Help needed to cancel a holiday

goldmercury

Booked with thomas cook online and need to cancel but they say that becuase i booked so late that they would take all my money! Is there any way out of this? I paid with a credit card.

stratford_2

I think it's highly unlikely - most tour operators will specify that you forfeit either the deposit or differing amounts of the full balance, depending on how close to departure you cancel. They may waive this at their discretion if there is a genuine unforseen emergency, but this is certainly not guaranteed.

Maybe you could check your travel insurance policy to see if you are covered for cancellation in this instance?

goldmercury

what about the distant selling regulation? as it was purchased over the net i am entitled to a 7 day cooling off peroid?

saveapenny

Not with holidays ...you must have clicked the terms and con button and accepted the booking conditions online and if the holiday is within (usualy) 28 days cancellation fee is 100% of total cost. When is the holiday?
Can you sell the holiday?
Or like Straford asked how about insurance claim?

kirstyreanne

The other alternative is to use the money against another holiday at a later date. Most tour operators allow this as an alternative to cancelling & losing all your money.

saveapenny

kirstyreanne wrote:

The other alternative is to use the money against another holiday at a later date. Most tour operators allow this as an alternative to cancelling & losing all your money.

In my experience they dont allow you to do this if its within the 100% lose time.
Because you could change to a later date then you wouldnt be in the 100% lose time and then cancel.
We had the same trouble with a holiday we had booked with Thomsons. It was 27 days before departure and they wouldnt even let us change it to a week later

waster_2

Keep checking to see whether the holiday you booked is still available. If they resell it and there is no other availabilty then they have effectively been paid twice for the same holiday.

You could then ask to be reimbursed what you paid less a reasonable sum to cover any additional costs/losses they have incurred through having to resell it. They cannot profit becuse you have cancelled and are only entitled to recover what they have actually lost. Anything else is in effect a penalty which is not enforceable in English Law. This would then mean, IMO, that their T&C's are unfair and covered under the Unfair Contract Terms legislation. Do not be bullied by large companies and their generally thick and am working to a script employees.