I purchased the 3-Night Trip to Budapest from London for two, via Wowcher on 15th December - a trip to celebrate mine and my partner’s anniversary & my birthday at the end of Jan.
However, things quickly began snowballing after purchasing these vouchers.
Firstly, there was a technical error on the part of Wowcher / Travelodeal when I went to redeem the vouchers (acknowledged and admitted by a Travelodeal representative during a recorded phone call on 17th Dec).
After following the link to 'Redeem It' website and inputting the voucher codes provided, the website presented an error which read: "Voucher is not for this deal”. This meant that was unable to redeem the vouchers myself, and therefore the vouchers were auto-redeemed 48-hours after purchase (despite not being made aware of such 'auto-redeem' policy until checking the ‘fine print’).
l’d also like to point out that such 'auto-redeem' policy directly contradicts Wowcher's "Refund Guarantee" of 16-days to refund unredeemed vouchers, which unfairly removes the consumer's right to rely on such guarantee.
So the vouchers were ‘auto-redeemed’ after 48 hours, and a representative from Travelodeal contacted me to finalise the booking on 17th December.
However during this call, I was informed that I would have to pay a significantly higher premium (on top of the price I have already paid) in order to fly from London Gatwick - despite the details of the Voucher specifically stating that return flights are included from selected airports in the total Voucher price, including London Gatwick.
This is a complete misrepresentation of the advertised product, which threatened to increase the total costs of the trip by 50%.
Clearly I was not prepared to pay extra money (quoted “£50-£60pp”) to fly from my local airport, which was already included in the list of airports on the product page!!! So I stated during this call that I wished to cancel the vouchers and be refunded. But Travelodeal are REFUSING TO REFUND ME.
Unfortunately for them, I am a 1st Class Honours Law Graduate - who is very familiar with their rights and the law. I can say with certainty that Travelodeal are failing to uphold Consumer Rights Law, as well as their own Terms & Conditions stated on Wowcher.
This company obviously knows that people wouldn't book if they clearly stated the existence of extra charges to fly from their chosen airport, so they bury it in the fine print so they can catch you out. They don't deem putting this information in the fine print as “hidden charges”, and have refused to refund me for the last 3 weeks.
Thankfully I made this purchase through Klarna, and reported this issue to them in the first instance. This issue gets reported to the company by Klarna, who then have 21 days to respond. Failure to respond within 21 days will prompt Klarna to launch an investigation into the matter.
At present, I have sent *another* email to Travelodeal and Wowcher (including the Wowcher CEO; whose email I found on an online forum). Failing that, I will commence legal proceedings at the Small Claims Court to recover the monies I am owed.
P.S: to anyone else facing these pathetic scammers - you are *not* alone and the law is on your side!! Contact Citizens Advice, the Financial Ombudsman, WatchDog, file a claim in Small Claims Court - do NOT let these companies BULLY YOU!!
