Dreading a Section 75

[BajiNahid]

Hi all,

I am dreading having to file a section 75 with the Barclays avois plus card. I booked a ticket through an OTA on sky-scanner as it was a very cheap and cheerful ticket, -i know its frowned upon here in the HFP community- however it was too cheap for me not to miss out.

Long story short, flew the outbound with Qatar absolutely fine, however inbound into Manchester hell hath came.
Was in Sydney ‘area’ and I was going to be flying back into Manchester. I had called up the OTA to reschedule my flight 3 weeks prior to my original flight as baby wasn’t as well and I just wanted to get home. Paid £390 for the changes. Upon arrival into Sydney airport, i could not check in as my flights appearing on the computer system were for the original dates and there was no sign whatsoever for the new dates that i had requested to be booked onto. The agent tried his best but told me to contact the OTA and in the meantime, I was denied boarding. I called up the OTA who tried to sort out my ticket for the flight as I was screaming down the phone at them to get me on that new flight that I had booked, but alas check in closed and i had to take a 3 hour taxi back from Sydney with an unwell baby back home and come back the next day.

The OTA sorted me out with a new ticket for the next day and i flew home back to manchester.

I have now been trying to contact the OTA and getting to reimburse my expenses for their failure in not giving me what i can describe is ‘a valid ticket’ and therefore i am requesting a refund of the price that I had to pay to reschedule.

Do i stand a chance, and more importantly, after hearing horror stories with how Barclays deals with Section 75 claims has anyone had any experience with them here?

Would appreciate any help!

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

I don’t see any of this as a s75 issue.

Whilst there were issues with your ticket the extra fee was apparenetly correctly charged to you and you agreed to pay it.

Expenses such as taxis to / from the airport would come under your travel insurance.

[Aston100]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune.
Which one of the many dodgy OTAs on Skyscanner did you use, and did you not bother checking all the horror stories that are plastered all over every travel related site?

I hope you get this resolved successfully, (and don’t take this personally) but honestly I have no empathy for anyone that is a regular on travel sites and who then uses a dodgy OTA of the type that are found all over Skyscanner.

Sorry.

[Anna]

I’m also confused as did you not have new tickets (or at least confirmation of such?)

[JDB]

Unfortunately you have discovered why the tickets are ‘cheaper’ the hard way. I can’t see that you have any s75 claim, but you can possibly try on insurance but that’s a long shot. If people insist on using these dodgy agents you really need to check the (re)booking, ticket issue etc. well before travel to resolve problems early.

[Ladyshopper]

No advice on this particular incident, but in relation to Barclays, I have a Barclaycard and had to do a claim at the start of Covid. It was pretty slow (no surprise really, pretty much the whole world closed down and they were inundated) but it was dealt with fine.

I think it was dealt with by chargeback rather than S75 in the end, although they confirmed they would have done that if required. Other than speed I had no problems at all.

[memesweeper]

+1

I’ve only made one s75 claim, it was with Barclaycard, and it was resolved painlessly, albeit slowly.

[BajiNahid]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

I don’t see any of this as a s75 issue.

Whilst there were issues with your ticket the extra fee was apparenetly correctly charged to you and you agreed to pay it.

Expenses such as taxis to / from the airport would come under your travel insurance.

I was happy to pay the fees that is not the point i am making here, i paid the fees and fare difference upon thinking that i would get a new ticket with the newly rescheduled date. I put in my booking reference/PNR in the QR/BA website and both websites showed my flights. However when i got to the airport they said there is no ticket dated for the newly rescheduled flight but they could only see the original date of departure.

I was going to claim as it was a loss in service that should have been provided.

[BajiNahid]

Aston100 wrote:

Sorry to hear of your misfortune.
Which one of the many dodgy OTAs on Skyscanner did you use, and did you not bother checking all the horror stories that are plastered all over every travel related site?

I hope you get this resolved successfully, (and don’t take this personally) but honestly I have no empathy for anyone that is a regular on travel sites and who then uses a dodgy OTA of the type that are found all over Skyscanner.

Sorry.

It was flight catchers, i did check all the horror stories, however the flight to sydney return for my child and I was only £569 so i jumped on it. Unfortunately however, whilst expected, i did not expect to be turned away as I paid for the service and this was not provided (did not issue new ticket numbers or something alike?)

