If you paid for an upgraded airline seat but then got sent back to economy, what would you do? Elliw Hughes had to solve that problem on a recent Air China flight from London to Tokyo that she’d booked through GoToGate and Booking.com.
Oh, I know what you’re thinking. GoToGate? Booking.com?
Yep, they’re regular offenders in our consumer advocacy practice. But honestly, this kind of thing should never happen, even when dealing with two intermediaries and a foreign carrier.
And yet, here we are.
Shortly after she paid $3,097 for her tickets, Hughes received an email that Booking.com couldn’t honour her seat reservation and that she should book her seats directly with Air China. But when Hughes logged into the Air China app, she discovered that Booking.com had reserved standard economy seats, which cost less than half of what she’d paid.
She was furious.
“I’ve contacted GoToGate daily since,” she says. “They are still escalating the issue but it’s not rectified. Can you help me get a refund?”
Hughes’ case raises some important questions:
- What are your rights when you’re downgraded on a flight?
- What is your travel agent’s responsibility when they sell you the wrong ticket class?
- How long should it take for your travel agent to fix a seating mistake?
Before we answer those, let’s find out what happened to Hughes.
“You’ve turned our dream trip to Japan into a nightmare”
Hughes was stunned by the downgrade. It’s a 22-hour slog from London to Tokyo on Air China, with stops in Frankfurt and Taipei. She wanted a few extra inches of legroom, so getting sent to steerage class was the last thing she wanted.
Booking.com blamed the problem on a “technical” error, but it didn’t say whose error. (We’ll get to that in a minute.)
“We were unable to complete the purchase of seats,” it added.
Hughes tried to fix the seating problem through Air China, but the premium economy section was booked. She only had two options: Accept a downgrade, ask for a refund, or buy new tickets.
But there was one problem: GoToGate and Booking.com were not responding to her request for a refund.
“I spoke to a customer service advisor on Tuesday, who apologised and told me this would be rectified within 24 hours,” she said to Booking.com in an email. “It’s now four days later and I’m still being told to wait. This is completely unacceptable. You’ve turned our dream trip to Japan into a nightmare.”
Hughes escalated this to our Booking.com executive contacts, but the answer didn’t change. Booking wanted her to accept the downgrade and would not offer a refund.
But should it?
What are your rights when your airline downgrades you on a flight?
This case raises an interesting question: What happens if your airline downgrades you? If you paid for a premium economy class ticket, you have a right to a premium economy class ticket.
At first glance, this appeared to be an involuntary downgrade. However, Air China’s general conditions of carriage state that in the event of a downgrade, the ticket’s validity would be extended until China Airlines’ first flight on which space is available in the class of service for which the fare has been paid.
In other words, Hughes would have to wait until the next flight. But she wasn’t entitled to a refund.
But wait. Isn’t there a European rule that addresses this? There is.
EC 261 says that when the airline accommodates the passenger in a lower class of service, the airline is obliged to reimburse a percentage of the ticket price purchased by the passenger. Airlines must reimburse their passengers within a week according to the following schedule:
| Flight distance | Within EU | Outside EU |
| 0 to 1,500 km | 30 percent | 30 percent |
| 1500 to 3,500 km | 50 percent | 50 percent |
| + 3,500 km | 50 percent | 75 percent |
Unfortunately, none of the rules and regulations require a full refund. Even so, Hughes’s booking agent should have responded to her requests for help. This was not an ideal situation.
But as noted, this was not an airline downgrade. This was a downgrade by GoToGate and Booking.com. So what’s their deal?
What is your travel agent’s responsibility when they sell you the wrong ticket class?
Neither Booking.com’s nor GoToGate’s terms specifically address an involuntary downgrade. However, both businesses should deliver the product they sold you. (You don’t have to be a lawyer or a consumer advocate to know you should get the product you paid for.)
The ticket agent’s obligation is clear: Either get you a ticket on a flight in the right class or negotiate a full refund with the airline.
Why didn’t Booking.com do this? If I had to guess, it’s because air travellers are used to getting subpar service with zero recourse. Maybe the companies felt she had no legal recourse and would have to accept her downgrade obediently.
But if they did, they underestimated her.
How long should it take for your travel agent to fix a seating mistake?
I checked with Booking.com, and here’s where things get interesting.
It turns out that Booking.com made a mistake and failed to make the seat reservations for the right class of service. Although it offered her a refund for the price difference between economy and premium economy, that didn’t solve Hughes’s problem. So there had been a lot of back-and-forth—and mostly back-and-forth, if you know what I mean. Booking.com had become less responsive, so Hughes contacted my advocacy team.
How long should it take to make things right? The EU regulations assume the passengers were downgraded on the day of the flight, and they give airlines a week to fix it. But in Hughes’ case, there’s no reason to wait half that long. Four days of waiting are too much. I would say a problem like this should be resolved within 24 hours (in fact, I have emails from Booking.com in which it promises a resolution within a day).
The technology exists to resolve a problem like this in real time. The endless foot-dragging and buck-passing between Air China, GoToGate, and Booking.com is unacceptable.
“We have resolved this issue”
My team reached out to Booking.com to see if we could resolve this. Hughes didn’t have an explicit right to a refund, but she also had a right to a quick resolution instead of waiting around.
By the way, to those who say a flight from London to Tokyo with two stops can be endured in economy class, I urge you to try it. I’ve done similar economic flights, and they are no fun. Hughes was right to insist on getting the seats she booked—or thought she booked.
Booking.com eventually agreed.
“After looking into this case, our customer service team has confirmed that due to a system error, the two premium flight bookings were downgraded,” it said. “We have resolved this issue by processing a full refund to the customer.”
And that’s all Hughes wanted.
“I’m ever so thankful for your help with this,” she told us.
By Christopher Elliott
BIO:
Christopher Elliott is an author, consumer advocate, and journalist. He founded Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps solve consumer problems. He publishes Elliott Confidential, a travel newsletter, and the Elliott Report, a news site about customer service. If you need help with a consumer problem, you can reach him here or email him at [email protected].
