I paid Opodo for refundable flights, so the place’s my refund – and have I paid for a ‘membership’? CRANE ON THE CASE

In September, I booked return flights for me and my wife from London to Hamburg, travelling in October. We used the travel agent website Opodo. 

We’re in our 90s and opted in to a guarantee offered by Opodo which said we would be refunded 80 per cent of the fare if one of us fell ill and we couldn’t go. This cost £26 each. 

This unfortunately happened, and the trip had to be cancelled days before departure because my wife was unwell. The flights cost £574, so we should get £459 back. 

But I have yet to see the money. I have spoken to Opodo on the phone five times, and am told the refund will be in my account within a few days – but it never materialises. 

I have been given excuses such as a manager being on holiday, and Opodo not having my card details, which I have definitely provided. 

I am also concerned that I paid for an Opodo membership I didn’t really want. I asked for it to be cancelled, but I am not sure if it was. 

My bank statements show that, on top of the flights, I paid Opodo three amounts of £69.99, £51.86 and £54.52. Opodo also refunded me £25, but I don’t know why. A.R, Cornwall

Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer champion, replies: If you’re looking to take a trip away, there are more companies vying for your business than ever before. 

Sensibly, many people use comparison websites to compare fares to our chosen destination, as well as hotel prices, and see which are offering the best deals. 

When I was booking flights and hotels for a wedding in Canada recently, it threw up a host of different names I had never even heard of. 

Some were obscure airlines, but there were also lots of online travel agents, also known as OTAs. 

Similar to the high street travel agents of old, these websites act as a middleman where you which lets you see travel options from lots of different operators in one place. Some offer just hotels, but others will sell you flights, cars, and a host of other things. 

Opodo is one of these, and other well-known names include Kiwi, Expedia and Booking. 

Opodo has an optional premium membership costing £69.99, which it says gives customers access to better deals on flights and hotels. 

It also, the company claims, gets them priority access to the customer service helpline. Opodo bookers not planning to sign up for the membership may wish to note that they will be at the back of the queue. 

Whether you knew it or not, Opodo has confirmed to me that you signed up to the membership, known as Prime. It was initially on a free trial, which is why you may have been puzzled by the billing. 

I do understand your confusion. Nowadays there are so many ‘optional extras’ when booking a flight – even a bag larger than a postage stamp on certain airlines – that anyone could find themselves bamboozled. 

You would have needed to sign up to the membership in order to get the 80 per cent refund guarantee, as this is only offered to Prime members. 

Travellers might pay extra for this because it lets them bypass airline refund restrictions. EasyJet, who you booked with, only sells non-refundable tickets for example. 

It ended up being a good deal for you – in theory, at least – as your wife was sadly too ill to travel to Hamburg and this meant you would be able to get most of the money back.

If you’d booked direct with Easyjet, you’d not have seen a penny – though you also may have paid less overall, so it is hard to directly compare. 

But though you’d been promised the refund, getting the money back in your pocket was a different matter – and you also noticed some payments you didn’t recognise on your bank account. 

I contacted Opodo to ask what was going on. 

It said that your booking comprised the Easyjet flights, as well as additional services in the form of the cancellation guarantee, automatic check-in and priority boarding.

You saved £166.04 on your flights because you signed up to the membership, it claimed. 

But when you requested to cancel the flights, Opodo said it made a technical error which led to your refund not being paid back. 

The refund request was mistakenly logged in the system as one submitted to Easyjet, rather than one that needed to be processed by Opodo under the terms of the ‘cancel for any reason’ guarantee. 

This led Opodo agents to incorrectly inform you that the refund was in Easyjet’s hands. 

Opodo has now processed an 100 per cent refund for your flights and the additional services you bought, as a goodwill gesture. This totals £756. 

With regard to the membership, Opodo said you did attempt to cancel at the end of the free trial, and it offered you a £25 discount off the annual membership instead which you accepted. This was why the £25 landed in your account. 

It has now refunded the remaining subscription fee in full, and disabled the automatic renewal next September to ensure no future charges.

Online travel agents have their place, especially when they offer things like this refund deal which did ultimately benefit you – and which you wouldn’t have got with the airline itself. 

But I do worry that in other cases, they just add an extra layer of admin and frustration when things don’t go to plan. 

In cases of cancelled flights I’ve covered in the past, the travel agent has refused to reimburse the customer until the airline has paid back the agent – leading to annoying delays. Customers have also struggled to get refunds for things like airline taxes.

An Opodo spokesman said: ‘We would like to apologise to [A.R] for his experience, which in no way reflects the high service standards we strive to provide to the 21 million customers we serve annually. 

‘Due to an error in processing his refund request, incorrect information was recorded in our system, leading to inaccurate updates about the status of his refund. 

‘We have now resolved the matter and he has been fully refunded, including all non-refundable costs, as a goodwill gesture. 

‘His Prime membership fee has also been refunded in full, and he will retain access to the programme’s benefits at no cost for the remainder of the year as part of our efforts to compensate for the inconvenience caused. We remain committed to delivering exceptional service to all our customers.’

CRANE ON THE CASE