Originally Posted by
jackr27
The promised update.
I told my parents upon arriving back in the UK to check their email and phone up their CC provider who confirmed no payment had gone through.
My dad who isn't very good at anything to do with internet or email, didn't check his account, but it would appear Iberia did email him advising to contact them.
I think it would help in this scenario if Iberia/BA cancelled any trace of the booking along with the confirmation code so that if this was missed, the passenger concerned would be aware of a problem before arriving at the airport and would have the opportunity to address it.
As it is, I suspect on their next trip, a lot more attention will hopefully be paid to confirmation emails...
Thanks all for your input though.
Thanks for the update, Jack. So do you intend to try and claim some recompense?
I would be minded to pursue this if I were you, as a customer service matter more than anything, and notwithstanding your dad's failure to see the email from IB.
I would hope (but can't be sure) that a reasonable 'gesture of goodwill' would be offered eventually. The three key points for me are:
1) To any ordinary consumer, 'confirmed' means 'ticketed' and thus the confirmation webpage, confirmation number and massive tick in the email entitled 'booking confirmation' that your parents saw give the very strong impression that the booking was in fact confirmed and a-ok (even if the detail of the email stated the ticket was pending).
2) The booking looked a-ok in MMB throughout.
3) BA confirmed seats on the phone, again with no indication anything was wrong.
Others may poo-poo this, but I have every sympathy for your parents in this situation. Personally I'm of the view that airlines should not tell consumers that a booking is confirmed until the booking is ticketed. Plainly, in
ordinary language (rather than IATA language), a booking for which payment has failed is not a confirmed booking.