Help! A British Travel Agency Has Our $3,891 and We Want It Back.

Dear Tripped Up,

In August 2020, we booked a trip to Iceland for $3,891 via Jetline Vacations, a deal we found through the email offers we signed up to receive through Travelzoo. Soon after, Iceland closed to foreign visitors, so we contacted Jetline to ask for our money back. We didn’t hear from them for weeks, eventually filing a dispute with our credit card issuer. That seemed to jolt them, because then Jetline got back to us: They would give us a two-year credit. We ended up booking a trip to Portugal for April 2022, but were concerned when Jetline didn’t send us confirmation details. We complained, waited weeks for a response and eventually were told we owed $800 dollars because of a fare increase. We refused to pay until we checked the documents, but when we did get them, it turned out the flight we were on had already been canceled. We informed Jetline, tried to book a third trip and encountered similar problems. We want our money back! Can you help? Meghan and Jay, Clifton, Va.

Dear Meghan and Jay,

The entire travel industry was shaken by the pandemic, so it is understandable that Jetline, a London-based travel agency with a strong online presence, would ignore your requests until your credit card issuer intervened and then refuse a refund, instead booking you another package, later raising the price and ignoring you for months at a time. Just kidding! This sounds awful.

I reached out to Jetline, which also goes by the more British name Jetline Holidays. Eventually I spoke to its head of operations, Richard Levy. He has refunded your money and asked me to offer you $200 credit toward another trip. (Update: You have declined in the strongest possible terms.)

“The most important thing is to make sure the client is satisfied, and I’m so sorry,” he said in a phone call soon after he read your account, which I had forwarded to the company. “You know when your blood starts to boil? I’m thinking, ‘Why didn’t someone just nip this in the bud ages ago and keep a happy client?’” He told me that his customer service team had made some mistakes and needed some retraining.

To be fair, he called me back later with some convincing evidence that your story contains inaccuracies. For instance, he emailed me internal records that show Jetline did promptly send you reservation information, including the documentation for your flights and hotels, after you booked the Portugal trip. You later confirmed this.

Your story of a runaround from Jetline’s…