V-Flyer

Hoping someone can help!

This morning I booked what I thought was a great fare to Orlando next October - return flights for 5 people in PE for £3600, direct with VA on their website. Thankfully, at every stage of the booking process I took a screen shot of the pages, and all the way through the price was £3600. Even on the final page which was the "thank you for booking with VA" page, it stated that the price I had paid was £3600.

However, when I received my confirmation email around 5 minutes after making the booking, the price stated on there was £5800!!!! Clearly I was in a panic and immediately phoned Amex who confirmed that my card had been charged £5800! Does anyone know how this can possibly happen.?!

Of course I have been on the phone to Virgini who are at a loss as to explain how this has happened, other than to say the cheaper fare was no longer available - but how can they be allowed to let you think you are authorising one amount, and then charge anything they fancy to your card - £2.2k more in this case?! They have said that they will refund me but I'm very nervous at having to wait for 7 working days for this charge of almost £6k to clear from my Amex card!

why do you think someone here can help?

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I just wondered whether anyone had any experience of this happening with Virgin - is it common place for an airline to charge a certain amount online, to confirm the price on the completed booking page, and then change the price in the confirmation email? It seems totally wrong to me, to charge an amount to your card if you haven't authorised it, but I'm wondering if this is a common practice with airlines? Maybe someone with more experience of flight booking than me could advise?

No, sounds totally wrong to me.

As you booked less than 24 hours ago you are entitled to cancel for a full refund.

Out of interest, how much are the flights right now? It is conceivable that while you were in the process of booking, someone else beat you to it and nabbed "your" seats which, if they were the last remaining seats in the cheapest fare bucket, would push up the price for all 5 seats.

The fare I had booked was £750 pp - that was for PE both ways. So would have been a great deal.

Yes the fact that someone else may have nabbed them is conceivable I guess and I wondered if that was what had happened, but you would think that would flag up before getting the final Confirmation on screen that you have booked, have a booking reference number, and have paid the lower price. The flights have now gone up to £1200 pp!

Welcome to V-flyer.

I've seen prices change during the initial stages of the booking process but not once I've got to the entering of my details and payment stage so something has obviously gone very wrong with the VS system.

You did the right thing by flagging it up immediately with AMEX and calling VS.

Have VS said they will refund you the £2.2k (thus keeping your tickets)or have they cancelled the entire transaction meaning you have to start the booking process again?

Either way phone AMEX again and tell them what VS have said and they should put the relevant amount in 'suspense' so should it not be refunded until after your next statement is generated you won't be charged interest / fees on it.

Please let us know how you get on.

No they wouldn't refund the difference so we could keep the tickets - they said the only thing they would do was to cancel the booking and refund the full amount. I'm just hoping the refund goes smoothly - I don't like having £6k pending on my account and am really dreading the thought of having to chase it!

I would ask to speak to a supervisor especially if you have pictures. I had an issue a few years ago where the price changed at the end. The supervisor honoured the price. At the time Virgin were my airline of choice and I was gold so that may have helped. I was pretty impressed.

If you don't have any luck - then a full sale will start just after Christmas. Prices may have just gone up so they can go down again in the sale.

I sympathise as its so frustrating to think you have got a fare that then dissapears. Good luck.