Jet2.com seat selection charge **WON**

[jackboy]

Hi

 

Does anyone else think this is unfair?

 

Me, my friend and her son flew with Jet2.com on Sunday 28 October 2007 to Murcia Airport and came back on Thursday 1 November 2007. A few days before we went, as their planes are only small, we decided to take advantage of the seat selection charge of £3 each = £18 in total.

 

Got to Manchester airport to check in and were told by the desk assistant that the seats we'd prepaid and booked were not available, and were given different seats. This happened again on the way home from Murcia and the desk assistant suggested that we write to Jet2.com and query why they offer you the chance to preselect your seats but then you don't get them.

 

In their terms they state this:-

 

3.6.1 We will endeavour to honour advance seating requests made on our on-line facility, but we cannot guarantee any particular seat and we reserve the right to assign or reassign seats at any time, even after boarding of the aircraft. This may be necessary for operational, safety or security reasons. Seat selection charges are strictly non-refundable. Should you change the date of your flight booking these seat selection charges are non-transferable.

 

The flights were fine, but surely if you have paid extra for a service, and don't get it, an automatic refund should happen. There were 156 seats on each plane and if even half of those seats had been prebooked and then not allocated correctly, they have made £234 for nothing!

 

I am going to write to them and request a refund of the charges but would it help if I quoted the Sale and Supply of Goods and Services Act? I was thinking of asking for the operational, safety or security reasons as to why the original seats booked were not available, as quoted in their terms.

 

Thanks

 

Karen

[NailPost]

I assume you chose the extra legroom seats near the emergency exits. The only time I have seen people moved from these seats are if they are elderly, infirm or simply unwilling to act properly in the event of an emergency.

 

The terms in the small print appear to be extremely misleading and could be termed unfair. Thy seem to say - you pay your money but don't expect anything in return.

[jackboy]

Hi Nailpost

 

No, didn't chose the extra legroom seats but when you've booked seats, you can go back on and chose whereabouts on the plane you want to sit. I didn't want us to arrive at the check-in desks to be told that they didn't have three seats together so booked them on-line instead.

 

We did sit together but not in the seats we chose so what was the point of booking them in the first place?

 

Been on the Office of Fair Trading website and found the regulations about unfair terms so will put them in my letter and send it registered delivery to them.

 

Thanks for replying.

 

Karen

[bigkacker]

Good luck, I have heard a lot of people with complaints about low cost airlines never even getting a response.

 

If you are as tight and as awkward as I am, I would be prepared to send them a summons. This is a breach of contract fair and square you paid your money for the pre-selected seats. I would deem their clause to be an unfair contract term and also an imablance in the contractual rights.

[NFMac]

Two questions...why is the term unfair? And where is your loss?

 

I assume you had access to those terms and conditions before you booked and before you paid your supplement? Why didn't you challenge them before hand? Just because you're now not happy with those terms does not mean they were unfair.

 

You sat together. Just because you were in a different row or something hardly makes a big difference. There's no loss (I don't count the supplement paid, as you were sat together which is the main thing).

 

There are plenty of reasons why they may choose to reallign seats (different plane, people not being fit to sit in the emergency exits, yield-management (or overbooking to give it its less pleasant name!).

 

Easyjet makes money by charging for all non-essential extras and then having a policy of not issuing refunds unless there's a clear breach of contract. This keeps prices down and has created greater competition against the monopoly national carriers which has been of benefit to the consumers. Their policy on refunds is very well known.

[jackboy]

Dear NFMac

 

So if you bought an item from a shop that consisted of several parts and then when the item was supplied, some parts were missing, if the shop had written in their terms that they had the right to withhold some of the parts you had paid for without giving you a reason, that's ok? You don't know why we wanted to choose our seats and I am not prepared to discuss this any further with you.

 

I find your attitude rather rude and as a result, I will not enter into any further discussions with you. Most of the other comments you have posted in reply to other posters' queries, have been quite rude and patronising and seem to be attempting to draw them into an argument and I will not be party to this type of discussion.

 

P.S. Your attitude has made me decide to query it with Jet2.com - Thanks!

[johans]

you will probably find that nfmac works in the industry, the only negative replies i received on my thread were from those connected to the travel/holiday industry. take it all the way!

[NFMac]

Why am I rude? Because I disagree?

 

Anyway...to follow your anaolgy...I'm sure that if you 'bought something from a shop' and found that, for example, a red button had been replaced by a blue button would it really matter?

 

Anyway...go ahead and progress your complaint. Much better to just listen to all the posts saying 'take it all the way' and forget any that may suggest that your complaint isn't as water-tight as you may have first thought.

[NailPost]

I am a frequent traveller - air, rail and sea - and when I buy an airline ticket I assume it includes a seat on the aircraft.

 

If I am offered the opportunity to select my seat in advance in exchange for a fee I expect that seat to be available to me on board the aircraft. Only in exceptional circumstances, such as the substitution of the aircraft for a different type, would I accept the alteration.

 

Any deviation from that has to be considered to be a breach of contract on the part of the airline and to refuse to refund the money because of the terms and conditions laid out has to be declared unfair.

[jackboy]

Hi Nailpost

 

Thanks for your support.

 

Wouldn't be surprised if NFMac is along soon, disagreeing with you.

[willsmiller]

Hi Jackboy!

this is really unfair and you can sue against this because few laws secure the consumers against these types of acts.

But, lot of other but cheap airlines are offering better services and not doing these types of acts.

[willsmiller]

Hi Jackboy!

this is really unfair and you can sue against this because few laws secure the consumers against these types of acts.

But, lot of other but cheap airlines are offering better services and not doing these types of acts.

[willsmiller]

Hi

Hi Jackboy!

this is really unfair and you can sue against this because few laws secure the consumers against these types of acts.

But, lot of other but cheap airlines are offering better services and not doing these types of acts.

[jackboy]

Hi All

 

Just received a letter from Jet2.com this morning saying that they will be refunding me the £18 I paid to prebook our seats!

 

"We are very sorry to learn that whilst checking in for your flijts at both Manchester and Murcia Airports, your seats were not allocated as you had requested. This was due to the particular aircrafts you flew on having slightly different seating configurations and we suspect the incorrect seating plans were used. We apologise for any inconvenience or discomfort this caused and please be assured that this is being followed up with our appointed Ground Handling Company at both Airports.

 

Under the circumstances, we are of course happy to refund the payment made for the affected seat bookings of £18. A request has been sent through to our Accounts Department to process this refund to the payment card used to make your seat selection."

 

So thank you to the people who agreed that this was an unfair practice, and also thanks to whoever disgreed and thought it was fair because you gave me the push to write and query it with Jet2.com

 

I have to say that I would fly with Jet2.com again as we had no other issues with them, in fact, we left 30mins early coming home so got into Manchester at 9pm instead of 9.30pm, but wouldn't bother prebooking seats again.

 

Thanks

 

Karen

[jackboy]

Hi All

 

Just wanted to let everyone know that Jet2.com paid the refund for the seat selection charge of £18 back into my account on the 30th November. They took their time, letter dated 20th saying they would refund and refunded 10 days later. Of course, when I paid the charge originally, they took it straightaway! But at least I got it back.

 

Karen

[Bookworm]

Well done!