the service you have recieved and mention: no visa advice, no injection advice, fare rules on tkts not explained leading to you possibley loosing a lot of money and that your booking forms have never had the correct information on there either.
Unfortunatly, going down this road means waiting for a repsonse that can take 28 days.