“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when they called me on the phone”

In December 2021, Sharon, from Sunderland, and her husband Paul booked a stay in New York through a travel agency for the end of 2022. Meanwhile, for some stupid VAT reason, Sharon had to order a new passport .

The concern (or not, it depends), is that Sharon’s marital status changed between December 2021 and December 2022. The couple were actually married. A difference with serious consequences given that, two weeks before her departure, Sharon received a phone call from her travel agency telling her that she had to pay more than 750 euros for a new plane ticket. The airline Air France believes that the ticket you bought a year ago was no longer valid and that you had to buy a new one. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when they called me on the phone,” the 50-year-old told Chronicle Live.

In case of refusal, almost all of their stay, for an amount exceeding 2,500 euros, would have been lost. “So I paid to be able to leave and not lose all the money. But I felt trapped. Either I paid more than 700 euros, or I lost more than 2,500 euros”.

“Since then, I’ve made multiple calls between the travel agency and the airline, but they kept saying different things.”

For its part, the travel agency Hays Travel assures that the situation has since resolved.

On its website, Air France indicates that “the name indicated on [un] non-changeable ticket”: “Notice a typo or have you changed your marital status? In these cases, please contact your point of sale or the sales office by telephone”. The company has not yet reacted;