Help re possible scam holiday site and the right thing to do

[herecomesthsun]

Hi, I booked some flights to go and see family at Christmas, on the web. I had thought I booked them on skyscanner, but in fact booked on eSky (I was very tired but was trying to get this sorted out)

The payment took a little while pending. Meanwhile, I noticed it was Esky and looked them up on Trust Pilot - they have very bad reviews.

I spoke to my bank, as I was worried, and they said that in fact the payment didn't go through. This is probably because the company wasn't signed up to the bank's authentication schemes. If the company tries to put the payment through again, it will be blocked again. The bank suggested I book more flights.

However, I checked on the (budget) airline website and the flights are definitely booked.

So I am not sure what to do now - I don't want to go with eSky, and there might well be problems with them getting my boarding card to me, etc., but they do seem to have booked the flights. I can't pay them if my bank is blocking the transaction. I don't want 2 sets of flights in my name.

Good advice would be very welcome.

Posted here for traffic, thanks.

It’s no consolation and it’s not specific to Esky but I bought flights through a similarly dodgy-sounding broker over the summer for London - USA travel. Getaflight.com…they bombarded me with badly worded messages about upgrades and alternatives, sprang a last minute baggage allowance drama on me, and I had to be very firm to just get the flights I had booked. They even booked a random flight I didn’t want (when I logged into the United Airline app, the flight id booked was there, but so was another random flight). They also spelled my name “MrsFirstname Lastname” - like, with my title mashed into it rather than in a separate field - and refused to change it, saying it was airline policy (which it patently isn’t, all airlines tell you to carefully match your passport info) what a stress.

Anyway. I was so worried but needn’t have been - everything went according to plan.

Tickety-boo, you might say (sorry)

But you won't be going with esky, you'll be going with the airline that you can see you've booked with. As long as you can see on their website you have a booking, and can check in etc, you'll be fine. Are you sure your bank hasn't since let the payment go through? Seems odd that on the airline website you have a booking. Could you ring them directly?

I just phoned the airline directly. Apparently I do have a firm booking (probably on the basis of a credit payment by esky). If there is any problem with that payment going through, the airline will email me directly and sort everything out directly with me, which will suit me just fine. They suggested I wait a couple of days to see what happens. Thanks for the comments.