Hotel says double booked 4 days before departure - what are our rights?

finallycruising

Just received an apologetic email from lowcostbeds to say our hotel in Tossa de Mar is double booked. They've offered an alternative which is 3 rather than 4 star. They're offering an insignificant discount, but more importantly, the substitute hotel appears to be the worst type of all-inclusive (we were booked for half-board) according to reviews.

What are our rights in this situation? Advice gratefully received.

TravellingAbuela

Surely you could at least expect an equivalent hotel ie 4*. I agree a 3* AI is best avoided if at all possible. Hopefully an expert can tell you what your legal rights are.

Blue264

finallycruising wrote: »

What are our rights in this situation? Advice gratefully received.

This is a mixture of responsibilities and rights.

If a hotel or travel company have overbooked (which is common practice to allow for late cancellations), they have a responsibility to outbook you to a nearby hotel of the same or a superior standard to the one you had already booked. They are also expected to absorb the difference in cost and, if the error doesn't come to light until you arrive at the hotel, they are also liable for your transport to the hotel you have been outbooked to.

Your rights...
You do have the right to refuse the alternative accomodation booked for you if it is of a lesser standard to that you had paid for and you can also refuse the cash compensation if you can prove that it doesn't account for the difference in the room rates.
If you do refuse based upon that, the hotel must be allowed suitable time to rectify the situation...usually 24hrs but there are no set rules regarding this as the hotel can also turn round and just offer you a full refund if you refuse repeated offers of suitable alternative accomodation.

'Suitable' is the crucial word and issue here.

All the receptionists I have ever known of worked with have a list of similar alternative accomodation within a 5-10 mile radius of their hotel. They wll most likely be on first name terms with all the res staff in the area and will phone round to see if anyone has a cancellation that needs filling.
So my advice is to listen hard to the recommendations of the hotel / travel company you are dealing. The majority of the time they will be booking you into a more expensive hotel of a higher category and footing the bill for difference.

BillTrac

OP,
go to the HolidayTruths website. They recommend Ros Fernborough(sp?)who is a travel solicitor who deals with this sort of thing and she can advise you correctly.

She apparently does not look at the site but she is very highly regarded

All her contact details are on there.

Too much crap is taken from travel companies, why should we as customers put up with the s**t they decide to give us? We try and arrange a holiday to look forward to, and then they turn round and without a thought for the customer they move the goddam goal posts. I cannot think of a reason for why we should put up with it.

They try and screw us any way they can, if we make a mistake they will/can cancel/alter a booking. If THEY do it then they think an apology or a ...sorry it is in the small print...covers them

simes

At least you have been told in advance.
Last year i only found out they had changed our hotel when on the transfer bus .

The only plus was that they had moved us to the 5 star hotel sheraton ( had booked 4 star apartments). But it was not where i wanted to be in the resort ( in fact it was 4 miles inland from Benidorm - where i had booked). It cost me 20 euro a day in taxis to get to the resort centre and back.

Contact them and see what other hotels they can offer. They might have thought you would be pleased to get all-inclusive for the price you paid. There aren't many 4 stars in Tossa though.

finallycruising

They had to tell us as we're making our own way from the airport! No reply yet to the email sent last night. Will call them....... trying the number on saynoto0870 first.

Horace

BillTrac wrote: »

OP,
go to the HolidayTruths website. They recommend Ros Fernborough(sp?)who is a travel solicitor who deals with this sort of thing and she can advise you correctly.

She apparently does not look at the site but she is very highly regarded

All her contact details are on there.

Too much crap is taken from travel companies, why should we as customers put up with the s**t they decide to give us? We try and arrange a holiday to look forward to, and then they turn round and without a thought for the customer they move the goddam goal posts. I cannot think of a reason for why we should put up with it.

They try and screw us any way they can, if we make a mistake they will/can cancel/alter a booking. If THEY do it then they think an apology or a ...sorry it is in the small print...covers them

The lady is Roz Fernihough - she's a great lady and I had the pleasure of knowing her when she was doing her LPC. She has great experience of taking on holiday firms and first started with a problem she had herself.:D

choccyface2006

This has happened to us on 2 out of three previous holidays and it makes me mad, both times the accomadation was proably better than then originally booked (thankfully) but its still very annoying.


Sarah

jaymac_2

It happened to us once. We were moved from Puerto Sandiago in Tenerife to Playa De las Americas - and the alternative accomodation was so good we've been back four times since!

finallycruising

Well it sounds like most people got a better deal, which bears out the first reply about getting an equivalent or better accomodation. However, it's quite obvious to me that what we're being offered isn't.

They've now had over 24 hours from our email reply and almost 24 hours since our phone call and nothing new has been forthcoming. In fact, yesterday PM we called to give them our mobile number as we were going out and they didn't seem that bothered about taking it. That seems to indicate to me that they're not actively doing anything, more just sitting back and waiting to see if a cancellation emerges. It's very unsettling when you've been looking forward to a break.

Warrington-Mike

The problem they and you have is Tossa is a small resort with very few hotels, let alone 4 star hotels. Have you tried rining the hotel and asking why they chose to overbook you??