The HfP chat thread – Tuesday 12th October

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• Gormlesstraveller says:

  12 Oct12 October 14:38

  Ryanair are refusing to convey passengers who did a Amex charge back.. Apologies if this has been covered already.

  • Pete M says:

    12 Oct12 October 14:51

    Slightly more nuanced than that – passengers who did chargebacks for flights that were operating. Quite a bold move nonetheless!

    • Doug M says:

      12 Oct12 October 15:13

      Just pay on the card and do chargeback again. I find it hard to believe that Ryanair would win this one. If they’re caught on this is little short of demanding with menace.

  • Rich says:

    12 Oct12 October 14:52

    Not only refusing. They appear to be deliberately waiting until check-in before surprising the pax with ‘repay your chargeback or you’re not flying today’. Childish behaviour. They lost the chargeback, should’ve defended it better.

    Hope the pax pursue Ryanair for denied boarding compo.

    • Pete M says:

      12 Oct12 October 14:54

      Ideal time to do it, with hotels, transfers, car hire waiting on the other side and hard to cancel even with generous cancellation policies. You have to give it to FR – they relish in doing people over!

      • Lady London says:

        12 Oct12 October 15:08

        Nasty, nasty, nasty.
        Why do people fly Ryanair.
        Why does anyone who flies Ryanair, let them get away with it.

        I’m sure some legislation has been prompted to be enacted, by Ryanair’s misdeeds and nastiness.

        • Lady London says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:15

          Hum…. also thinking perhaps once the denial of boarding claim is won, which shouldn’t be difficult at all, then perhaps this opens the door to a civil claim for compensation for the hotel and car hire expenses and any other expenses for a booking that are lost due to the denied boarding?

          With a bit of luck this could get very expensive for Ryanair.
          And Moneysavingexpert would pro bably like to hear about this too.

        • Rich says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:43

          They’re the biggest airline in Europe, and often the only airline flying a particular route. Sometimes there’s little other choice.

          It’s not all people picking them for cheap fares.

        • Anna says:

          12 Oct12 October 16:50

          People weren’t being faced with demands for the money at the airport – checking in is done days or even weeks before your flight with Ryanair. So I can’t see a denied boarding claim would be successful.

        • Lady London says:

          12 Oct12 October 16:58

          Anna they can get you if you need to drop bags though… which is about the same thing in terms of exposure to airline personnel and any records being retrieved, or flags seen, as check-in.

        • Anna says:

          12 Oct12 October 17:05

          LL – again I can’t see this happening. To be able to check in online they would have had to pay back the chargeback, so it’s unlikely they would have just been turning up and trying to use the luggage drop.

    • Lady London says:

      12 Oct12 October 15:13

      also duty of care for denied boarding.
      As highly likely a hotel and possibly repeated transport to the airport from hotel or wherever, is needed. Plus subsistence (3 meals per day) and comms expenses (eg internet).

      The compo for denied boarding is substantial.
      Ryanair only has to lose very few cases, to stop this.
      Anyone affected by this nastiness please keep us up to date.

      • @mkcol says:

        12 Oct12 October 18:18

        Why don’t you be the guinea pig?

        • Lady London says:

          12 Oct12 October 19:25

          well mkcol, for that I’d have to fly Ryanair wouldn’t I ?
          And that’s not happening

  • Andrew says:

    12 Oct12 October 14:53

    Could get interesting.

    Visa, Mastercard and Amex wouldn’t have processed the chargeback if they didn’t consider it to be valid. Perhaps the merchant companies should be temporarily withdrawing processing services if a company is defining a valid chargeback as fraud?

    • Richie says:

      12 Oct12 October 14:59

      They have a logic all of their owb.

  • Lady London says:

    12 Oct12 October 15:06

    Doesn’t that count as victimisation?
    Is that illegal?

    How low can Ryanair go.

    • Lady London says:

      12 Oct12 October 15:10

      Defo go for denied boarding as any other flight is nothing to do with this one.
      I’d call them on it – just for pure annoyance..
      not even sure this would be valid if they tried to work something into their ts and cs.

      • Pete M says:

        12 Oct12 October 15:16

        I think literally the only thing that works with Ryanair is court…

    • Rob says:

      12 Oct12 October 15:15

      Have you read it? People did chargeback on flights which were operating. They had no right to do that.

      This is NOT about cancelled flights, it is about operated flights. It is no different to doing a chargeback on theatre tickets because you changed you mind about going.

      Ryanair is 100% within its rights to do this.

      • Pete M says:

        12 Oct12 October 15:20

        I think it’s more about the way they are going about it, Rob – I personally agree the chargebacks shouldn’t have gone through, but this is nasty.

        • Lady London says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:23

          +1.
          The place for Ryanair to dispute that was the card company.
          Not to victimise the person on another flight, another date.

