Issue with transit visa...HELP!

My wife and I have planned to travel to Bora-Bora early this month. We were suppose to depart from London Heathrow and transit in Los Angeles to Tahiti. Our trip was booked 6 months ago with a travel agency in UK. We were advised to do all the usuals including checking the visa requirement for our destination, which we did. However, we did not know and were not informed that a visa is required to transit in LA. As the result, were couldn't board our flight from London and had to cancel our holiday (our passports are not qualified for ESTA...by the way, have not been to that side of the world and not heard of ESTA until this event).

We were disappointed and angry. We contacted the travel agent but they repeatedly claimed that they have informed us through written documents. I have checked all the files they sent us, and it did advise us to check the visa requirement for our destination but there was nothing about visa required to transit in the US. We registered a complaint with ABTA and all they said was that visa requirements for each country changes frequently and ultimately it is the travellers' responsibility to ensure to have the required visa to travel.

We feel we are getting no where with this. Have we misunderstood the whole situation? Or is this something that others have experienced? Is there anyway to escalate this further?

Any advice would help.

Thank you!

I sympathise with your situation and feel that the travel agent should have specifically mentioned the necessity for US visas to inexperienced travellers like yourselves. Obviously it should have crossed your mind that transiting the US should be thought about, but apparently it didn't. You can try a complaint to the Citizens Advice Bureau, that's about the only avenue left to you.

Which airlines were your flights booked on?
I've used Air Tahiti Nui for flights from LAX to CDG and I know they have many flights from LAX to Tahiti (the flights from CDG continuing on, and the reverse.
The reason I ask is that the ATN website for flights from London to Tahiti
has the info right on its front page:
http://uk.airtahitinui.com/
There's a section "All our news" which has this info:
"Rules for the United States: ESTA
Since June 2010 you must make an electronic system for travel authorization (ESTA) application"

There's a picture of the Statue of Liberty and a passport...
Here's the page with the Essential Travel Documents info:
http://uk.airtahitinui.com/air-tahiti-nui-essential-travel-documents.html

I see that ATN offers package deals to Bora Bora via Turquoise Holidays...was that your agent?
With the information so available on the ATN site and the travel agent knew you were bookd with ATN, they should have no reason for assuming you would look at the ATN site with the info. On the other hand, if they're selling this service I would think should at least read the website themselves.

I don't know which UK newspaper(s) you read but I'm sure you can find one which has someone in their travel department to help travellers with such issues.
ATN's site says they're not responsible for anything done/not done by an agency, so I think it's the agency that the full weight should fall on...

not as a consolation, but to show how clueless some travel agents can be, we often get people from Australia who have book travel into Western Europe (the Schengen area) and the agent didn't advise them they only have 90 days tourism travel with the visa-waiver program. People turn up and expect 120, 6 months, and more. "no one told us" is an all too common cry....
In addition to contact a newspaper you could also take your vacation time and go picket the travel agency with a large sign advising that they ruined your vacation (give cost) and won't fix it. Negative publicity sometimes speaks louder than posts on travel forums...
and as a last resort, talk to the Mirror....
And if your LAX to Tahiti flight isn't with ATN, then look on the website for the airline you would have been taking, see what their site shows.

Please keep us updated on what you find out...goodluck

You never stipulated your nationality! I'm presuming that you're a UK Citizen??? In that case the only other thing that may occur is the Visa Waiver Program . I sympathize with you on your situation that occurred on the other hand you need to look into things as well . Never have a travel agency just do it all for you as it may come to be that you could know a few things they may not know. Not all Travel Agents are good travel Agents. I talked to an agent years ago that thought Morocco was in the Middle East. I don't see how you can be reimbursed unless you had travel insurance, even then that usually applies if you're hospitalized or had to cut the trip short due to Civil Unrest,
family death, yet not because of a negligence on ones part that should've been dealt with beforehand.