Booking.com sold me a Premium Economy upgrade that was never delivered

[Sopranito]

On October 28th, I used Booking.com's online chat to inquire about upgrading my Bali to London flight to Premium Economy. Their agent quoted £443.60 for the upgrade, which I paid via their payment link. I maintained detailed logs of all communications, including timestamps and chat transcripts where their agent confirmed the price was specifically for a Premium Economy upgrade.

Between October 28th and my flight date, I:

• Spoke with five different Booking.com agents, all claiming to have "escalated" the issue
• Received admission over the phone from Booking.com that their agent made a mistake as they had instead charged me for an Economy Flexi ticket
• Was repeatedly told not to check in as they were "trying to resolve it"
• Never received the Premium Economy upgrade I paid for

Unfortunately, despite my persistent efforts to resolve this before travel, I had no choice but to fly Economy class from Bali to London. Upon returning to London, I initiated a chargeback through Curve (with the underlying card being a Barclays' Credit Card). Today, I received notification from Curve that Booking.com has rejected the initial chargeback, and the matter has been escalated to Curve's dedicated review team.

The case appears straightforward: I requested and paid for a Premium Economy upgrade but received an Economy Flex ticket instead. I have screenshots of the chat with the Booking.com agent confirming this. However, Curve's handling of this matter has been disappointing, as they don't seem to be advocating effectively for what appears to be a clear case of misrepresentation.

I'm now considering two potential courses of action:

1. Taking Booking.com to small claims court (though this may be complicated as their terms indicate their Amsterdam entity handles flight bookings - see their T&Cs paragraph A19)
2. Filing a complaint with the Financial Ombudsman

The amount involved (£443.60) is significant, and this experience has led me to decide against using both Booking.com and Curve in the future. While I initially chose Curve for their competitive exchange rates and cashback, their poor customer support in this situation has been disappointing.

I'm based in England and would greatly appreciate any advice on which legal avenue might be most effective for recovering these funds.

Please let me know if there is any other course of action I pursue or anything else I can do to get my money back.

Screenshot of chat.

[atticus]

Instead of chargeback, make a claim on your credit card under s75 Consumer Credit Act 1974.

[Huxie]

Instead of chargeback, make a claim on your credit card under s75 Consumer Credit Act 1974.

That won’t apply if, as seems the case, the OP used a Curve debit card:

https://help.curve.com/am-i-covered-...-act-r1rOS_hUu

[atticus]

OK, the reference to the underlying credit card made me think otherwise.