If we say you're not booked, you're not travelling

It is common practice among airlines to overbook seats on a flight, as there are almost always passengers who fail to show up. If you are unlucky enough to turn up to find there is no room on the plane, then under EU regulations you are entitled to Denied Boarding Compensation (DBC) as long as you have a valid ticket, have confirmed the reservation and have checked in on time.

Compensation comes in three parts. First, the airline should give you a full refund, or put you on another flight as soon as possible or on a date of your choice. Next, you are entitled to a cash compensation according to the length of your journey and your delay. And finally, the airline must pay reasonable incidental expenses.

My girlfriend and I booked British Airways flights to Barcelona by phone. We were told we had electronic tickets. We duly arrived at Gatwick with the requisite reference number and credit card details. We were, to put it mildly, rather upset when a sales executive told us our reservation had been cancelled as BA had received no payment.

After investigating the problem, BA admitted that it was the fault of a telesales operator who had failed to process the original booking correctly. But the Gatwick-Barcelona flight was now full, so we were booked on a flight the next day – from Heathrow.

It was an expensive mistake for the airline, which had to arrange transport around the M25 and pay for our hotel. But the airline has refused compensation for the overbooking on the grounds that we were never actually booked – despite conceding that the fault was its own.

In a letter, the BA Customer Relations department said: "Our Denied Boarding Compensation is offered only to passengers holding valid tickets with a confirmed reservation on a flight that is overbooked. In this instance this is not the case."

Simon Evans, chief executive of the Air Transport Users Council, disagrees. "Technically speaking BA are not obliged to pay the compensation, but morally they should cough up. It's an outrage."