Unsure if I have flights booked or not!

[rogdmum]

I’m in a bit of a crazy travel situation. We’d booked flights to Orlando for this summer with Lastminute.com. These were cancelled by the airline last week so we’re going through the refund process. Last minute.com didn’t have a suitable alternative at a reasonable price but I found (actually better though a bit more expensive) flights on Opodo with Aer Lingus.

I received flight confirmation direct from Aer Lingus the next morning and was able to go into my bookings and select seats for the outward journey- ie everything looked fine. A few hours later, I received an email from Opodo saying they had been unable to process my booking and so it was cancelled but not to worry as no money had been taken from my bank/card.

I phoned Opodo who were actually good at trying to help. They tried to speak to Aer Lingus to find out if I did have a booking, but Aer Lingus wouldn’t speak to them and said I needed to phone.

So I phoned Aer Lingus who said everything was fine and I did have flights booked.

At this point, the transaction was showing as pending on my credit card.

Yesterday, I checked my credit card and the transaction has completely disappeared. There is no charge for the flights showing at all. Not pending. Not completed. It’s just not there.

I can still see my booking on the Aer Lingus website and Aer Lingus are unable to tell me if it has been paid, but say the flights are booked.

Now I’m worried that Aer Lingus will realise I haven’t paid for the flights and they will be cancelled on me at some point in the next couple of months! I couldn’t get Aer Lingus to understand this concern as they just kept saying my booking looked fine at their end.

Now what? Does anyone know if there is a way for me to escalate this within Aer Lingus to make sure the flights are paid and the booking is not cancelled?

I was just wondering if they were ticketed through Aer Lingus or booked as a code share and ticketed through a partner which may have explained the confusion. Sounds like direct with that ticket number but I’d want to know the ticket status incase they have been voided. I work for an airline, I’m only trying to help by asking these questions and explaining Opodo should be dealing with it as EI are not a budget airline.

I can’t even get through to Opodo now. I just get cut off when I put in my booking number - message says they are only dealing with bookings before my date and then cuts off.

Looking at my direct booking from 2018 compared to this one, and they are the same other than that in 2018 there was an admin fee and this one doesn’t have an admin fee (presumably as booked through Opodo?). And I used a different credit card so in 2018 “Last Payment” says Visa and this time it says Mastercard.

My main worry is that at some point accounts will realise no money has been paid and that the tickets will be voided without warning. I’ll see if they respond to my email.

Sorry, wasn’t clear- “looking at my direct booking receipt from 2018 compared to this booking receipt

The line will be cutting you off as the lines are full and they will have minimal staff on on a Sunday night. Try again tomorrow, hopefully you’ll get through easier.

Still can’t get through to Opodo on the phone but tried via Twitter DM and have had some success. After a few attempts a “social care team” rep seems to understand the problem and says she has passed it to the finance team to “check and assist” me which will take between 3-15 days.

Oh, and I realised this morning that I’ve used the same card as in 2018 so a Visa card. I’m assuming the payment by Mastercard showing on my receipt will be an Opodo corporate card, unless something else has gotten very messed up.

20+ years ago we booked to fly to USA via one of those third party websites (I think skyscanner, but can't quite remember), we paid the deposit of €100 and awaited our invoice for the remaining €1k. But never received it. Rang many times to pay, but just kept getting told the flight's paid in full. Gave up trying to pay.
Like you we were worried we'd be cancelled off the flight by the airline, but it all went like clockwork.

Any joy with AL direct?

How bizarre Naomh !

I’m now just going to wait to hear back from Opodo’s finance department and Aer Lingus in writing. My emailed receipt from Aer Lingus says it’s paid and in My Bookings on the Aer Lingus website it appears to be paid as well- nothing outstanding showing and full price down as “Your Purchases”.

So either

1. Aer Lingus are mistaken and Opodo hasn’t paid them and Aer Lingus will realise this at some point (hence my writing to them) or

2. Opodo will realise they have paid Aer Lingus and will attempt to reverse the transition/void the tickets- possibly cancel the booking?

We’ll see what they say, I don’t want to book anything else rights now as if Opodo realise they have paid, I don’t want them to come after me for the money if I’ve since booked elsewhere as that would end up as another mess I’d have to waste yet more time sorting.

How frustrating.
I know you're waiting to hear back, but have you looked at the agent's complaint process? Might yield a more accurate and timely response?

I can’t see a way to complain to Opodo. If they take the full three weeks to come back to me, and it’s still not resolved, I think what I will do is ask Aer Lingus if I can cancel that booking and then immediately rebook direct through them. At least that way I will have proof that I cancelled the booking if Opodo ever do find they paid Aer Lingus but didn’t charge me.

I did randomly receive another email confirmation and receipt from Aer Lingus yesterday. Don’t know if that was on the back of my email to them explaining the problem and they’ve misunderstood, thinking I just wanted a receipt/booking confirmation.

How frustrating. Aer Lingus probably won’t cancel Opodo’s booking though. Only Opodo should do that.

Were you aware that Opodo are now based in Spain so are not a part of the ATOL scheme designed to protect UK based holidaymakers.

