Group Holiday Booking Firm and Right To Cancel

0james0

Hi all,

We booked a group holiday through the stag/ hen do firm Redseven. It is not for a stag do, but it is a group holiday for ten people, so it seemed to make sense and the draw of "hassle free" seemed to make sense.

As you can imagine, I am writing here now so it obviously did not go to plan!

The service they have given has been worse than poor, so I have decided I cannot trust them to organise a !!!! up in a brewery, let alone a stag weekend. Because of this I have asked to cancel the booking and all deposit money paid.

They of course have refused, stating that I have no rights to a refund. I have cited various parts of the consumer protection acts and distance selling rules. They are adamant that distance selling rules do not apply to them. I am certain they do and part of those rules states that service should be good and goods as described.

Let me know what you need, but I am sure they are breaking the universal rules. I'll copy my email trail so far below

0james0

Here it is from when we went email.

Am I being unreasonable?







Dear James,


Thank you for your email.


I can appreciate that you feel frustrated by a couple of I.T errors that have occurred on the stag reservation to Amsterdam however I feel that some of the poor service you are referring to are a misrepresentation of what has actually occurred.


If you could allow me to firstly address the I.T issues;


These have mainly occurred as our system is only programmed to enable the group leader to travel as a passenger on the reservation. It is unusual in this case, that you are organising the stag party and therefore not a travelling member.


The initial issue with you not being able to log in resulted in you being issued the same login details as your other place on the hen party. As advised in my previous email this was rectified for you within 3 days and a further 2 weeks added to the stag party's confirmed group size date as a gesture of good-will.


I can assure you that both your name on the hen party and James' name on the stag party are now correct. You were never removed from the hen party itinerary, only that when the group leader name on the stag was amended to James, to enable him to travel, this in turn corrupted the enquiry page in which your place on the hen booking was linked to. As advised, both of these are now corrected and available for you to view online.


In regards to the service issues you refer to, the first contact from you advising of these service issues was in an email sent to Warren Chapman dated 12th October. At no point prior to this email, was there any correspondence from you or reference to unanswered calls or requested call backs.


You spoke with your Service Advisor, Natalie Bittles on 14th October who tried to decipher the main reason for your concern and the request to cancel the booking. She had noted during the call that you admitted that the package had been mis-interpreted on your part to include flights. During this call Natalie advised she would contact our flight coordinator and request a flight quote on your behalf.


The flights co-ordinator Vicky Chandler, then sent you an email on 14th October advising the low cost airlines had not yet received their schedule for the end of September 2012 and a new request should be made in 1 month when it's more likely the airlines would release new dates.


Since then it seems your complaint has escalated in to nothing more than your request to cancel due to poor service. All emails have been answered and you have been called from both Natalie Bittles and myself on a number of occasions so I can only apologise if you feel this constitutes as poor service.

The Distance Selling Regulation does not apply to the Travel Industry, as we have a commitment to you, as the consumer, to book all confirmed arrangements on your behalf at the point of sale. We have not acted in an inappropriate manner nor mis-sold you the package which is still confirmed at present.


In light of your negative view of our company, I would like to personally assure you of our best attention at all times from now on and offer a £50 discount of the stag's place. I hope you are able to accept this gesture in the nature it is intended and that this will go some way in restoring your faith in our company.


Yours sincerely,



Emily Smith
Service Manager







On 24 October 2011 17:43, james wrote:

Hi Emily,

Thanks again for responding.

The poor service stems from repeated errors. I appreciate that you allow 3 days to resolve any issues and to respond, but if I speak to someone on the phone and they advise they will call me back that day, not surprisingly, I expect to be called back that day. Not the next day, not within 3 days, not by a quick email when they have a few minutes spare the following day. Good customer service is delivering promises, making and then breaking promises is not something I am a fan of and not something I am willing to accept.

On multiple occasions I have been promised call backs, only for them not to come.

The mistakes continue though, even during this period of me complaining. I am also booked on another Redseven holiday that a friend organised. I received a phone call today to be advised that I have been removed from their group and they do not know why. It looks like I have been removed and my partner James Webster has been put in my place for the girls holiday. Now although this may be slightly comical to you, it is just another example of another mistake from Redseven. At this rate, I would not be surprised if one of the party made it to the airport, only to find their flights have not been booked, or have been booked under the wrong name.

I appreciate that human error does occur and mistakes can and do happen, but for repeated mistakes to happen just screams incompetence. Why would I want to deal with any firm who cannot get the most basic things correct and repeatedly make mistakes. Yes you may endeavour to fix the mistakes once they have been pointed out to you, but I shouldn't have to keep a close eye on everything you are doing and correct you each time you make a mistake. It takes the whole point out of paying you to arrange the holiday.

