***Update: After trying their call centre and emailing their support and getting nowhere. I started complaining on their socials. Notably, Trustpilot. Where Dan from BYOjet seems to be running a one-man complaints department for the company. He responds quickly, doesn't palm you off or stonewall you and has the power to make changes to flights and offer refunds. So long story short they've agreed to refund me the price of the checked baggage for the flight.
Aunt Betty would probably do well to have some people at the call centre who aren't completely resistant to giving any sort of concession or refund when there's a mistake and who can deal with complaints and problems that aren't straightforward without hanging up on the customer. It would most likely pay for itself in repeat business and less bad word of mouth. It's not particularly fun being forced to go full Karen to get a result. Anyway, good result in the end.***
I have a flight to the US (via Fiji) booked through AuntBetty for the end of August. I thought I was paying for 30kg checked baggage and the eticket/Itinerary email sent to me by AuntBetty shows 30kg checked baggage for each flight. I logged directly into the Fiji Airways website today and it shows for the Aus-Fiji, Fiji-US leg I don't have any checked baggage. I called Fiji Airways and they told me it cost an extra $500 to have a checked bag for those flights, it's not their problem and to call AuntBetty.
I called AuntBetty's overseas call centre and was hung up on twice when the operator realised it wasn't a straight forward problem. On the third call, I pretty much begged them not to hang up and the operator told me that because I booked AuntBetty via a third party site (skyscanner), they're not responsible. But the eticket/Itinerary email saying I had 30kg checked baggage was sent to me by AuntBetty not Skyscanner. When I pointed this out to the operator I heard someone in background of the call centre say "just hang up". I asked to speak to one of the managers and they said they would tell me the same thing.
I've booked dozens of international flights through third party booking sites in the past and this is the first time I've encountered a problem where they refuse to take any responsibility. It's extremely frustrating because in addition to the extra $500 cost, I could have got much better flight times (and airline) had I paid a similar price or not paid for checked baggage.
AuntBetty is supposedly one of the less dodgy operators (Australian based, connected to Flight Centre, BYOJet). But they're by far the worst I've dealt with and are engaging in straight up deceptive practices.
Other than putting in a complaint with ombudsmen, is there anything else I can do in this case? Although, at this point I think I'm screwed.
Here's a picture of the eticket/itinerary they initially emailed me showing the 30kg checked baggage for all my flights: https://imgur.com/a/VKEE2wV
Since my complaint AuntBetty emailed me a new itinerary/ e-ticked now conveniently omitting the checked baggage. Bloody dodgy operation.
*Edit: I've also paid an additional $200 checked bag fees for internal flights in the US. So it's looks like I'm out that as well if I decide to just travel with carry-on.
Seems like u are scr*d