Airline hits passenger for extra HK$5,000 just to keep seat on original flight as Hong Kong watchdog warns consumers to be vigilant over bookings

An airline tried to make a passenger fork out an extra HK$5,000 just to keep the seat she had originally paid for on a flight from Hong Kong to Toronto via Vancouver after it moved her booking to the following day without asking her, the consumer watchdog has revealed.

The Consumer Council on Wednesday said the woman called the airline but “received no justifiable response”. That led to serious delays in her itinerary, including missing a medical appointment.

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She complained to the council which intervened, with the airline offering compensation to the woman as a result.

The woman’s case was just one of a soaring number of complaints over flight bookings the watchdog has received so far this year, prompting a warning for travellers to be vigilant. Complaints more than doubled to 1,537 in the first 10 months of 2023 compared with 727 in the same period last year.

Council chief executive Gilly Wong Fung-han said the steep rise in cases could be attributed to the relaxation of Covid-related travel restrictions and Hongkongers’ love of travelling.

“There may also be gaps in expectations and service quality if airlines’ back-end operations are not fully ready or their customer services have not fully recovered yet,” she said.

Budget airlines accounted for 64 per cent of the complaints with the rest involving traditional carriers.

Japan – highly popular with Hong Kong travellers – was the flight destination with the highest number of complaints at 354, while Thailand had 49 and the United Kingdom 28.

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Wong said price disputes caused one-third of the complaints and 600 were related to changes in tickets. Service delays were another major cause for complaints.

In another case, the complainant waited for four to five months before receiving a refund of HK$33,665 for five return flights to Belgium.

The man’s travel agent had notified him that his flights had been cancelled with the next available ones five days later. The complainant asked for a refund instead.

The agent told the complainant they could not give him a refund as the airline had not issued one to them.

Hong Kong consumers made 28,338 complaints to watchdog last year, worth HK$1 billion

The complainant was also left without a reason for the cancellation so he was not able to make a claim for compensation from travel insurance.

The airline refused to respond to him as it claimed the tickets were bought through an agent.

Upon receiving the complaint, the council referred the case to the Travel Industry Authority, which said the airline eventually refunded the agent who transferred the money to the complainant.

The council urged travellers to carefully read the terms and conditions of different classes of air tickets and ask for clarifications where necessary before booking flights.