Unexpected charges on travel ticket

Tosca

Hi,

Can anybody help with this?

My boyfriend and I booked tickets for Hong Kong, Sidney, New Zealand and
Bangkok on January with a travel agent. Last week we went to pay the full
amount for the tickets, and we were told that the airlines taxes have
gone up, because the increase on petrol prices, so the total price now was increased by 90 euros each! Because the airline never gave a warning to the travel agent, we never got a warning that the price have
been increasing so much now. Is this legal? Can the airlines put the
taxes up like this without warning? And shouldn't the travel agent have warned
us about this, when it started to happen? I asked the travel agent where
could I complain about this, and they told me to go to the airline's web
page. This would be Aerlingus, BA and Qantas.

What do you think? Do I have a point complaining about this? And if so,
where would it be the best place to send my complain to? I doubt I would
get a satisfactory answer from the airlines, so I’m enquiring with the consumer association of Ireland tomorrow.

The second issue is that when paying the full amount for the ticket and
giving the number and names in our passports, we were told my second
surname should be included in the travel ticket, as it is the way
it appears in my passport, and otherwise I could be refused entrance to some countries. We have been charged 50 euros to do this today. They say it is standard charge for contacting the Airlines, but the tickets haven’t been issued yet. Is this right? My boyfriend’s second name appears in his passport but they didn’t say anything about adding it to his ticket.

Can anybody please give any advice on this? Am I just paranoid or are these things normal? Because, I am finding all this unexpected extra charges really distressing and unfair.


Thanks

Tosca

penexpers

Yup, it's in the airlines T+C that you may be required to pay extra taxes. Generally it doesn't happen but sometimes it does. I've known for people to arrive at airports and be charged extra taxes and charges for a flight they were taking that day.

As for the name change, it's standard that airlines charge for it even before the tickets are issued (don't forget Ryanair don't even issue tickets yet charge for name changes). It's probably best that the name on the ticket is the same as the name on the passport, especially in these 9/11 days. Why they didn't say anything about your boyfriends passport though is something you'll have to ask the travel agent though.

Tosca

Yes, you are right, according to the office of consumer affairs, once is in the booking conditions, the law is on their side. They also told me there is no limit to the amount of the increase. So people be warned! I guess I should consider myself lucky they only put the price up 90 euros :rolleyes:
But I still feel that I should have been warned about such a huge increase.

About the adding a second surname I was told to contact the Irish Association of Travel agents, and I was told more or less the same, it is up to the travel agency how much they decide to charge to add a name.

I don't know, all this may be legal but definitely not fair

Thanks again for your reply

Tosca

erin

If the ticket hasn't been yet issued, your travel agency could try to do a new booking and if they got the same fare or even less, they could cancel the original booking and issued the new booking without you paying an extra EUR 50.00 for name change. It could happen that you got a better fare but it could as well be much higher.

Bloody*Mary

All taxes are based on exchange rates as 99% of them are levied by the countries you are visiting only about €10.00 are Irish taxes so they literally change daily, until your ticket is paid for in full and issued you are subject to pay whatever the taxes are on that day. It's mainly fuel surcharges that are causing all the tickets to go up at the moment as the airlines are having to pay more for fuel and are therefore passing it onto you . The only way to avoid any of the above is booking your ticket and paying for it in full at the same time then no matter what they go up you aren't liable.
€50.00 might sound like alot to you for a name change but if you are using three different airlines that's three times the work for the travel agent ,they have to get on touch with the airlines(not as easy as it sounds !!) get authorization to change it from each one see, if they have a charge and once that all comes back ok they then have to get onto the CRS company to actually change it ...it is very very time comsuming so it's only natural they would have to charge.