PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE THROUGH THIS COMPANY!

We made the critical error of buying flights for our honeymoon to Japan in Feb 2024 through Flightcatchers (originally finding them through Skyscanner). We booked at 6.30pm on 01-11-23 and after receiving an unsolicited email directly from Flightcatchers a bit later that evening, it raised our suspicions about this company. We did some digging and found a lot of very concerning reviews, some older, some very recent.

At 9.08pm on 01-11-23 I emailed saying I had concerns and asking about the cancellation process. At 9.21pm I asked to cancel our flights and have a full refund. This was roughly 2.5 hours after first booking.

At 9.34pm I received an email from a different representative telling me that I had to inform them "before 12am tonight" if I wanted to cancel otherwise I'd lose all of our money. If I did cancel, "an amount of 200 GBP per passenger will be deducted as the cancellation fee".

As you can imagine, this was horrifying news to us, and only cemented further are concerns, aligning with many previous reviews from other consumers where they have said Flightcatchers took unreasonable amounts from them in cancellation fees, seemingly without any prior warning that they could do this.

We tried to reason with them, asking them to reconsider their decision based on the fact that we only bought the tickets hours before. They would not relent, continuing to apply pressure that we either cancel and take the hit, or we cancel after 12am and lose all of our money. In the end, as we felt like we had no other choice and felt incredibly uncomfortable proceeding further with a company who would treat consumers like this, we agreed to cancel and Flightcatchers agreed to reduce the cancellation cost to £177 per person.

However, the situation continued to be an ordeal. We have had to relentlessly chase them to process our refund. They promised they had done this but they hadn't, as shown on some documentation they sent across to prove they'd processed it, but the date did not align with when they originally said they would be processing.

They keep referencing their T&Cs and I have scoured through them and cannot find any mention anywhere of their strict deadlines regarding when you must inform them of cancellation nor any mention of their high cancellation penalties. Where does the £200 per passenger come from? I have repeatedly asked to see documentation that shows where the £200 pp comes from and have not received anything.

I have found this entire experience not only frustrating but lacking in any logic. It is impossible to have a rationale conversation with any of the staff. They lack compassion, empathy, and seem intent on grabbing as much money from you as possible. They are not trustworthy.

Please learn from our expensive lesson to not book through a company like this and if you are intending to because the flights look cheap, please look at the reviews online, especially under Polani travel, which is their umbrella company. Do your research before you tangle with them, I wish we had, especially as we ended up re-booking directly with the airline and it only cost £30 pp extra when compared with what we paid through Flightcatchers. In addition, we now have full control over our flights, we were able to book allocated seating for free through the airline, which Flightcatchers were insinuating isn't a possibility, and we feel so much more reassurance about the legitimacy of our flights, knowing that we have full control, and can see all the information ourselves.

AVOID THIS COMPANY, DO NOT USE THEM!

Avoid Avoid Avoid, dishonest travel agent!

Please avoid this SCAM company as they give ZERO customer satisfaction
I booked a ticket on their website at 6:45am and then realised within 10 mins that I have made a mistake by booking the wrong return date. I send out an email to them straight away at 7am asking to cancel my ticket and issue me a full refund as it's only been 15-20 mins.
After that, I called them at 7:15am like literally within 30 mins of my booking and I was told that as per flightcathcers terms and condition, they can't cancel the ticket for a full refund will charge me £220 for cancellation charges. I tried explaining to them that it was done by mistake and I will use their website only to book another ticket. But they kept on saying that they can't cancel it as the ticket is issued. However in reality the ticket wasn't issued and they issued it while I was on the phone with them.
I also tried to explain to them that it's a UK and Atol law that a flight ticket can be canceled with in 24 hours and the customer can get a full refund. But the response I got was that Flightcatchers have their own laws/terms & conditions.

What kind of service is this? Is this is the way you treat your customer who are requesting you and contacting you within 30 mins of the booking.

Honestly worst ever service I have got from a flight provider and I will also make a complaint about them with ATOL as well as on other social media platforms. I will make sure to give this negative review about Flightcathers everywhere. Also, I would like to add that their parent company is Polani Travel which is a famous scam travel agency in Pakistan. Me being Pakistani knows Polani Travels very well.

Date of experience: 07 April 2023

Such a bad experience, they are not a proper fligh company, their customer service is not helpful.