Inghams Ski refuse to help

[Cayman76]

We booked a family skiing holiday but due to injury I am unable to go. We asked Inghams to change the name of one of the passengers to allow another family member to go in my place.
Inghams refused by saying that British Airways would not allow a passenger name change.
So we offered to book a separate flight to get the other family member out to Geneva in time to meet the holiday flight. Inghams even refused honor transfer to the resort or the hotel booking.
This seems so unreasonable as the whole Holiday is paid for so what does it matter that one of the names needs changing. Its just a bit of admin that you would think a reputable travel company could manage.

Inghams have now agreed to "honor" the transfer and hotel for my replacement provided we pay an additional £898 which they say is a flight cancellation charge.
As the total cost of flights for the family of 4 was only £597 I cant see any justification for such an outrageous cancellation fee especially since BA now have an empty seat which has been paid for which they can sell to someone else.
I don't trust Inghams at all and I suspect they are just trying to gouge me for some extra cash.
Needless to say we shan't ever travel with this crowd again.

That's appalling. I understand why you might lose the flight and have to pay for a new one but the rest is just money gouging.

Assume you will just claim on your insurance instead?

Have you contacted BA to ask if you can do the name change directly?

Contact the hotel and ask if you can change the name of the new guest too?

BA can't / won't amend tickets booked through an agent i.e Inghams. It has to be done by the agent

Did BA tell you that? You can change a name with BA for £100.00 so there's no reason why Ingham's can't do it with an additional admin fee for themselves.

Who are you speaking to? Have you asked to speak to a Manager/ Supervisor at Ingham's? I'd go higher than a regular admin person in their call centre.

What does your travel insurance say? If you can cancel the whole holiday, you could then rebook a new last minute trip?

You can change a name with BA for £100.00 so there's no reason why Ingham's can't do it with an additional admin fee for themselves.

I may be wrong, happy to be corrected, but I don't think that means BA allow a change of passenger.

I thought post the 24 hour cooling off period BA only do name changes for passenger already booked due to events such as marriage/divorce.

BA say we cannot change the name because only the people who made the booking can do that.

Inghams say that BA will not do it but want to charge £898 cancellation fee even if my replacement organises his own flight out to Geneva at his own expense.

Because the holiday is only 3 weeks away there is no refund from Inghams for the cancelled person so they get to keep the full amount and are trying to rip me off for this additional spurious "cancellation fee" which they are blaming BA for .

I am going round in circles with Inghams who keep muddying the water with incomprehensible emails which serve to complicate a very simple situation.

We have paid them for a holiday for 2 adults and 2 children and they will not provide it unless we cough up another £898.

I have asked to see the correspondence from BA asking for the cancellation fee.

I have also requested a call with their MD. Let's see if he has the decency to take it.

Inghams are in breach of their own Terms & Conditions and

I'd try twitter eg Simon caulder and also the newspaper consumer cases. It sounds like they're being incredibly unreasonable

Wow that's so bizarrely unreasonable from Inghams. Why the obstructive culture? Why wouldn't they want to help you salvage the best of the holiday?

I'm currently researching my next ski holiday and it's such a shame that tour operators do it cheaper than I can independently. I've not had trouble with Crystal (yet) but I have heard mixed reviews about them. I'm definitely going to swerve Inghams now though.

@Cayman76

If it is of any help with regard to the BA side of this, something from ba.com:

"If you booked through a travel agent or on a travel website, please contact them directly. We can't change tickets they have issued.

If you booked through British Airways, either online or on the phone, please call us to make this name change.

If you want to completely change one of the people booked to travel: If you booked with us directly and find you've made a booking for the wrong person and you find this out within one day of making the booking, we have a 24 hour cooling off period in which you can cancel the booking and receive a full refund. If you booked on ba.com you can cancel it there, and if you booked over the phone please call our team.

There are just a few types of booking that aren't covered by this guarantee:
Bookings made on a flight leaving within 24 hours of the time you book.
Bookings where immediate payment isn't required.
Package bookings or flights booked with hotels, car hire, transfers or experiences (they have their own separate conditions - please ring our Customer Support team)

Outside this cooling off period, flight-only tickets are non-transferable and you will need to cancel the original booking and make a new booking for the new traveller (at current ticket prices).""

My emphasis on the final para.

Good luck with Inghams.

www.britishairways.com/travel/askbainter/public/en_fr?p_faqid=3329

Cancel and claim through your travel insurance?

You're correct @notimagain Even if the OP had booked flights directly with BA, it wouldn't be possible to change the name to a different person.

Given the issue is due to an injury, surely this is what travel insurance is for but the OP is either ignoring (or has missed) my earlier question re claiming on insurance.

in answer to Hundredmilesanhour:

yes we have insurance and will, of course, make a claim when we can agree with Inghams just what our losses are.

if Inghams will allow my replacement to get on the transfer bus and stay in the hotel room,( which already has one of our party booked in it) our only loss will be the cost of the airfare which I have already paid Inghams for.
We will have to swallow the cost of the airfare my replacement must pay to get out to Geneva.
As far as BA are concerned, they will have an empty seat which has been paid for so they have suffered no loss so how can they demand a “cancellation” fee of £898?

The thing Inghams will not explain is why BA is only claiming a cancellation fee,(over and above the retention of my part of the original booking price which Inghams get to keep because of the proximity of the departure date), if my replacement takes up my place on the transfer bus and in the Hotel. If no one takes my place there will be an empty seat on the transfer bus and a spare bed in the hotel double room. But in this case BA will not make a claim.

it doesn’t make sense to me and Inghams can’t or won’t explain it.

@Cayman76 Do you think this 'cancellation charge' could be the cost of booking 4 new flights with BA? Just wondering if the way Ingham's do their flight bookings for groups means that they can't just remove you and leave the remaining 3 passengers as is, and instead you lose all 4 passenger flights (with Inghams having booked cheaper non-refundable flights) and Inghams book 4 new flights (including the new passenger instead of you) but as flight prices will have increased, that's why it's now £898??

But they're blaming BA rather than their own cheapo group booking.

This. Inghams are being completely unreasonable.

This all seems terribly complicated. Personally I’d just book a single additional flight; leave booking for four and they just get on the coach and go to hotel with family, no?

Yes this is what I was going to say. Once off the flight, how will Ingram's know who is at the hotel?

Good idea I wish I had thought of it but I didn’t expect such obstructive behaviour from Inghams and thought they would do the change for the £25 admin charge they talk about in their T&Cs.

by any reckoning this is sharp practice and brings the industry into disrepute.
in any event beware dealing with Inghams

Inghams Relented

After innumerable emails and a request to speak to the Managing Director Inghams finally agreed to a name change on the Holiday booking for an admin fee of £25.
We lost the included flight because BA refused to a name change on the ticket so we have to bear the cost of a return flight for my replacement. With luck we will get something back from our travel insurance. That will be our next battle.

The last laugh is that the return flight I managed to book for my replacement is actually the same flight I would have been on anyway.