Booking reference but no E-Ticket
 

I’ve booked and paid for return flights London to Hong Kong in November through a travel agency. They gave me the booking reference but no E-Ticket which I think is odd.

So I contacted Cathay Pacific directly and they checked that the booking hasn’t been paid for. Then I called the travel agency and they told me that I would receive it a month before the departure date. But I’m left with a booking that hasn’t been fully confirmed so I’m quite worried.

I have already spoke to my bank about it but they advised me to wait until Oct/Nov whether or not they would issue the E-Ticket.

My question is, does it normally take this long to get an E-Ticket?

Read OMAAT, especially the comment section, the reply from Pointstalent.

It looks like Chinese brokers have plundered the airline's premium class ticket stock and are selling for profit (==== high price). The airlines still show availability, but the "seat" is already claimed, but not yet paid for, so still in offered inventory on a first-come, first-serve basis (IE who pays first gets the ticket).

And to me, it looks like your TA is gambling on a lower ticket price, one month out (buy a new ticket, and cancel the current booking). And, of course, when the price doesn't go down, they just say "sorry" and leave you without a flight. These gamblers tend to be working along the principle "all the profit for me, the losses are for the customer". Hey, don't we see that at the stock market with their brokers ????

When you "agreed" on the purchase of a ticket, you just can tell the TA: "Ticket or cancel, both NOW".

Where did you book it?

I noticed some TAs on Trip.com would do that. I guess those are Chinese TAs. The ticketing time can be within one hour, within 24 hours, or certain days before the flight. I find them very strange.

Your TA sounds incredibly shady. No reputable TA will hold your money for months before issuing the ticket.

Indeed, reputable TA's do realize, having grabbed the money, comes with a legal liability to deliver, so better deliver asap because then the (ticket and flight execution) liability moves to the airline. Shady environments simply ignore this responsibility, since they know, they can get away with such behavior.

My office has close connection with CX local office account manager of business accounts. The manager could only hold a booking for about 72 hours without payment.

Just a data point.

Is the booking still live (retrievable on CX's website with confirmed (HK) status)?

Is your travel agency fully licensed in the jurisdiction where you bought your ticket?

The TA said that if I tried to cancel, I won’t get a refund as the so-called booking with them is non-refundable. However if they haven’t used my money to purchase a ticket, there was never really a confirmed booking right?

You may want to check their T&C, when they are obliged to deliver the e-ticket.

Given they are "shady" to begin with, I doubt, they will honor a request for a refund, when they did not provide the e-ticket yet, as is the argument you raise.

Maybe, it's time to out which TA you are dealing with. Will give you the opportunity to point them on this thread and give them the opportunity to properly handle this case and get a positive mark, or get publicly shamed due to the way they operated.

The TA are called The Flights Guru

Somehow I doubt these people will care. I looked them up (the company in Bermondsey London) and found a number of Google reviews many of which are damning. There are also quite a few 'positive' reviews in there as well, but they seem questionably similar.

Is there not some protection under UK consumer law?

"the Flights Guru" is a different company from "Flightguru".
It has rather good reviews (some bad) on Trustpilo, but I am always wary of self-made great reviews.
ANyway, the scam of not paying the airline long after they cashed your money is a very bad omen.

They claim on their website: "Your money is safe with us - We are ATOL and ABTA Protected"

So, the first step is to verify, whether they are indeed recognized by those organizations. I don't know for the UK, though for many other countries, you will get charged a small fee on every booking (as an insurance fee, to cover what the protecting organizations deliver in unforeseen circumstances). Is that charge item listed on your bill/receipt?

If so, contact those organizations and present them with your case.

IF NOT, also contact those organizations and let them know about the potential false claim. This type of organization is usually pretty keep that nobody does use their name illegally.

A tricky thing might be, that IF they can not deliver your ticket, they will refund you and you're the loser since you'll need to purchase a last-minute ticket at (probably) elevated full fare pricing.

Thanks for pointing this out. I edited my original post to reflect this, though kept in the Google reference as that was the right one. Seems like the other Flights Guru are often mistaken for the Bermondsey one. Must be a right pain in the arse for them.