Friends and Family Flights Company Flights Club International 09718423 Stranded, Ripped off, Abandoned, Cheated Hertford

Recently a friend and I went to India on holiday. My friend did more of the holiday organising as I was busy doing an internship and she booked the flights through the dad of her friend, Tim Beyts. He said he could get our flights at a discount through Friends and Family Flight Company. I assumed at the time this meant he worked for an airline. We paid him £400 each for four flights, London Heathrow to Delhi return and Delhi to Trivandrum return. They said that the boarding cards would be sent 20 hours before the flight time.

We flew out to Delhi with no problems. After about a week my friend fell ill and decided to go home early. Her parents contacted Tim and he booked her a flight home, from Delhi to London on the same day I flew from Delhi to Trivandrum. When we woke up the morning of the flight I still hadn’t been sent my boarding card, but my friend had. After several emails I received it at 9.30am, 4.5 hours before the flight left which was quite stressful. After that the flight was fine and I travelled around Kerala for 10 days on my own.

When it came to take my flight back from Trivandrum to Delhi again when I woke up the morning of the flight I had no boarding card. I went to the airport anyway and managed to get into the terminal with an itinerary, since in India you need proof of ticket to get in. As it got closer to the flight time I still didn’t have a boarding card and was getting concerned. Steve, the contact from Friends and Family Flight Company, first told me I didn’t need a boarding card for an internal flight which was obviously not true. I went to the desk anyway hoping my name would be on the system but they told me there had been a booking for me but it had been cancelled. I would have to buy a ticket or not fly. F&F told me not to buy another one and that they would sort it out. They confirmed that the booking had been cancelled when they cancelled my friends, and also my flight home was cancelled too. They then said they would try and get me on a flight that evening. I waited in the terminal for 10 hours and as it got closer to the time of that flight it became obvious that I wouldn’t be flying that day. The time of the flight came and went and I was then informed that they couldn’t book me onto the flight. They said I was booked on a flight at 10am and I was booked into a prepaid hotel.

As I tried to leave the airport I was stopped by security. They said I couldn’t leave as I didn’t have a ticket and I hadn’t taken a flight. I was then interrogated to the point of tears by uniformed guards with guns. After 1.5 hours they let me leave and go to the hotel, which turned out to be not prepaid and a lot more expensive than the other hotels I had been staying in (around £70 for the night). Tim phoned me and tried to pay over the phone but then said it was easier if I paid and they would pay me back afterwards. I went to bed at around 1.30am with my alarm set for 6am to get the 10am flight.

Again when I woke up the boarding card still hadn’t come through. I tried contacting them but I knew due to the time difference a reply was unlikely at that time. Again i spoke to the airline staff. They looked up my booking and told me it had been cancelled because the payment hadn’t been made. Again I missed the flight and when Steve contacted me he said that he had sent me an email the night before to say that they had actually booked me onto an earlier flight, which I had therefore missed. Firstly he never sent me that email and when he forwarded it to me later it appears he replied to the airline instead of forwarding the boarding card to me. Secondly even if he had, he sent the email to me when I was asleep. The flight was at 6:05 so there was no way I could have got it. I would have had to leave the hotel jut 3 hours after I had arrived so it was clearly an unsuitable replacement.

After this I spent another 5 hours in the airport until finally my Dad bought me a flight home the following day. Steve seemed to think it was my fault that I had missed the flight and made no more real effort to get me another. He said i could use the boarding card for a later flight but after speaking to the airline it turned out it would cost me £250 there and then.

I spent another night in a hotel and flew back successfully on the third day. Tim told me to follow up and expect settlement mid October.

On my return I sent an email to both Tim and Steve detailing my entire ordeal and claiming £329 for the flight I had to purchase and £104 for the additional hotels I had to pay for. I got no response for a week. I tried to ring Tim and he didn’t pick up but later texted me to say I should email Steve again and to expect payout mid October. I emailed Steve again and this time he replied quickly with a very rude email. He basically said that I owed him money as he was £380 out of pocket but he accepted I wouldn’t give it and that I should never contact him again.

I tried to contact Tim again as he told me i would get compensation but he is now ignoring me.

All in all I feel really let down by this company. I paid £400 for 4 flights and only got two and on top of that had to pay another £433 to get home. They cancelled my flights when both I and my friends parents explicitly told them not to. They then failed to get me home. They have provided a terrible service and I also want to stop other people using it in the future. 

The company details are:

F & F FLIGHT COMPANY
Flight Club International ltd
17 Ware Road Hertford Hertfordshire England SG13 7DZ
Company Number 09718423