[BajiNahid]

Anna wrote:

I’m also confused as did you not have new tickets (or at least confirmation of such?)

I got conformation for my ticket, i even went on the BA/QR website and saw the dates were changed and the ticket numbers were the same as to my previous tickets. It all looked ready to go. It was only when I was at the check in desk, where the agent told me that I do not have a flight on the day and in fact its in 1 months time (the original date)

[BajiNahid]

JDB wrote:

Unfortunately you have discovered why the tickets are ‘cheaper’ the hard way. I can’t see that you have any s75 claim, but you can possibly try on insurance but that’s a long shot. If people insist on using these dodgy agents you really need to check the (re)booking, ticket issue etc. well before travel to resolve problems early.

No i completely agree, but the issue is that I was willing to pay the fare difference and change fee, and thats okay. But its the fact that when I turned up to the airport, the agent said there is no ticket with the date of travel but i can only see your old dates (original reservations) and hence i was denied boarding. But i paid for the date change? Does that make sense?

[BajiNahid]

Ladyshopper wrote:

No advice on this particular incident, but in relation to Barclays, I have a Barclaycard and had to do a claim at the start of Covid. It was pretty slow (no surprise really, pretty much the whole world closed down and they were inundated) but it was dealt with fine.

I think it was dealt with by chargeback rather than S75 in the end, although they confirmed they would have done that if required. Other than speed I had no problems at all.

Thanks for letting me know, i will look into this!

[BajiNahid]

memesweeper wrote:

+1

I’ve only made one s75 claim, it was with Barclaycard, and it was resolved painlessly, albeit slowly.

Many Thanks!

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

BajiNahid wrote:

I was happy to pay the fees that is not the point i am making here, i paid the fees and fare difference upon thinking that i would get a new ticket with the newly rescheduled date. I put in my booking reference/PNR in the QR/BA website and both websites showed my flights. However when i got to the airport they said there is no ticket dated for the newly rescheduled flight but they could only see the original date of departure.

I was going to claim as it was a loss in service that should have been provided.

That is the difficulty you will have with an s75 claim.

The service was ultimatly provided as you did get a new flight. True with some difficulty and not on the original date but the s75 test is did you get what you paid for? And the answer to that is apparently yes.

s75 does not cover poor customer service.

Now you could call Barclaycard and put it to them but IMHO they would turn you down for both s75 and chargeback

[slidey]

How much cheaper was the ota than booking direct?

If the s75 test is did you get what you paid for tho, it might be argurable that they didnt get what they paid for as they paid for x date and instead got x date+1?

[Carlos]

+1 still waiting for an outcome from June/July from Barclaycard

[Rich_A]

I don’t see why a S75 claim wouldn’t succeed?

The OP paid for a date change, and didn’t get what had been agreed and paid for. Barclaycard + agent are jointly liable for that.

I would keep the communication simple. Ignore the travel costs (claim these from your insurance if poss) and don’t talk about shoddy customer service.

“I paid £390 to change the dates to X. The ticket wasn’t correctly changed, and I was unable to fly on X.”

[JDB]

Rich_A wrote:

I don’t see why a S75 claim wouldn’t succeed?

The OP paid for a date change, and didn’t get what had been agreed and paid for. Barclaycard + agent are jointly liable for that.

I would keep the communication simple. Ignore the travel costs (claim these from your insurance if poss) and don’t talk about shoddy customer service.

“I paid £390 to change the dates to X. The ticket wasn’t correctly changed, and I was unable to fly on X.”

The OP paid £390 to change the date of the return and he did get a changed ticket albeit one day later than he had hoped. He received the service that he paid the change fee for. He is effectively seeking seeking to be compensated for extra costs incurred following that ticketing error. That is not a contractual claim, so s75 shouldn’t apply and a chargeback not possible.

[Lady London]

Hi Baji

Is there any reason you’re not looking at insurance as your first thought on this?

What, exactly, was your loss on this?

Unlike JDB, who knowing my luck will probably turn out to be a Queen’s Counsel ..oops King’s Counsel, I do think your issue is a contractual issue.

The service you purchased was not performed in a workmanlike manner, to use a legal-type word. Namely, the service purchased being the changing of your reservation *and* reissuing of your ticket so you could fly on the selected new date. This was not done properly, as there was no sign of the work having been completed when you went to take your flight.

