Whenever you receive an email promising a refund for something you don’t remember buying, it’s usually safe to suspect a scam.
This was my first reaction to a notification this week from an airline booking company, informing me that on foot of a refund request, I was owed €28.39.
But it didn’t ask for bank details and everything else about the text seemed suspiciously legitimate. So I looked up the booking reference in my email account.
And lo! There it was, relating to a return flight from Dublin to Paris almost three years ago, for which I had indeed made a refund claim, long since forgotten.
Prince of the church – Brian Maye on Cardinal Michael Logue
Conflict of many colours – Frank McNally on a finely illustrated atlas of the Civil War
Lunar quest – Frank McNally on moon missions, misinformed quiz questions, and mountweazels
The Dromcollogher cinema fire disaster – Frank McNally on a fateful day in 1926
Memories now came flooding back, not just of the missed flight but of the hair-raising trip to Orly Airport that preceded it.
The day of my scheduled return, invited to lunch by a French friend who lived conveniently near Orly, I had been collected from the train station by the friend’s husband in one of several vintage cars he owned.
It was a 1950s Citroen, similar to the one Charles de Gaulle was in when he survived a machine gun attack by Algerian veterans in 1962 before escaping at high speed and vowing he would never use any other make of car.
Among its interesting features – and this became even more interesting later in the afternoon – was that it still had no seatbelts, as standard for its era.
This seemed rather charming as we drove sedately from the village station on a Sunday afternoon, with me in the passenger seat.
During the pleasant lunch that followed, my friend’s husband joined me in having a strong Belgian beer, then a large glass of red wine, and finally a cognac.
I guessed his wife would be the one driving to the airport afterwards.
But no. This was France, where attitudes to alcohol can still occasionally be as vintage as a 1950s Citroen.
The other – related – thing that happened over lunch was that we relaxed, dangerously. As convenient as we were to the airport, we cut it way too close in the end and had to leave in a hurry.
There ensued a short but intense trip down the motorway in the Citroen, weaving through Sunday traffic, with me again in the passenger seat, still minus a seatbelt and feeling like Charles de Gaulle in another assassination plot.
Happily, I survived that and made it to the airport in time to join a long queue signposted as check-in for the Transavia flight to Dublin. There was still an hour before the scheduled departure.
But when a few minutes later, a clearly-stressed – and rude – young man on the desk asked aloud if anybody was going to Dublin – it turned out there were only four of five of us.
So he called us forward, brusquely, announcing that the gate was closing in five minutes.
This was when my other problem emerged.
Readers will remember that Covid-era phenomenon: the passenger locator form. Well, I didn’t have one, because I couldn’t complete it online before leaving Dublin and hadn’t been able to print one either.
But nobody asked for it on the way to France – as usual, the vaccination cert was all they wanted – and I had since forgotten.
Now a the rude young man demanded a PLF. And when I explained I didn’t have one, he ordered me to wait to one side while he processed the others.
So I awaited further guidance. But his next communication on the subject was to announce that the flight was now closed. He pointed me to a desk where they would “rebook me”.
Somewhat stunned, I went to the desk, where the young woman was contrastingly polite but also confused.
Yes, she could rebook me. But the next Transavia flight to Dublin was not until five days later.
Stunned again, I considered my options, the best of which was buying a one-way flight home with Aer Lingus for €185 later that night.
Unfortunately, it left from (yes, him again) Charles de Gaulle, the other side of Paris. But two train trips, a bus ride (there was the usual French rail strike), and several excruciating queues later, I was finally on a plane. Nobody asked for the PLF.
I wrote to Transavia afterwards admitting my basic fault but suggesting they too had been somewhat lacking, especially on the part of the unhelpful bollocks at check-in (I didn’t use that exact term), and that they might like to consider partial compensation.
They wrote back assuring me that courtesy to passengers was a priority. But rules were rules. The only money repayable was of the airport tax on my aborted return flight.
That must be what the flight-booking company is talking about now. “We understand that you requested a refund directly from the airline without involving us,” the email said, presumably to explain the delay of two years and nine months.
Mind you, it added that the €28.39 may take a few more days to land.
So I’m still waiting, even now. But have fastened my seatbelt in anticipation.