Travel agent issue

Sunny Dayz

First time to book a package holiday for ourselves through an online travel agent, have used this provider a number of times for my parent's holidays but never for ourselves, we usually book hotel and flights separately and directly.
But we booked recently one evening a hotel and flights. Woke the next morning to find an email from the travel agent to say that the price of the flights went up during our booking and now we had to pay a few hundred euro extra!
I don't understand how this can happen during our booking. Would the price not be revised when we move from booking to payment screen at least? I'm guessing that from when we booked that evening to when the travel agent processed the booking the following day there was a price increase, would that make sense? And should they pass on the subsequent price increase after the customer has booked on their side?

dudara

Sunny Dayz wrote: »

I'm guessing that from when we booked that evening to when the travel agent processed the booking the following day there was a price increase, would that make sense?

This seems like the most likely situation. Many of the agents book on your behalf later with the airline.

And should they pass on the subsequent price increase after the customer has booked on their side?

It's cr*ppy, but I suspect they have this situation covered in their Ts&Cs. Did you receive a copy of them, or see a copy, when making the booking?

Miaireland

Check the term and conditions that you agreed to first and then your confirmation email.

endofrainbow

With a lot of these ota, its technically an *invitation to purchase* and as many of them do not have live pricing. I agree that the price offered was not the same price as when it was time to process.

Atlantic Dawn

I suspect you can walk away from it too and rebook something else.

Sunny Dayz

Thanks guys.
Below are some extracts from their T's & C's:

Your booking is not confirmed until you receive a booking confirmation.

- We got the accommodation email confirm straight away but not the flights confirm.

It is important that you understand that payment at the time you are making your booking does not in itself mean that your booking is confirmed. Your booking is only confirmed when we send you our email confirmation of booking. Because we are making live reservations with travel providers we have to have the security that we have appropriate payment from you and hence your initial payment to us is your authority to us to confirm your booking with the travel provider.

- This is probably covering themselves.

We endeavour to ensure that the details of all products, including prices, displayed on our websites are accurate. However, given the high volume of flights, hotels and other products offered it is inevitable that, in exceptional cases, mistakes will arise. We cannot accept liability for these errors. This is because the information which you are shown is being transmitted effectively live from the relevant travel provider’s IT system.
Notwithstanding the above, in cases where details other than price are materially incorrect we will offer you the choice of continuing with your booking or cancelling with a full refund of money paid on that booking only.
Where inaccuracies relate to the understatement of the price of a specific product you will be offered either a full refund of money paid on that booking only or the opportunity to maintain that booking on receipt of the additional payment which is necessary.

The price advised to you at the time of booking is the final price, once the booking is confirmed, and will not be affected by price increases imposed by our Travel Providers or caused by currency fluctuations.

- Hmmmm....


As much as it would make sense to talk with our feet and cancel the booking and make other arrangements, the flights now are dearer than when we booked them and the accommodation we want is not showing any availabilities on their own website. To cancel now would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater as the old saying goes! Since my initial post I did speak to the travel agent, they kept saying that it's a live system and that prices can change, I understand what a live system is like for flights, I've booked flights many times and experienced price changes in a matter of minutes while browsing flights, I understand supply & demand! They agreed to a bit of a reduction in price but would not match my initial booking price.

endofrainbow

try a few different hotel search engines - they may have availability that others, including the hotel itself don't.