The distance selling directive is enforceable for all countries within Europe and in this country is enforceable under the consumer protection (distance selling) regulations. This INCLUDES the travel industry. I know this for a fact. These regulations also state that a service must be carried out with reasonable care and skill, in this instance, you have failed to deliver that.

The package was agreed to be booked as a "holiday package", the phrases "we'll take care of everything", "we'll sort out everything you need" would mean to most people you would organise the flights as well to make it a holiday, not that you'll sort out the accommodation and that's it, with flights booked separately at a later date if we wish, meaning no protection to me should things go wrong, other than your guarantee which results in Redseven vouchers.

Put yourself in my position, the purchaser, how many errors, mistakes and failings can you see? Because from where I am sat, almost every time you have attempted to do something, you have cocked it up. The error with the other party booking today only confirms what I have thought all along. As a manager trying to defend your guys, this must make you cringe. You are trying to explain how good the service is and then yet another mistake happens. I'm sure as we continue this discussion over the next few days, more mistakes will happen, as has been the case since the beginning.

I still wish to cancel the holiday, but I am also adamant that I want a full refund of money paid, not only am I adamant that I want it, but I know I am entitled to it. Now if the contract was created on the 28th September, I am outside of the timescales to cancel the holiday just for changing my mind, but I am still protected if the service supplied is not good enough. I do not want this to get messy, but I can assure you that if you do not agree to the refund then I will pursue the matter, it will cost you more in costs than the refund would be and the law is on my side so it would be a long drawn out process to get the same result. This is not to mention the fantastic reviews I will post anywhere that will listen about the robbery of my money. I'm sure you know as well as I do, an unhappy customer tells far more people about their experience than a happy customer. If you are such a large firm and too arrogant to want to appease just one customer like me, then keep doing what you are doing, you will only be confirming what I have already assumed.

You have failed on the customer service front, to redeem yourselves I want a full refund of the deposit money paid, fortunately for us both this is less than £100, so I am pursuing it out of principle. But that is the difference for me between a company that gives great customer service and a company that likes to think they give good service, when actually they do not. A company that can hold their hands up when they have made a mistake and go above the normal call of duty to make that customer happy. In his instance, a refund of the deposit money would make me happy again and show to me that you are not the money grabbing, mistake making company I think you are.

I look forward to reading your response.

Regards

James









Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:48:48 +0100
Subject: Re:


Dear James,


Thank you for taking the time to email me details of the issues you have been experiencing. I am disappointed to hear that you now wish to cancel your reservation to Amsterdam for James' stag party.


Having read thoroughly through all the correspondence on your booking and spoken to the advisers involved, I can see that all recorded contact between us has been dealt with within the time scale that I feel is appropriate, never exceeding the maximum wait of 3 days that I refer to below. If you can, please can you clarify where specifically, you feel the poor service has come from so it can be addressed within the department as you do also mention that my staff are polite and helpful?


In regards to the contract between Redseven and your group, this was formed when the Sales Advisor read you the Terms and Conditions script when making your booking and taking payment, dated 28/09/11 at 16:45. I am aware of the difficulty you had at the beginning with being able to log in and send your invites out, as it was myself that you spoke to originally. I sent the issues over to our I.T department to investigate and correct for you. This was resolved in 3 days and, as this was a little longer than I anticipated, gave your group an additional 2 weeks to confirm their attendance, as a gesture of good-will.


I note from your previous emails that you wanted to cancel the reservation due to flights not being included in the itinerary;


The Distant Selling Regulation is not applicable to the Travel Industry as a level of commitment is required on both parts to book and confirm the arranged itinerary. You admit that no reference was ever given to flights in any of the package quotes sent out to you prior to making your booking, so I am confident that you have not been misinformed in any way that these were included. I am therefore unable to offer a refund for the money that has been paid so far on this reservation.


I am sympathetic to the situation we find ourselves in now and apologise that you feel you have not received the appropriate level of service we strive to offer all our customers. If you still wish to continue with cancelling the booking, then please re-confirm this action to me. As I am keen to resolve this matter for you, have the group considered an alternative destination to reduce the package to a more affordable price? If so, please let me know and I will amend the booking accordingly, wavering any service fees normally applicable in these cases.


I understand that organising such an important weekend for James is paramount in your interests and I would like to assure you of our best attention at all times in the future.


Kind regards,


Emily Smith
Service Manager










On 21 October 2011 15:09,James wrote:

Hi Emily,

Thank you for your email. Where possible I much prefer to deal via email, particularly with matters such as this.

I have decided I would like to cancel the stag booking that has been made and would like a full refund of the deposit monies paid.

The reason I would like to cancel is mostly due to the poor service I have received throughout attempting to make the booking, the holiday was advertised and sold to me as being hassle free, it has been anything but. I have now lost count of the amount of times I have been promised a call back, only for that call to never come. Most recently I was promised a call back that day regarding flights, I received a one lined email the following day.

