Each week, the Cash crew solutions a reader’s monetary dilemma or shopper drawback. At the moment’s is…
I booked vacation parking with Purple Parking at Heathrow Airport by way of a web site referred to as Vacation Extras. I used the postcode offered however this saved taking me to the Terminal 3 employees automotive park. I finally managed to seek out the general public entrance for the parking and left my automotive. By this level I used to be very frightened about lacking my flight so hopped on a bus to the airport. Once I returned, I used to be charged £682 for parking within the fallacious place. Vacation Extras advised me I used to be not even entitled to a refund of the unique £203 I had paid them for parking.Jas
Navigating the roads round Heathrow Airport could be nerve-racking, complicated and costly if you find yourself within the fallacious place (I communicate from expertise).
You advised me the explanation for this journey was that you just have been taking your late husband’s ashes to India, so it was already an emotional journey for you.
After you ultimately discovered the automotive park, once you returned to the airport and tried to insert your ticket to go away, it will not open.
It turned out you had inadvertently parked within the fallacious place, although you believed you have been following the proper directions.
It meant parking for 2 weeks ended up costing you £885 – a pricey mistake.
I spoke to each Vacation Extras and Heathrow Airport, asking them what had gone fallacious, in the event that they felt the directions given to you have been clear sufficient and why you were not given any assist when issues went fallacious.
Vacation Extras received again to me first.
A spokesperson mentioned they have been dedicated to supporting clients throughout difficult occasions.
“Upon further review of the circumstances, and in the spirit of goodwill and understanding, we have refunded the cost of the parking that Mrs Dhami booked with us,” they advised me.
The corporate additionally mentioned it had reached out to Heathrow Airport, which runs the automotive park you mistakenly used – however mentioned the airport had “so far not responded to our requests for clemency on behalf of our customer”.
As for the query of signage, the spokesperson mentioned: “Holiday Extras is a trusted provider of airport parking to millions of UK travellers every year.
“We’re proud to produce correct and detailed textual content, map, picture and video instructions to each automotive park we provide, and we affirm that our instructions to this automotive park, like all of our automotive parks, are complete and correct.”
You are now in the process of receiving your refund from Holiday Extras, which is proving tricky because the card is no longer active.
I also reached out to Heathrow Airport to ask why the amount you were charged was so expensive.
It turns out you were charged the roll-up fee for long stay parking, which is approximately £38 per day.
Had you parked in the short stay, it would have been an even costlier mistake, to the tune of £90 for 24 hours, which meant you would have returned to a bill of more than £1,200.
However, the airport did say it had reached out to you to offer you a partial refund as a gesture of goodwill.
The phrase bandied around when it comes to consumer rights is “the client is at all times proper” – unfortunately, in this instance, it wasn’t the case.
But it was good to see Holiday Extras and Heathrow step up with a refund, although I am not sure how willingly that would have happened had I not got involved.
Parking in the wrong airport car park can prove costly, so the best thing to do is leave as much time as you possibly can to avoid this kind of mistake in future.
This feature is not intended as financial advice – the aim is to give an overview of the things you should think about.
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