baggageinhall

Views please:

Had to cancel a trip to Belfast (out today, back tomorrow) as our son was ill. Rang BMI last night to cancel the seats and get a refund of the unused taxes.

Tickets were about £95 each; £30 fare and about £65 tax.

I knew that there was an 'admin' fee for refunding the tax but always thought it was (a) lower than £25 and (b) per booking not per person. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.

Now - has anyone (recently) tried contesting the £25pp with BMI as being a penalty charge rather than a genuine pre-estimate of liquidated damages?

NickB

For some reason, the £25 figure was the one that has been in my mind for a long time, even though I have not had to ask for taxes back.
What would you be challenging it under? The UCTRs as an unfair contract term? It sounds to me like an arguable case, at least as far as charging for each pax rather than each PNR, as I would have thought that the admin cost must be pretty similar whether it is for 1 or several paxes on the same PNR.

NickB

Looked at the T&Cs and there is nothing there on refunding taxes on non-refundable tickets. In the service commitment, however, there is a commitment to refund taxes etc... on non refundable fares "subject to a reasonable admnistration fee". It seems to me that there is a strong case to argue that £25 per pax (rather than per PNR) is NOT a reasonable administration fee, since it is unrelated to admin costs, all the more so as the actual sum is not mentioned anyhwre on the website, as far as I can see.

Oxon Flyer

It's here, on the new website, click "terms and conditions" at the bottom :

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/plan...onditions.aspx

The actual refunds section itself :

http://www.flybmi.com/bmi/en-gb/plan...e/refunds.aspx

is vague and incomplete.

PS Check out the huge comedy-style "Submit" button !

RAPC

Looks like another 'enhancement' due to the new site. If only they could make it flash and spin too for further viewing pleasure!

skitchen

Did you explain the reasons for your cancellation?

Unless you had booked a "tiny" fare, it is standard to offer an MCO (credit voucher) on receipt of relevant medical evidence. This includes both the fare value and taxes.

Oxon Flyer

actually, you click it and up pops skitchen

baggageinhall

BUMP

Three weeks after faxing a letter to BMI (no Royal Mail excuses), I received a phone call today. The general gist was that 'they charged £25pp and £25pp was the charge to customers so the charge was £25pp'.

When I asked whether anyone had read my letter and considered the penalty charge vs genuine liquidated damages point; I was told that they didn't deal with that sort of thing and I would have to write to customer services. Why couldn't my letter have just been sent there - apparently that's not possible.

So, I have faxed a letter to customer services incorporating the original. Let's see what happens next.

RAPC

Good luck with this. Worth pursuing in my book. Hopefully it will reach someone who has the ability to apply a bit of flexibility under the circumstances.

Ironically the process involving shuffling letters around within bmi actually justifies the 'admin' fee more than a straight refund.

worldexplorer

The subject of admin charges for refund of taxes has been in a few papers recently. Comparisions have been drawn to bank charges and the fairness of these compared to the actual cost of administration.

Quote from a Guardian online article:

But the OFT says it is up to the courts to decide whether the air tax refund fee "reflects a reasonable pre-estimate of the actual costs". Until a case reaches court, or unless the OFT toughens its position, the airlines may continue to stand by terms and conditions and refuse to pay passengers.

Fancy being the first to start a case in the Small claims court?

Jetstreamer

I'd have thought that if the matter was pushed far enough the carrier would give in before it reached court. As with bank charges an airline would not want a precedent to be set in court whereby their charges were ruled excessive (I can't imagine £25 per pax being anything but excessive). This would mean they would have to change their shady practices.

frankvb

Indeed - easiest would be for the airline to automatically refund the taxes to the CC used for payment as soon as you cancel. That shouldn't cost more than a few ££.

Last time I cancelled a flight (this wasn't with BMI but with a Dutch low-cost airline) I didn't even bother to apply for a refund. Refund requests had to be send in by writing, only taxes would be refunded (not the fuel surcharge ) and a 40 euro fee would be charged. Not to mention that I would have needed to cancel the flight first by calling in to an expensive phone number

Maybe something for the European Commission to look into now they've done the EC passenger rights?

baggageinhall

As a Barrister (albeit one that practices in crime) I am looking forward to BMI being obstinant and having to take this to court. Mrs BiH (who is also at the Bar), despairs, tells me to (i) negotiate a reasonable settlement and (ii) get a hobby of some sort...

ajamieson

BUMP:
Well, I am now in a position to do this.

I have the assistance of the Govan Law Centre, which has been a beacon of consumer advocacy over the issue of bank charges (long before "TV's Martin Lewis" was on the scene...). I'd prefer to take up the case of someone else on here, to provide some distance, but I will make a claim on some of my own tickets if necessary. To make things easier for the GLC, which will raise a case in either Glasgow or Edinburgh Sheriff Court, I am looking for someone based in Edinburgh or Glasgow or someone whose refunded ticket was for travel starting from Edinburgh or Glasgow. Any British airline will do, although I think only Flybe and Bmi charge per person rather than per booking.

If anyone is interested, or knows someone else who fancies testing this in a court (I'll cover the fee) and doesn't mind talking about it to a newspaper then PM me.

Thanks

baggageinhall

Whilst looking at the BMI board moments ago, I did a double take - had someone else started a thread about the £25 charge. No, it was my thread from ages ago that had been bumped!

After protracted correspondence with BMI where they ignore the £25pp issue being a penalty charge and prefer to repeatedly tell me how the fare was 'non-refundable'; this despite me conceeding that in my first letter.

The last letter was a little while ago, but this thread has given me the necessary kick up the behind to launch proceedings. I am going to write a final 'letter before claim' and assuming that they still say no, I will issue a claim.

It might be interesting to see how the same issue plays out in both the English and Scottish Courts. (For those of you from outside the British Isles, despite being a smallish island, we have three different legal systems - England & Wales, Northern Ireland (similar to E&W) and Scotland).

BTW - BA charge a per person admin charge too, £15pp online and £25pp offline.