My family and I have been frequent visitors to RAF Cosford over the past 8 years, having had many happy visits. Unfortunately, our last visit left a bit of a bitter taste, especially after speaking to the ‘Customer Care Team’.

We booked tickets for the Space Odyssey Planetarium event during the Easter Holidays. Due to the weather, we turned up 2 minutes late to the event start time and were told that we could no longer enter the event. This was obviously upsetting for my son, and we asked if there was any way we could go in quietly and sit at the back. Unfortunately, we were told that once the doors are closed, they don’t open again, and you can’t leave or enter unless it is an emergency. This was new information to us, and it was not mentioned when we purchased the tickets. The only piece of information I could find was in the fine print at the very bottom of the email suggesting visitors turn up early, but this is not obvious. There was no warning to say if you come late, you will not be allowed in to the event. The member of staff on the front desk told us that we were not the only people who had been caught out by this detail!

I spoke to the ‘Customer Care Team’ and suggested that this type of critical information should be made clear to visitors on their booking email. Unfortunately, they referred to their ‘no refund’ policy and offered no other help, not even a gesture of goodwill to refund the £7.50 parking charge we spent for the pleasure of standing at the front desk for 5 minutes.

If you’re looking to book onto an event in the future, just be warned that there may be rules you don’t even know about before you go, and don’t expect ‘Customer Care’ to care about any issues after the fact.

Reply: We did not decline moving our tickets as has been suggested by RAF Midlands. They checked for another time but it was fully booked, yet they keep saying we declined an offer that was never there. I have explained this in email, which they have chosen to ignore.