Taken for a ride - Irish Balloon Flights

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Little Sis

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Can someone please help? As part of a fund raising drive earlier this summer I organised a balloon ride with Irish Balloon Flights for myslef and 10 of my friends. Unfortunately, weather forecasting caused the flight to be postponed - no problem there - With Irish weather one must expect these things.

Numerous phone calls, emails etc in attempts to reschdule provided nothing and now that the summer has come to an end I appreicate the balloon ride will not happen this year. My issue is the €100 deposit I paid upon booking in early March/April. I need this back to lodge to the fundraising account. There has been no communication from these people at all. CAn anyone propose some manner or means by which I can receive my money.

This organisation have proved to be unreliable, undepdendable, unprofessional, 0% in customer care with no feedback as to rescheduling. They only thing they were super efficent in was in lodging my cheque lat March.

Incidentally, one of the balloon passengers had undergone major, life saving surgery and her "revamp" on life was to be this balloon ride. Thanks irish Balloon Flights ... You sure know how to kick someone when they are down.

I would appreciate any feedback and/or suggestions from anyone.

Regards

LS
 
This is Irish Balloon Flights....

I have emailed this person separately in order to establish a motive for such a spiteful outburst. We refunded this person her deposit in August despite very caustic correspondence. We fly around 1,500 people each year and pride ourselves on the relationships that we accrue with our passengers, many of whom are repeat business. It appears that we are also at fault for her friends medical situation (kicking when down?) when we simply cancelled their flight as conditions were not suitable in which to safely carry out the flight. I have a record of 5 emails that we have sent her (no communication?). In hindsight, I can only say that it was probably for the best that we did not fly this group, as I am sure that it wouldn't have taken place in the spirit in which it was intended.

Little Sis, you really need to take an inward look!

Malcolm.
 
I've used Irish Baloon Flights before and found them excellent, very professional and curtious.
 
I have also used Irish Balloon Flights in the past and found them to be most helpful and accomodating. Yes, it is frustrating when weather conditions stop flights from going ahead, but during a particularly good spell, they put on extra flights and phoned us to see if we were available at short notice.
 
I too have bought flights from Irish Balloon's as a gift. No problem at all. LittleSis, would you care to comment on Irish Balloon's post?
 
Thank you mobileme and liteweight. You are in the vast majority of people who have been satisfied with our company. It is frustrating when flights are cancelled, but we ALWAYS extend passengers vouchers beyond their 12 month validity if they have been cancelled for any reason. It does happen that some people don't fly during the 12 months validity of their vouchers, but they do eventually. We understand that Ireland has less suitable weather than other countries, but it is a beautiful place to fly when the weather is good. We have stuck it out when other operators have set up here and promptly gone off to more suitable climbs. We have also provided refunds to those who would not normally qualify under our regular terms and conditions. We probably get 50% of our business by word-of-mouth (we do not advertise at all except for 2 weeks before Christmas) so we are hardly likely to alienate our customers deiberately!!

Malcolm.
 
I bought myself and my Dad a voucher a few years back with Irish Balloon Flights and was quite slow in organising the actual flight. As a result the voucher expired long before we got to fly but because we had made an attempt to organise things before the voucher expired Irish Balloon Flights honoured the flight. Overall a good experience in dealing with the company and on the day.
MoodyToo.
 
I took a flight with Irish Balloons two weeks ago, after about 5 cancellations due to weather. Perfectly understandable. We got a last minute call then on the day, and we took the flight that day. Very enjoyable, and Victor the captain was very nice. There were some people on the flight who had been waiting up to 18 months to do their flights due to weather. This is Ireland, and anything weather dependant must be very difficult to organise.
On the whole, I found dealing with Irish Balloons perfectly fine.
 
Malcom

The personal attack (“take an inward look”) I shall not dignify with a reply. I am dealing with factual manners with regard to your business service. My aim is to keep this on a professional footing – Try and stay with me. If you have something more personal to say to me, you have my private email, my mobile number, my office number, my fax number and my office and home address. Choose one and use it

The 5 mails you refer to are clearly pre flight correspondence your office issued. I received none from you since June 23rd. I very much appreciate that any weather dependant activity and prone to short notice cancellation. THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE.

The issue was the lack of a rescheduling date since June 23rd and then as autumn/.winter fast approached the need to close the accounts on the fundraising venture – aka refund the original deposit. All correspondence went unanswered until last week when my final email explained my tactic vis-a-vie internet bulletin boards. Interestingly, this did generate a response – but as yet no refund. You claim you issued a cheque in August. As outlined to you in a separate email, this cheque was not received. I emailed you again on September 1st prior to taking this bulletin board issue and received no response. This was clearly after your refund was issued. Surely, this would have caused you to contact me directly. Unfortunately, nothing/

The situation now is as follows:- (A) This notice has generated a response from Irish Balloon Flights (B) A cheque which they claim was issued has not been received by me (C) I have informed them of such by immediate email reply (25/9). As of 11pm (26/9) – nothing.

I am weary and drained from the whole effort especially now as it appears to be getting personal. This is the story so far and as stated I shall keep you up to date with any final resolution. Would like to thank you all for your interest and especially to AAM for generating the first response from Irish Balloon Flights since the original flight was cancelled on June 23rd.

Thanks again


Little Sis
 
I don't think that Askaboutmoney is the right forum for individuals negotiating their difficulties.

Little Sis had a problem with this company. Others reported that they were happy with the service. Malcolm explained some of the background.

We will leave it to Little Sis and Malcolm to sort this out privately.

Readers of the exchange can make their own minds up on Irish Balloon Flights.

Brendan
 
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