Charged for cancelling holiday

gabyjane

aswell as the deposit we paid..is this normal? I have a cruise booked with royal carribean and have been told as well as the £500 deposit we paid we will be charged £150 on top of this (£50 p/person) to cancel making it £650 for nothing. I have no brochure and cannot see anything on the paperwork i have but wondered if anyone else had paid it?
Thanks

HXDave

did you book the cruise directly through Royal Caribbean or through an agent or internet company?

as far as i can see, provided you cancel before the balance due date (usually 57 days or more in advance, but can vary), you will only lose your deposit of £150.00pp.

Have you paid more than £150.00pp already, or is this just what you have paid? After all, unless you have signed something to the contrary, you should only be charged the £150pp (providing it's outside the %age scale).

From what i think, it seems you have booked through an agent or internet site, and they are charging you a fee to cover their costs, as effectively when you cancel with loss of deposit, the company you booked through will not earn anything.

HXDave

Alikay

Maybe you booked taking advantage of a low deposit scheme. This is where the tour operator takes a lower than usual deposit: Perhaps £250 per person rather than the usual 10% of holiday cost. In the small print it should state that if you need to cancel, then the full deposit will be required.

I used to be a travel agent and people sometimes booked on a low deposit scheme and never bothered to cancel with us. Worse case scenario was they'd just not pay when the final invoice came in (thinking they'd only lose what they'd paid out on booking), and by the time we managed to contact them and explain their obligations, they would be maybe 7 weeks or less before departure date and owe £100's in cancellation fees.:eek:

gabyjane

Hi thanks. We booked through a travel agent online not RC direct. the deposit was the £450 they want an additional £50 per person to cancel.
Thanks

HXDave

Hi Gabyjane,

Royal Caribbean charge £150.00 pp deposit (from what i can see), making the £450 deposit you will lose from RCI. It seems like they are charging a 'booking fee' based on the fact that they are not gonna get the commission from the booking that they expected to make. How much have you actually paid? have you just paid (in total) the £450 RC deposit, or have you paid more?

HXDave

gabyjane

Hi thanks. I rung the travel agents we booked through and queried it and yes it is the fees for RC. I have now rebooked it as such adding another person and we are going in Sept as although obviously a lot more to pay i couldnt justify the cancellation fees for nothing!
Thanks for your help x