          I too agree that unless a “frustration” argument can be won, then a chargeback shouldn’t succeed. However, it did. (or will, or might). Who cares, Ryanair will get their comeuppance if people aren’t frightened and “call” them on these, really nasty, tactics.

        • JDB says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:47

          Ryanair did warn the passengers that they would do this and the passengers not only chose to book Ryanair again, but also to ignore the warning. Not very nice, but they have had the benefit of the chargeback to which they weren’t really entitled.

        • Paul Pogba says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:54

          You could argue taking money from a business on its knees is nasty. What goes around comes around.

        • JDB says:

          12 Oct12 October 16:39

          @Pete M Ryanair warned people at the time they threatened to make or made the chargebacks; this was reported at the time and it is also in their T&Cs that people have accepted in booking their new flights. The problem with chargebacks (from a merchant point of view) is that ultimately they end up being the card company’s decision and FR’s position is that the passenger owes them money.

      • jack charlton says:

        12 Oct12 October 15:43

        Not sure they are, they are effectively doing the same as the customer, if it was wrong for the customer, then it’s equally wrong to take payment for a flight and then refuse to allow the customer to board unless an unrelated matter is resolved on the spot.

        • Rob says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:51

          The customer agreed to the T&C which state that they cannot travel if they owe money to Ryanair.

        • Pete M says:

          12 Oct12 October 16:28

          How did FR warn passengers, JDB?

        • Lady London says:

          12 Oct12 October 17:01

          And if a chargeback has not been resolved in Ryanair’s favour , or even not been resolved yet, the customer does not owe Ryanair any money.

          I look forward to hearing the first accounts on here or moneysavingexpert, of Ryanair getting their just desserts on this. That will open the floodgates.

      • Rich says:

        12 Oct12 October 15:46

        Amex clearly thought the passengers were in the right, otherwise they wouldn’t have made the chargeback.

        The time to fight it was at the time of the dispute, not in retrospect. And certainly not selling tickets and deliberately waiting until the pax were at the airport to deny travel.

        • JDB says:

          12 Oct12 October 15:49

          We have never had a chargeback as a merchant, but I know that as a customer of Amazon, eBay, Amex, MasterCard they virtually always find in the customer’s favour even if that isn’t really the strict legal position. I’m sure we have all had that operate to our advantage without the merchant getting their revenge…

        • Anna says:

          12 Oct12 October 16:10

          Have to agree with Rob and JDB. If you book with FR (or indeed any airline) you need to be aware of the Ts and Cs. I had 2 cancelled FR flights during the pandemic; both were refunded within a couple of weeks and the process was much easier than trying to get a refund from BA. And ensure you have insurance for other eventualities. I’ve only ever had to do a chargeback once on an airline, and that was BA who were insisting they had refunded me £900 from a cancelled avios booking but hadn’t.

        • Anna says:

          12 Oct12 October 16:54

          I don’t think this was happening at airports, you check in with Ryanair online days or weeks before you travel, otherwise you can’t get your boarding cards (and have to pay a fortune for them at the airport). So it would have become apparent at this stage, I think.

      • Mouse says:

        12 Oct12 October 18:05

        The CMA said a few days ago that the legal position isn’t clear cut. It would have been illegal for the passengers to travel to take those flights during lockdown (unless they had a valid reason), which may have entitled them to a refund.

        • Jonathan says:

          12 Oct12 October 18:49

          You were allowed to leave the country to emigrate, for work, to view a property & other reasons. It wasn’t for the airline to determine if you were or were not permitted to board the plane. This was always an issue to be dealt with by your travel insurance so I can see why Ryanair would argue strongly it was not bound to refund for a flight that still took place.

        • Mouse says:

          12 Oct12 October 19:36

          @Jonathan I’m not going to argue about the legal position, but if the CMA spent months reviewing it and decided it was unclear then there are probably strong argments in both directions.

        • Rob says:

          12 Oct12 October 21:33

          Really? If you’re on police bail it’s illegal to take a flight. Reckon BA will refund you?

        • Mouse says:

          12 Oct12 October 22:22

          Hardly comparable Rob. It’s not unreasonable to me that if new legislation prevents you from using a service that you be refunded any prepayment you’ve made for it. But as I said, no idea what the law actually has to say on the matter.

      • Yorkieflyer says:

        12 Oct12 October 21:08

        Thank you Rob, a bit of common sense after the self entitled nonsense we’ve heard. The CMA abandoned their pursuit of both BA and Ryanair for not giving refunds for flights that operated, for people like me who were grateful that they maintained a service for folks who needed to travel. FR for example flying 17 pax to Newcastle from Spain last winter, I was gritting my teeth wondering what to do if they cancelled, but bless them they maintained a skeleton service.
        If you didn’t or couldn’t travel you could change flights FOC or heaven forbid have bought insurance.
        Charge back with no justification, serves you right.

