Unfortunately some of the things what they write are true, but it is not true the reason of all that. All our team was quite angry with this situation.
They booked with an agency in his country , which sold and apparently asked for the weight. Weight is "all" by balloon. It is the most important use, for us it is not a problem to manage with this, we have a balloon for 14 people and flying just with maximal 9 people (this is the balloon that they got, and which I had to pay, to be able to take this passengers). Also to be able to take them I had to upgrade a family to this balloon with a lot of space to be able to take them.
All this is not a problem with this and we can handle very good with this, we really do it every day.. In our web we have the premium not only for people with a lot of weight, also for small people who has more space.
The day before we asked for the weight with a recommendation that people with more than 90 kilos , we recommend to have the premium option. This message is standard for all passengers, but it is not mandatory, and is it written.
They were the only ones not answering us, the answer was , we have already said (to who? an agency in UK?). All passengers did it. When they arrive to the balloon station, i asked if they din,t love to have premium and the answer was again very rude. I think, that they though that we sent this message to them, and not all the others. To avoid discussions we decided to pay for them.
Also I had to convence my pilot to take them, because weight is really the MOST important thing. Passengers with more than 120 kilos can be dangerous for others in windy landings, so that it is better to be in separated compartments (what they got!). Also in summer in very hot days it is every kg important to warranty the safety of the balloon. When clients are avoiding to say their weights, they are putting the other passenger and the aeronavegability of the balloon in absolutely danger. So, we were very unhappy with this clients. They could just avoid all this situation , telling us that they were more than 450kg all 4 together the day before and we could manage it, but not in the last moment before the start of the balloons.