Florida: so good they charged twice

Florida: so good they charged twice

I booked six tickets to Florida with Expedia for a staff outing and it charged me twice for administration fees. The website mentions only one £10 fee for booking over the phone but we were each charged a second £10. A colleague had to book one more seat by phone and checked the total, £534 including a £10 fee. This was confirmed by email. Then another £10 was taken separately from her bank account. Expedia refuses to refund the money.

LM, Cheltenham

Expedia charges two administration fees for customers making flight-only bookings by telephone. One it calls an 'airline fee', which is included upfront in the total price quoted and described on the itinerary as an administration fee. The other is for booking offline and is waived if customers also book car hire or hotels.

This is charged separately and not shown on the itinerary, appearing eventually on bank statements as 'Travel Leicester'. To hear of it, you need to listen carefully to the pre-recorded message playing while you wait for an operator.

Expedia has looked again at both your bookings and found that the offline booking fee was not clearly explained the second time. Your colleague phoned the customer support line so would not have heard the pre-recorded message. As a goodwill gesture, Expedia will refund all the offline booking fees, £70 in total.

I see no justification for imposing two separate administration fees,.....continued below

Advertisement starts

---

---

Advertisement ends

one of which is not shown in writing or on the website and mentioned only in a pre-recorded message.

Plot thickens in saga of Choose3 cashbacks

You published my letter last week about Choose3 being slow to pay the cashback promised on my mobile phone. I sent off for the second cashback due in September but the letter was returned by Royal Mail marked 'addressee has gone away'.

BK, Haughton

Choose3 said Royal Mail had cancelled its PO box number that week. It assures me the address is now working again and that it will make allowances for customers whose cashback applications were delayed. But do send the original Post Office receipt to prove you applied in time.

I hope Choose3 is not as slow to settle its Royal Mail bill as it is to pay cashbacks.

Old signature cuts no ice with Lloyds

I have twice told Lloyds TSB of my new address, but it is still writing to the old one, causing me late payment penalty charges on my credit card. My debit card expires in four days but the bank could not tell me anything because it says my signature does not match its records.

MW, Bridgend

Banks check signatures extra carefully when customers change address because this is a fraudster's trick. Lloyds TSB could not be certain it had your genuine signature, first provided when you were 17 years old.

You visited the branch as requested to identify yourself, but staff there failed to change your address or update the signature database. The bank quickly sent a new debit card and refunded £32 credit card fees. To apologise, it is paying a further £40 into your cheque account.

Steamed up over Orient Express