It took far too long to set up our online account, again after many days, many errors and many phone calls it eventually got resolved. By this time both myself and my party were starting to doubt the ability of Redseven. Failure to do the basic things correctly does not bode well when booking a holiday for ten people.

I was also sold the package as a "holiday" when actually the package includes the accommodation and airport transfers, but no flights. When I realised the price excludes flights, we enquired about the cost only to be told that you are unable to book flights that far in advance. I know that is something out of your control, but this was never mentioned when booking. This also concerns me with the flights being booked separately with the budget airlines, because it is not booked as a package, I am sure that we lose our right to ATOL protection, which is one of the great things about booking a package holiday instead of booking it in parts.

I have read your T&C's which states any deposit money paid is non refundable, however, there has at no point been confirmation that we have entered into a contract with you and thus if we have never entered into a contract with you, you cannot apply the rules of that contract which would mean the money is refundable. This is before we factor in the rights I have as a consumer for a service I have purchased to be: as described and of satisfactory quality, not too mention the rules around refunds for distance selling. Because of all the mess ups, it is still not clear when we entered into a contract with you, from reviewing all of the email correspondence, I do not think that we have.

There have been too many broken promises and the service has simply not been good enough. I can appreciate that people are busy and time is sparse, but as the purchaser I expected, quite rightly, to receive a much higher level of customer service.

Even this morning when I did try to call, the phone was not answered. I then emailed asking for an emailed reply, yet someone phoned me. People seem unable to follow basic instructions and I dread to think what would happen if something went wrong on the holiday and we had to call Redseven for help. I have no faith in your firms ability. This is nothing personal against any of your staff, when I have spoken to them they have been nice and pleasant, however their bedside manner does not make up for the multiple failings I have suffered.

I am already going on a Redseven holiday myself next year and I am sure that a very large portion of your bookings comes from repeat custom and subsequent bookings from party members. The outcome of this dispute will make a huge difference to my opinions of Redseven (opinions I will openly share with the other party members) when I go on that holiday next year. I am not making any kind of threat, I am just being honest about how things work in the real world. If we resolve this dispute positively, then I will be happy to sing the praises of Redseven and how good they were at solving my problems.

Please can you reply to confirm:

- Are you able to cancel the holiday AND provide a full refund of the deposit money paid?
- Have we, if so when, entered into a contract with each other?

I do not feel I am asking much, after going through what I have, I feel it is entirely reasonable to ask to cancel the holiday and be issued a full refund. As a senior member of the Redseven team I'm sure you will be very disappointed to hear of bad service being given by your team and will want to turn a unhappy customer into a happy one.

I look forward to your response


Kind regards

James

baza52

distance selling regs dont apply here. they are entitled to keep your deposit if you pull out of the booking.

The right to cancel element of the Distance Selling Regulations do not cover purchases where you are paying for a specific service on an agreed date, eg concert tickets, transport or hotel accommodation (unless it is for long-term accommodation).

Section 2.20 (page 9) of here: http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/bus...ral/oft698.pdf

Hope that helps...

DVardysShadow

Can't be bothered to read the full email exchange.

The essence of these things is you give a company a chance to put things right if they have gone wrong. Or expect a refund in full if they have failed. But although things are not going smoothly, they have not yet failed to deliver. Only if they start to change what they are contracted to provide do you have a right to cancel.

arcon5

You've booked the event and paid a deposit to secure the booking --- what makes you think you haven't entered into a contract with them as per your email to them?

You can't claim not as described if they never offered flights, nor of satisfactory quality if they have not yet provided the service, and DSRs are not applicable here. I think he would have more luck selling a dead horse than getting the deposit refund tbh.

BlueAngelCV

It's difficult to say whether you have a reasonable complaint regarding poor service as you haven't really explained what you are complaining about. From reading the emails it sounds to me like their service hasn't been brilliant but only to the extent that I wouldn't recommend using them, not sufficient grounds to cancel the contract.

It seems like the real problem is that you entered into a contract with them without fully understanding the details. I'm not sure how you can have booked and paid a deposit without realising that flights were not included. Why did you think this? Do you have anything from them suggesting that they were.

As as been said above DSRs are not applicable. It really is worth checking the facts before you become bolshy with a company and tell them that you know something "for a fact" because it makes you look silly and gives less credence to what may be valid complaints.

Unfortunately I think that you are stuck and it's just a lesson to be more careful in future.

unholyangel

(2) Regulations 7 to 19(1) shall not apply to—

(b)contracts for the provision of accommodation, transport, catering or leisure services, where the supplier undertakes, when the contract is concluded, to provide these services on a specific date or within a specific period.

The right to cancel is regulation 10......so your booking is not subject to this i'm afraid

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2000/2334/contents/made

peachyprice

0james0 wrote: »

They are adamant that distance selling rules do not apply to them.

They are correct

I am certain they do

You are wrong