Sounding off

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Bad timing from Aer Lingus

In early September, Pete Morriss booked a flight with Aer Lingus to Rome which was scheduled to leave the next month. The flight had a departure time of 2.50pm, which suited his needs.

"About a month later," he writes, "I received an e-mail telling me that due to 'a revision to the airline schedule', they had switched me to a flight leaving on the same day at 7am. As I have to travel from Galway to catch the flight, that flight was quite useless to me."

He phoned the help desk and was told that his money would be refunded directly to his credit card - but it was not. "I phoned again and this time was told that a cheque would be put in the post to me. It was not. I would be grateful if you could do whatever you can to get Aer Lingus to return my money to me."

He also points out that the schedule "revision" referred to was simply a decision not to run the flight on which he was booked.

"People thinking of booking with Aer Lingus in the future should bear in mind that the airline does not consider itself under any obligation to provide the service it has advertised and for which you have paid," he writes. "If you lose money when it changes the schedule (for instance, on hotel bookings), it will not compensate you for your loss. Is this indifference to their responsibilities legal?"

Unfortunately, there is nothing illegal about cancelling flights in this fashion and no legal obligation on the airline to compensate passengers left out of pocket as a result. PriceWatch contacted Aer Lingus and was told that "due to a change with the winter schedule", the flight in question was cancelled and all passengers given the choice of the early-morning flight or a full refund. It did not elaborate further as to why the flight had been scrapped. The airline confirmed that it took more than a month to refund our reader's fare.

"Aer Lingus aim to refund credit cards within 10 working days; therefore, we sincerely apologise for the delay," a statement said. "In order to minimise any inconvenience to customers' travel arrangements, Aer Lingus always endeavour to advise customers with as much notice as possible of schedule changes, and will always offer the choice of an alternative flight or a full refund."

All4one voucher refunds

Before Christmas we ran an item about the time limits on cashing in gift vouchers. A reader who was given a One4all gift voucher last Christmas was dismayed to notice that it had passed its use-by date and wanted to know if there was anything she could do to have it extended.

The One4all website says that all vouchers expire 12 months after the date of issue and "unfortunately we are unable to extend this date", but a couple of readers got in touch to say that this statement conflicts with their experiences of the vouchers, which are backed by An Post.

First up was Carole Mahon, who said she had a voucher for €75 that was more than two years out of date. She rang An Post, which told her to post it back to them and, for a €2 fee, they would replace the voucher.

"I received the new one last week, valued at €73 - that is service for you!" she writes.

Minutes later, we received another mail, this time from Roisin Stapleton.

"I had a One4all voucher for €60 which expired on October 24th," she writes. "Last week I contacted One4all to see if the voucher could be reissued and was told it was no problem but that there was an administrative charge of €8."

She sent off the expired voucher immediately, and days later received a new voucher, minus the fee of €8.

"I am extremely happy with the service I have received. The girl I dealt with in One4all couldn't have been more helpful," she writes.

While this is certainly good news, it did leave us a little confused. Can the vouchers be extended, as our readers suggest, or is the time limit final, as is claimed on the website? And if they can be extended, how much is the admin fee, €2 or €8?

We got in touch with the voucher company to see if it could clear up the confusion. A spokeswoman said that, officially, there is an expiry date on the gift vouchers "so we have control over the life of the gift voucher to protect against lost and stolen gift vouchers". If a person's voucher has been stolen or lost, and they have kept their receipt, "they can quote us the voucher number and when the voucher expires, and we can trace whether the voucher has been redeemed or not", she said. "If the voucher has not been redeemed, we can therefore reimburse the customer."

She went on to say that, using this system, One4all has been "able to help numerous customers who were unlucky enough to misplace their vouchers", for a fee of €8. While this flexibility is to be commended, it is peculiar that people who rely on the All4one website for information are told something (namely, that vouchers cannot be extended) at odds with the reality of the situation.