HB,

Unfortunately this is nothing to do with Dialaflight, and everything to do with the airline. Kenyan have changed most of their ticket conditions, and required all tickets held with them to be issued early, or re-booked at new, higher fares. For the tickets to be issued, Dialaflight required full payment.

The end result would have been the same no matter who you brought the tickets with. And airlines changing ticket deadlines is so common, it would have been covered in the terms and conditions you agreed to. And it is also for this reason that you won't get your deposit back.

However, it does sound like they have dealt with it badly. They could have a) offered to book you on an alternate airline b) advised how much the new price would have been c) been helpful and actually advise it was the airlines fault.

I hope that helps explain, albeit probably not the answer you wanted.

hi,

they did tell me it was kenya airways fault, but I cant see anywhere in the T&C's about not being able to get my deposit back for this reason, or maybe I am just reading it all wrong?

thankfully my deposit is very small, and transferable, but thats not the point as there isnt really anywhere else i want to go to.

A small observation here - this sounds like Kenyan are desperate for ready cash. If you pay up now I'd make sure you have scheduled airline failure cover in your insurance !!

hi,

I thought that too Steve, dialaflight are really not handling this well at all though, the guy I was speaking to told me he was going to call back and this was around 10am, so I have just called back and hes like "oh yeah, my manager said I could bring the payment down to £xxx" i'm thinking well why on earth didn't you call me?!?!

I then asked to point out where exactly in the T&C it says this can be done, and all he could say was "umm, it must be there somewhere" sO I said I am sure it is, but please point me to to, so thats what he has gone off to do, lets see if I get a call back.

Im not too sure how to play this now, as it may go very wrong nearer the time if I go with Kenya airways, I knew I should have just booked with Virgin as a package and left it at that.

this is a similar problem to Hoxtenbabe's above

on 20th february 09 I booked 2 return flight seats with Kingfisher Airline to Goa with Dialaflight and paid 75 GPB each deposit with the remainder of the money to be paid on 30th september. Now this was fine with me as we had just returned from Goa (flying with Kingfisher) so did not have all the money. This gave us a chance to save up, and the person who I dealt with assured me that Dialaflight have two types of account with Kingfisher and we were on the deposit account and this would not be altered in any way.
They sent me an email confirming dates, times, routes, and payments made and left to pay. So that was sorted.

Today I get home and hubby says Dialaflight phoned to say we had to pay rest of money today and could I phone them. When I looked at my emails Dialaflight had sent me one saying flight seats were cancelled today. Phoned them and they told me Kingfisher had cancelled the seats NOT Dialaflight without any prior notice to them or us. That is why they phoned us today. They didn't know the reason why Kingfisher had cancelled either. BUT they could re-book seats at a higher price as the fares had gone up since we originally booked. I said we didn't have any money to pay upfront for re-booking and I wanted my deposit back. He said that he would phone Kingfisher and talk with his Manager to try and sort something out and will phone me back monday evening.

So to sum up - Dialaflight have 150 GBP of our money, Kingfisher have cancelled our seats so no flights, we can re-book on same flights but fare is dearer.
Just what do I do with this situation please?

Update to post above, just had an email asking for full payment of NEW seats on same flights at much dearer price 200 GBP more and they wanted this payment yesterday. So we must pay TODAY. We do not have the money at the moment, and the other chap I spoke last evening supposed to be sorting this problem out and phoning me monday evening, but I do not trust Dialaflight at all now. Need some advice urgently please, if someone can help.

Many thanks, Silver Angel

Unless you recorded all your calls to them you've probably only got the two options - pay up or get your money back and start again with someone else.

I've done a Google search for complaints and dialaflight. The results broke down into two groups. Most people were happy with them but those who weren't all had this type of problem. Buried in a query to the Guardian about 8 years ago is a clue to what is happening. Their advice pointed to dialaflight getting people onto standby lists and hoping to get the quoted fare, the danger of this is that if the flight books up you lose, and if the flight is cancelled you were never on it so aren't entitled to rebooking at the same price on another. If you can prove that dialaflight said you had a confirmed booking (with "OK" status) then you would have a claim - which is why you would need recordings. What you say (or think/assumed) they said is not relevant - if you haven't got it taped you won't get anywhere.

The advice from the Guardian to others seems sensible. If you book with a company like dialaflight contact the airline a little later and ask them whether you have "OK" status or are on a waiting list. I would also suggest you ask the agent this question before giving your card number - if they suddenly go hesitant you can decide whether to continue with them.

thankfully they only have £70 of my money, and they have agreed to transfer my deposit to any other flight as i have it in writing, although the the manager who said that he would put it in writing yesterday that he has to honour this as the standard agent do not have a clue and hes still has not sent it to me so I have to get on his case about it as unless he has put it on my file nobody else will know what is going on.

I have just booked a package to kenya now with hayes and Jarvis, so much easier and there is none of this nonsense of telling you one minute you have months to pay and then the next you have to pay all upfront. I can only presume its also the timing of us booking, I think maybe if we had booked in say May when the new fares/contract would have already been released and I presume not reviewed again till next year then the price would have stayed as originally quoted ( i could be very wrong here???)

Thanks for the advice Steve, that seems like a sensible plan, although i will never be using dialaflight again

Silver angel, if you have a transferable deposit like mine, you may be able to use it towards a little cheap trip or something, even if it means I have to go to france for the day I will use mine as I refuse to simply "give away" my money to them without any form of benefit or enjoyment for me!

Please keep us posted :-)

Whoa there..!!

They've taken a deposit against the sale of something they can't actually get for you (tickets at the price they quoted) and you're not demanding it be returned???? Even if they class it as a booking fee, which is something touched on in the T&Cs on their site, they still failed to perform the service. If you phoned someone like Ticketmaster to book for a concert and they called back to say it was sold out but they were still charging the booking fee would you let them get away with it?

Don't let them get away with this, if they say it's in their T&Cs refer them to the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations . You can read (in plain English!) about this useful bit of law at http://www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/consumers/fact-sheets/page38609.html

Any hassle, contact Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06 who can give more advice and bring in the relevant Trading Standards Office. As I said earlier, the web has shown there are many examples of them not securing the tickets they promised so if they hang on to the deposits like this they need investigating.

I found consumer direct rather useless in all honesty, the last person I spoke to just told me to keep trying. personally for me, it worked out ok, as due to all this nonsense I ended up finding an even better deal, yes they still have my £70 which I would rather not them have as I dont want to do any more business with then, but I am always going somewhere or another anyway so will just use it towards that, I may still persue it though, my main concern was that they were going to keep my deposit without it even being allowed to be used on a different flight.