[Questor18]

I hope my experience with Etihad Guest Affairs will help others in the future.

I booked return flights for my wife and myself in March 2011 for travel between Manchester and Sydney (Australia) over Christmas last year. At the time of booking, I noted (somewhere within the website Terms and Conditions) that one change to our flights could be made for a fee of £75 each. This was one of the reasons we booked with Etihad since there was a possibility that we would need to change our return flight.

In the event, for family reasons, we found we needed to do so. On contacting the Airline booking team in Sydney, we were told that we would have to pay £135 each to make the change. I explained that I had never seen this figure before and that the T&C's I had read when booking said £75. This was not accepted and I had to agree to pay the £135, albeit under protest.

Despite raising a complaint with Guest Affairs, and lengthy correspondence, I have got nowhere. I have been told that I need to produce a copy of the T&C web page that I saw. Because the relevant T&C were not included with my booking information and there appears to be no archive of the web pages (despite my best efforts to locate them) I have been unable produce the relevant page. Convinced that the airline must have a record, I have asked for them to send me a copy, again to no avail. I was willing to accept that I may have made an error if evidence was produced to the contrary but it would seem that Etihad Guest Affairs is unable (or unwilling?) to do so.

So be warned. Make sure that you keep a record of pertinent conditions attached to your booking or you will be at the mercy of the airline.