Was your flight ruined by a screaming youngster who brought on chaos? DEAN DUNHAM reveals the steps to take to attempt to get your a reimbursement

On a recent trip to Italy, my wife and I shelled out for premium economy tickets on the plane as it was our wedding anniversary. This was supposed to be a treat, but we were seated directly in front of a family with a child who shouted, cried and kicked the back of our seats the whole time.

We complained, but the steward said all they could do was give us some free drinks. Can we ask the airline to pay us some of the money back as our special trip was ruined? The tickets cost double the price of economy.

Name and address supplied.

When dealing with an airline dispute, I usually deploy a law called UK261, for flights departing from or returning to the UK, or EU261 within the European Union.

These are passenger rights regulations and deal with delays, cancellations, denied boarding and downgrading.

But these rules are very narrowly focused on time, routing and class of travel, and don’t say anything about seating comfort, fellow passengers, noise levels or any other on-board annoyances. So the law will not assist you here.

You need to instead turn to the airline’s terms of carriage. To have any rights, these terms would need to state that you will be guaranteed peace and quiet – and this is simply not going to be the case.

Airlines generally don’t have a legal obligation to guarantee a peaceful, child-free flight, advises Dean Dunham

When you buy an airline ticket, even in premium economy, business or first class, you are essentially purchasing transportation from A to B, with the specific inclusions advertised for that cabin: extra legroom, better meals, priority boarding and so on. What you are generally not being sold is a guarantee of peace, quiet or child-free surroundings.

From a legal standpoint, claiming money back is, therefore, difficult. To succeed, you would need to show that the airline failed to provide what was promised. As I have explained, it probably has not failed here.

That said, all is not lost. You can still make a formal complaint to the airline, setting out clearly that this was a milestone anniversary trip, that you paid double the economy fare, that you raised the issue on board and that the experience fell far short of what you reasonably expected from premium economy. Airlines do sometimes offer goodwill gestures such as partial refunds, vouchers or frequent flyer points.

I hired a decorator to wallpaper my front room, but they did a bad job. The floral pattern doesn’t join together in places and it looks a mess. I complained and the company said it would re-do the job, but I don’t trust that it will do it properly, and just want my money back. The company said we need to give it the chance to fix it first. Is that right?

Name and address supplied.

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says services (such as decorating) must be performed with ‘reasonable care and skill’, for a reasonable price, within a reasonable time.

Wallpaper that looks a mess falls below the required standard and is, therefore, a breach of the Consumer Rights Act.

But the law also sets out what remedies are available and in what order.

Where a service is substandard, the trader is usually entitled to one opportunity to put things right. This is known as a ‘repeat performance’. Only if that repeat performance is impossible, cannot be done within a reasonable time, or would cause you significant inconvenience, do you then gain the right to a price reduction. So the company is broadly correct to say that it should be given the chance to fix it first.

That said, your concerns are not irrelevant. If you have genuine reasons to believe they are incapable of doing the job properly, you could argue allowing them back would cause significant inconvenience.

I would advise that you confirm your complaints in writing and ask exactly how they propose to rectify the issues, who will do the work and when.

Make clear that if the repeat job is not carried out to a proper standard, you will then be seeking a refund.