In October 2018 I booked online return…

In October 2018 I booked online return tickets Heathrow to Lisbon for the end of May 2019. The e-mail confirmation had an error on my wife's name so I rang and asked for the error to be corrected. Two days later I got a "Confirmation of change to Booking" email, which was correct. When I went to book in on line in May. there was no such booking. I rang the London office and a very arrogant and dissmissive individual told me there was no such booking reference and there was no point in complaining, but I could pay £500 each per trip to fly three days later, but could not give me a date for return. Luckily, the hotel I had booked understood the position I was in and cancelled my booking with them FOC.
I got a solicitor to write to TAP and their reply was that I had not
carried forward the money I had paid for the flights to the "second
booking" which I had made. They had been paid and had the money with the original booking. I did not make the second booking. How do I originate a "Confirmation to change of Booking" as a customer accessing their public booking website?
I took an action against them in the County Court. They ignored the summons and just wrote me a letter saying it was all my fault.
As they made to attempt to respond to the County Court Claim, I received judgement in my favour by default. They did not respond to the judgement so I put the bailiffs in. They sent a cheque for the total amount of the claim by courier to the court.
I had claimed for: The cost of the two original return tickets, Health insurance for the holiday, the advance taxi fares I had paid in Portugal,The cost of taking the action in the County Court and £2500 in damages for the loss and disappointment of our holiday. The total cheque was for over £4200. So we can have two holidays in Portugal next year, but not flying TAP.
The lesson here is that if you have a problem with TAP, do not
use their complaints procedure (it is farcical). Do not bother with the trade organisations( IATA etc.) they are just damage limitation offices for the airlines. My advice, if you have a complaint, is go to the British Law (money claimonline). It only cost me £135 to make the claim, and I got it back from TAP.