What, specifically, was your net loss?
eg Did you have to pay again cost of taxi, cost of extra meals/travel/hotel/comms while new flight was sorted out, etc

I’d look first to ‘travel delay’ or similar insurance clause, then look at getting extra costs from agent that didn’t do the job properly. [Likely to be a big mess but may not be impossible. But quite a few reasons why it might be impractical.] And, as last alternative, s75 on the basis that you’ve said – you did not get what you paid for.

However technically you’d have to have a figure you can justify for ‘cost of repair’ ie what extra cost you incurred getting the shoddy work done on your reservation, completed to the standard that you paid for ie a flight you could take, and try for consequential expenses incurred extra during the time needed to repair the faulty work ie get you booked on a flight and reach it.

Insurance would be defo where I’d start.
Travel agent may just not pay, could be in impossible to touch or immune jurisdiction etc. If they’re UK based obvs better chances but a lot of work to pursue with lots of risk factors for outcome.

I can see it as a s75 claim you could argue, but if you’ve got an insurance policy then identifying your loss(es) under its various sections and claiming on insurance is absolutely what I’d do.

This must have been upsetting when you took reasonable steps as a layman and were then denied your flight so please let us know how you get on.

[aq.1988]

OP, how long have you been trying to get it resolved with the OTA?

Depending on how long its been, I would then try travel insurance.

S75/chargeback would be my last resort. As you can see in this thread there’s different views on whether the service you paid for was provided or not.

The OTA could argue you paid for them to get you to Manchester, and obviously your case is that you paid the £390 to get you back on the date you requested, not 1 day later. Personally, I feel like you didn’t get what you paid for, but thats only my opinion.

The extra costs like taxis, meals, hotel etc are all for travel insurance.

Hope you get a positive outcome.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Lady London wrote:

The service you purchased was not performed in a workmanlike manner, to use a legal-type word.

But ‘workmanlike’ does not mean perfection.

It’s one of those rather ill defined words and phrases like ‘reaasonable’ and ‘best endeavours’ and open to a lot of interpretation becauae they are so subjective.

Your idea of reasonable may not be mine.

And that’s one of the issues here. The service (reticketting) was ultimatly received even though it wasn’t perfect.

I do have sympathy with Baji being half way around the world with a sick child but I really do think s75 isn’t going to be his friend here,

But as I’ve already suggested he has nothing to lose by conacting them and just asking but he needs to be prepared for a ‘no’

[Lady London]

@BAflyerIHGstayer I think most people would recognise that when it comes to flights, flight date is of the essence. Therefore in the case of changing a flight date, doing what’s been instructed and paid for including getting the specific date right, is what would fulfil the standard of workmanlike.

So I think most judges would agree that in the case of the flight change service that was paid for, this work was not performed to a workmanlike standard.

This work was not done properly and @Bajinahid should not be out of pocket for any actual loss as a result.

Compensation for stress and trouble would be much harder, for practical reasons, to get, however much it might be due ethically.

Read my lips. We’re not disagreeing on the best thing to do, which is to pursue insurance, as by far the primary choice, for any actual loss.

I myself would have been tempted by such an OTA fare after 10 years with the benefit of HfP. But if the OP took it and didn’t take good insurance, then I’d find it hard to understand this.

[AJA]

I assume you had to pay a second time for the flights you actually took?

Just file the s75 claim for the changed tickets you made but didn’t receive. The worst that can happen is that the claim is refused, but if you explain clearly that you paid £390 to change the date and unfortunately were denied boarding because the tickets weren’t properly issued as they should have been and had to pay a second time then I can’t see why you wouldn’t be successful.

[JDB]

AJA wrote:

I assume you had to pay a second time for the flights you actually took?

Just file the s75 claim for the changed tickets you made but didn’t receive. The worst that can happen is that the claim is refused, but if you explain clearly that you paid £390 to change the date and unfortunately were denied boarding because the tickets weren’t properly issued as they should have been and had to pay a second time then I can’t see why you wouldn’t be successful.

There is no mention in the OP’s posts of paying the second time for the flight – just said he was looking for reimbursement of the expenses such as taxi back to where he had been staying when he couldn’t check in.