Dear Alex,
Last spring I booked online with LOT Polish Airlines to fly from Wroclaw to Milan via Warsaw. I verified the dates and flight itinerary on my PC, paid for the ticket and printed out the confirmation. However, I admit I then neglected to read the printed confirmation.
When I checked in for my return flight at Milan Malpensa, the agent told me that my return date was a month later than I had booked.
LOT wouldn’t change the ticket so I had to buy another one to get home. While this was taking place, another LOT passenger was having a similar problem with his online booking.
I have asked LOT for a full refund because of a fault in its booking system, but the airline will only offer a partial refund and this does not cover the cost of the new ticket I had to buy. Your comments please.
Andrzej Wojtas, Wroclaw, Poland
Alex replies:
In the days when most tickets were booked through a travel agent, it was the latter’s responsibility to get it right. But nowadays, with airlines enticing people to book directly for maximum savings either by phone or online, the onus now falls on you, the passenger, to make sure there are no mistakes.
Over the past year, I have received numerous complaints from readers who have made simple mistakes when booking direct with airlines. Had you checked the printed confirmation and alerted LOT immediately, then I am sure the airline would have sorted out the problem.
In future, the moral when booking flights online (or any other travel product for that matter) is that it’s essential to check and recheck all details on the screen and in writing.
