I paid Opodo for refundable flights, so where is my refund? Have I paid for a “membership”? CRANE IN THE CASE

In September, I booked return flights for myself and my wife from London to Hamburg, traveling in October. We use the Opodo travel agency website.

We are over 90 years old and opted for a guarantee offered by Opodo that said they would refund 80 percent of the fare if one of us fell ill and couldn’t go. This costs £26 each.

Unfortunately this happened and the trip had to be canceled days before departure because my wife was not feeling well. The flights cost £574, so we should get £459 back.

But I have yet to see the money. I have spoken to Opodo on the phone five times and they have told me that the refund will be in my account within a few days, but it never materializes.

They’ve given me excuses like a manager is on vacation and Opodo doesn’t have my card details, which I’ve definitely given them.

I’m also worried that I paid for an Opodo membership that I didn’t really want. I asked for it to be cancelled, but I’m not sure if that was the case.

My bank statements show that, in addition to the flights, I paid Opodo three amounts of £69.99, £51.86 and £54.52. Opodo also refunded me £25, but I don’t know why. AR, Cornwall

Helen Crane, This is Money’s consumer advocate, responds: If you’re thinking about taking a trip, there are more companies than ever competing for your business.

Wisely, many people use comparison websites to compare rates to their chosen destination, as well as hotel prices, and see which ones offer the best deals.

When I was recently booking flights and hotels for a wedding in Canada, a lot of different names came up that I had never heard of.

Some were little-known airlines, but there were also many online travel agencies, also known as OTAs.

Like the major travel agencies of yesteryear, these websites act as intermediaries allowing you to view travel options from many different operators in one place. Some offer only hotels, but others will sell you flights, cars, and many other things.

Opodo is one of them, and other well-known names include Kiwi, Expedia and Booking.

Opodo has an optional premium membership costing £69.99, which it says gives customers access to better deals on flights and hotels.

Also, the company claims, it gives them priority access to the customer service helpline. Those making reservations on Opodo and not planning to register as a member should note that they will be at the back of the queue.

Whether you know it or not, Opodo has confirmed to me that you have signed up for the membership, known as Prime. You were initially on a free trial, so you may have been thrown off by the billing.

I understand your confusion. Nowadays there are so many “optional extras” when booking a flight – on certain airlines, even a bag larger than a postage stamp – that anyone could be fooled.

You would have needed to register as a member to get the 80 percent money-back guarantee, as this is only offered to Prime members.

Travelers could pay more for this because it allows them to bypass airline refund restrictions. EasyJet, who you booked with, only sells non-refundable tickets, for example.

In the end it turned out to be a good deal for you, at least in theory, as unfortunately your wife was too ill to travel to Hamburg and this meant you could get most of the money back.

If you had booked direct with Easyjet you wouldn’t have seen a cent, although you may also have paid less overall so it’s hard to compare directly.

But although he had been promised a refund, getting the money back into his pocket was a different matter, and he also noticed some payments he didn’t recognize in his bank account.

I contacted Opodo to ask what was going on.

He said his booking included the Easyjet flights, as well as additional services in the form of a cancellation guarantee, self-check-in and priority boarding.

He saved £166.04 on his flights because he signed up as a member, he claimed.

But when he asked to cancel the flights, Opodo said he made a technical error that caused him to not be refunded.

The refund request was mistakenly recorded in the system as one sent to Easyjet, rather than one that was due to be processed by Opodo under the terms of the ‘cancel for any reason’ guarantee.

This led to Opodo agents incorrectly informing him that the refund was in the hands of Easyjet.

Opodo has now processed a 100 percent refund of your flights and any additional services you purchased, as a gesture of goodwill. This amounts to £756.

Regarding the membership, Opodo said that he tried to cancel at the end of the free trial and instead offered him a £25 discount on the annual membership, which he accepted. This was the reason why the £25 arrived in your account.

It has now refunded the remaining subscription fee in full and disabled automatic renewal next September to ensure no charges are made in the future.

Online travel agencies have their place, especially when they offer things like this refund offer that ultimately benefited you that you wouldn’t have gotten with the airline itself.

But I do worry that in other cases they simply add an extra layer of management and frustration when things don’t go as planned.

In cases of canceled flights that I have covered in the past, the travel agent has refused to refund the customer until the airline has returned the money to the agent, causing annoying delays. Customers have also had difficulty getting refunds for issues such as air taxes.

An Opodo spokesperson said: ‘We would like to apologize to (AR) for their experience, which in no way reflects the high standards of service we strive to provide to the 21 million customers we serve annually.

‘Due to an error processing your refund request, incorrect information was recorded in our system, resulting in inaccurate updates on the status of your refund.

‘We have now resolved the matter and you have been fully refunded, including all non-refundable costs, as a gesture of goodwill.

‘Your Prime membership fee has also been refunded in full and you will continue to have access to the benefits of the program at no cost for the remainder of the year as part of our efforts to compensate for the inconvenience caused. “We remain committed to providing exceptional service to all of our customers.”

CRANE IN THE CASE