      • Dean says:

        12 Oct12 October 22:44

        Ryanair cancelled my flights then put me on an earlier one and told me it wasn’t cancelled it was just a timing change. They are liars.

• KBuffett says:

  12 Oct12 October 14:38

  Booked BA 241 tickets and paid for seat selection in business (1A and 1B)

  Been notified that for operation reasons they’ve changed seats to 10A and 10B

  Can I get a refund on the fee paid for seat selection?

  • Lady London says:

    12 Oct12 October 15:11

    Make sure you do.
    I wouldn’t put up with it.
    No matter how they reduce classes on a flight, there’s always a Row 1.
    So….. it is a BA employee’s friend, or crew, that “needs” your seat?

    Let us know when you get the refund.

    • Jonathan says:

      12 Oct12 October 18:53

      Likely a swap for a plane with First. All of the 777’s with old CW seating & a First cabin have Row 10 as first row of business. It’s not actually the 10th row so you’ll still be in front row of business.

  • Yorkieflyer says:

    12 Oct12 October 21:19

    Ask for row 0 with the joystick, seriously check the seat map, row 10 is often the first J seats

• xcalx says:

  12 Oct12 October 14:44

  Do Marriott charge this fee on 7 night certs from the old packages. Cant see it getting extended beyond 3rd Jan, so may use it for a 3 night stay.

  ” Please note – A 2 percent local fee and 16 percent service will be charged to all reservations per room per night at check-in. “

  • xcalx says:

    12 Oct12 October 14:50

    Another hotel states.

    “Please note – Mandatory 9 percent resort fee will be charged per night or USD 15 per night for Marriott Bonvoy redemptions.”

    Can I assume hotel No1 has no fee for redemption bookings.

• ChrisC says:

  12 Oct12 October 14:47

  I’m furious.

  BA need to get their act together. Waited two and a half hour in chat to get to number 1 then another 20 minutes as number of then THEY cut me off saying “no agent” !!!!

  Ridiculous

• TedL says:

  12 Oct12 October 14:50

  DP. I posted yesterday about my son and his partner wanting to extend their stay in Portugal. He called BA this morning, took about 45 minutes to get through, and had his return flight moved for no charge, just cost 4,500 Avios, the difference between his original offpeak date and the new peak date.

• Matthew Peat says:

  12 Oct12 October 14:54

  I have a BA 2-4-1 voucher that expires in the 1st week of November and was trying the trick to extend it but had forgotten that you have to have valid AMEX card to pay taxes.

  I quickly applied and received my Gold card today. Although I’m confident there has been a 24 month gap between me last holding an AMEX card, I’m not absolutely sure. Is there a quick way to check whether the introductory bonus applies, or do you have to contact AMEX to check this?

  • Rob says:

    12 Oct12 October 15:16

    Ring them.

    Would have been easier to borrow an Amex off a mate though!

• Tom says:

  12 Oct12 October 15:04

  Can’t sign up to the telegraph student subscription using amex…says payment isn’t valid but underlying card is not blocked….

  • Paul Pogba says:

    12 Oct12 October 15:16

    A while back when I signed up one of my two Amex cards wouldn’t work. A month later after the first payment went out I swapped to the one I wanted to pay on. It seems to be temperamental. Could you pay with Amex using PayPal?

    • Tom says:

      12 Oct12 October 18:41

      not if I want the £20 credit from amex LOL

  • Jerry says:

    12 Oct12 October 15:25

    I had a problem with amex payment to Telegraph. Emailed Telegraph. They said clear cookies will fix it, and it did. So try clearing cookies (you’ll have to log in again).

  • David says:

    12 Oct12 October 15:55

    Lucky escape IMO

    • Paul Pogba says:

      12 Oct12 October 16:25

      The media in this country has become so bias (lying by omission rather than bare faced lies) if you’re not reading as many of them as you can you’re going to get a really slanted view.

      • Mouse says:

        12 Oct12 October 18:07

        Stick to HFP for your news!

  • Yorkieflyer says:

    12 Oct12 October 21:21

    Not sure why as a student you’d want the telegraph eek, I was perfectly happy with Viz

• Britbronco says:

  12 Oct12 October 15:13

  I sent a DM to Bonvoy Twitter about the missing bonus points from Creation.
  They said to contact the co-branded card team (I assume they mean Creation), and see if they have already sent the bonus points. If they have, then reply to Bonvoy again.
  Looks like I will need to contact Creation, but I’ll probably wait the rest of this week to see if they credit first.
  If Creation refuse to credit the bonus points, is this something I could complain to the FOS about?

  • Yorkie Aid says:

    12 Oct12 October 17:49

    If they don’t credit then make a formal complaint to Creation. They have eight weeks to respond. If you don’t like the response definitely take it to the FOS. These companies must learn that they can’t ride roughshod over consumer protection laws.

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