Pretty much what the title says. We were flying with our infant on a 7-hour flight and paid about $200 extra specifically for the infant-friendly bulkhead seats with extra space. There were four of us traveling together.
On the outbound flight, everything worked perfectly and the seats felt worth the extra money. For the return flight, we booked the exact same seats again, but when we boarded we discovered we had been reassigned to regular Saver+ seats in the middle section of the plane instead.
There were three infants on the flight total, and I’m assuming Aer Lingus reassigned the actual infant seats to the other families. No one at the gate warned us beforehand. The cabin crew immediately apologized and told us there was nothing they could do because the bassinet seats had already been assigned. They also told us we should be able to get a refund afterward since we didn’t receive the product we paid for. We accepted it and didn’t make a scene.
The frustrating part started afterward with customer service.
They admitted multiple times that:
we specifically paid for infant-friendly seating
we did not receive infant-friendly seating
we instead received standard Saver+ seats
Despite that, they refused the refund because they claimed the seats we received were actually “better” than the seats we originally booked.
Some of the responses during the 50-minute call honestly shocked me:
“Of course not, we don’t have to give you the exact seat.”
“You are wasting your time because I’m not refunding this.”
“This is your second warning, I will hang up on you.”
I never insulted anyone or raised my voice. I only repeatedly asked to speak with a manager after it became clear the representative would not help. They kept saying managers were “not available” while also claiming they were speaking to managers in the background.
The whole thing feels absurd. If an airline sells a specific paid seating product for infants and then doesn’t provide it, how is that not refundable? Especially when even the onboard crew acknowledged the issue and told us to request reimbursement afterward.
Has anyone successfully escalated something like this with Aer Lingus? Any advice on getting this resolved?
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