Yes, I know they are in Spain and that they aren’t part of ATOL.

I did get my refund from lastminute.com for the cancellation of the original flights that kicked all this off though, and that only took two working days! (At least confirmation from lastminute took 2 working days, plus time to clear onto my cc)

Ceecee On one of my phones calls with them, Aer Lingis told me I could cancel the booking via the My Booking on their website (though they did not understand why I would want to do so as they were positive it was paid for!). It looks as though I can do this, although I’m not clicking right through to do so yet!

I’m generally of the view that if something seems to good to be true, it probably is and free flights definitely counts as an example so if it’s not sorted by Opodo’s finance department I’ll start from scratch again.

Progress with Aer Lingus!

Hopefully I’ll hear back soon. Am very impressed with the speed their CEO (I know, not actually her, will have been whatever team monitors these types of emails, but still) passed my email onto someone.

Letter attached so you can see I’m not insane. 😁

The madness continues. Opodo’s finance department never contacted me as promised and they have ignored Aer Lingus asking them to contact me promptly. I can’t get through on the phone and via Twitter they continue to insist that I don’t have a booking so there is nothing for me to pay for and nothing for them to cancel as the booking does not exist.

On the other hand, I’m just off the phone to Aer Lingus again who say my concerns have already been escalated and they have definitely been paid for my booking. I asked if I could cancel this myself as Opodo won’t and then immediately rebook direct with them. They are going to have a supervisor phone me within 72 hours to discuss the booking.

My worry is that by not cancelling and rebooking, I’m running the risk of Opodo realising at some point that the booking exists and them just cancelling it out from under me without giving me the chance to pay.

Madness!

One month on and Aer Lingus are still telling us we have a confirmed and paid for booking while Opodo are still adamant our booking was not confirmed and so does not exist.

Last Friday Aer Lingus said they would contact Opodo again and tell them to confirm the booking to us.

We still haven’t paid anything for the flights.

Madness.

This certainly is madness! At this stage could you get written confirmation from someone in AerLingus that your flights are booked and paid for just in case you have any problems when checking in?

I work for a credit card company and if I were you, knowing you NEED the flights and at this point haven't paid for them (but Aer Lingus say you have and you have that in writing) I would rebook yourself directly with Aer Lingus. It might then look like you have two sets of tickets. That's fine because one set you haven't paid for, and what you want here is the security of knowing you aren't going to get your flights cancelled.

Then, once the flights have gone through (paid on your credit card for the section 75 protection if anything goes wrong, as you should for any payment above £100 anyway to be fair) you lose the credit card and report it lost. This means you will get a new one sent with a new number and no one can debit the old one. Meaning if Opodo suddenly tell want money from you they will have to contact YOU, and you will then say no, you told me there is no booking, look you told me that on X date at Y time via Z method and here is my proof. So, I do not owe you any money.

Then on the day of the flights you go off to the airport and fly on the flights you've paid for, and have a lovely trip

Georges Yes, I have it in writing multiple times from Aer Lingus and I also have a receipt from them showing the flights are paid for in full (by Mastercard but whose Mastercard I do not know!). I have what is likely an irrational fear that at some point Opodo will find the booking and void it without telling me. I know this is irrational because surely they would instead charge my credit card to get their money, but none of this makes sense so I have this irrational worry. 😂

Insidelaurashead I’d thought of doing a variation of that by reporting the card “lost” just now and then booking direct with Aer Lingus, but someone (might have been on this thread) suggested that a double booking would cause problems on the Aer Lingus system. I’ve asked Aer Lingus but couldn’t get an answer from them.

I’m going to give it another week to get sorted and then I’ll contact Aer Lingus again. Ideally I’d be able to cancel the booking direct through Aer Lingus and then rebook direct through them but when I asked about this, the rep dodged the question and just said someone would get back to me (and then the getting back to me came in the form of an email saying their sales team would contact Opodo again to get them to confirm the booking to me).

*booking direct with Aer Lingus on a new card, not on a reported lost card!

Nothing helpful to add, apologies, but thank you for the heads up re Opodo.
I shall avoid them.
Hoping it all works out well for you.

I was very cross when the Irish government sold its 85% stake in Aer Lingus in 2006. It somehow retained over 25% stake in it till 2015 🤷‍♀️til it sold out to IAG. It was our state airline.

This is definitely a bonkers situation to be in!

Is there any way Aer Lingus can transfer the booking over to you so that Opodo can't cancel it on your behalf?! At least that way you'd know for certain the flights are booked and you just have to wait and see if Opodo figure out they've paid for it without receiving money from you!

Knock on wood, I think I have finally sorted it. I was finally put through to someone at Opodo today who could see that my booking was confirmed and that I needed to pay for it. Which I have now done (not without stress as my credit card was declined over the phone with my credit card marking it as a fraudulent transaction so I had to sort that first then phone back!).

I have a sneaking suspicion we would have been able to fly without check in realising we hadn’t paid Opodo (as Aer Lingus had been paid), but it was absolutely not worth the stress to try to take that risk!