Holiday Booking - Hotel Cancelled By Agent - Help!

Poor_Churchmouse

Not having much dough I'm always on the hunt for a bargain, especially where holidays are concerned. I patrol the holiday sites and grab a late bargain when I see it. Last year the 3 of us went to Ibiza for 7 days (flights & hotel) for £314. That was outside of school holidays though.

This year I was on the hunt for something in August so the heat was on. In fact, I decided my only hope of affording anything was to take my chances and try and find something a day or two before we wanted to go BUT whilst searching t'interweb a few weeks ago I found a holiday at a price that seemed too good to be true. I submitted the booking form, paid £179 deposit and fully expected it to be rejected at the confirmation stage. To my surprise I received a booking confirmation a day later including flight and hotel vouchers and a date in July to pay the balance outstanding. Happy days, or so I thought.

Fast forward a week and the hotel part of the booking has disappeared from the 'Manage My Booking' area of the company's website (I still have the emailed vouchers and booking confirmation). After a few calls to the company and the obvious discomfort of some employees clearing wishing not to discuss the matter we are finally told that the hotel is full and they're finding us an alternative. We knew/know this is rubbish because they are still offering said hotel on their site. Fast forward another week and I get this email via their site:

Dear Mrs S******,
We are contacting you as the accommodation provider for your forthcoming holiday have informed us that they have had to make a change to your booked arrangements. Regrettably, your booking cannot be honoured due to a system error with the hotel supplier.
When an accommodation provider makes a change to a booking, they must offer cancellation of the accommodation booking without penalty.
We do of course understand how inconvenient these changes can be. Please view other hotel options on our website and then contact us via My Messages with your preferences. We will then be happy to re-book alternative arrangements for you, subject, of course to availability. Please note that you will have to pay the difference in price, should your chosen accommodation option be more expensive than whats been booked. Should you decide not to book alternative arrangements via our website, we will arrange for your accommodation booking to be cancelled and you will receive a full refund of the charges that you paid for these arrangements.
Please note that in accordance with our terms and conditions of booking and those of the relevant suppliers, should you wish to cancel your flight, transfer or other arrangements booked via our website, you will have to pay the cancellation charges applied by the relevant supplier, full details of which can be provided upon request.
We require your decision in writing you must send us a message via Manage your Booking, confirming your alternative hotel.


We are very sorry that your accommodation arrangements have been affected by a supplier change. Should you have any further questions relating to this accommodation change please do not hesitate to reply to our message and we will aim to reply to you within 48 hours. Alternatively you can contact the Operations Team on 0871 *** **** and they will be happy to assist you with any further enquiries.
If you have any resort transfers booked, please let us know and where possible we will assist in amending these for you.
Kind Regards
Stacey_A

It is my understanding that I have a contract with the supplier and am not liable for any extra costs. Due to the low price I (initially) paid I haven't a hope in hell of finding an alternative hotel on their site at that price. In essence the holiday would be out of the question at the 'proper' price. I'd appreciate thoughts from people more knowledgable than myself and all the better if you have any handy phrases/laws I can quote in my email reply.

Apologies for the ramble,
Angry From Cheshire.

jpsartre

If the hotel is overbooked the supplier should find you a comparable substitute at no extra cost. Most compnaies will cover this in the terms and conditions. Did you have a look at those? That said, in the email they don't claim overbooking, they claim there was a system error.

Poor_Churchmouse

jpsartre wrote: »

If the hotel is overbooked the supplier should find you a comparable substitute at no extra cost. Most compnaies will cover this in the terms and conditions. Did you have a look at those? That said, in the email they don't claim overbooking, they claim there was a system error.

We've had varying excuses, the initial excuse (sadly not in writing) was that the hotel was full. They say they'll only offer a new hotel if we pay the (substantial) difference which we can't afford to do. Due to this major change in our booking (by them) we are currently stuck with £470 worth of flights to Ibiza (booked through them also) which are effectively useless to us. They say they're entitled to do this and it's in their t's and c's but having looked through those this evening I can't see where.

We've told them we have no intention of coughing up extra cash and want a replacement hotel but we seem to have reached a stalemate and have had no reply for over 3 days now

jpsartre

Which company did you book through? There are plenty of dodgy sites out there that compete on absolutely nothing but price (that's most of them actually) and since that seems to have been your main criteria when booking it is not unlikely that you've run into one of them. Personally I'd be inclined to take the refund and look for accomodation elsewhere. Even if you're in the right, are you really prepared to go to court over this?

Bob_the_Saver

Sue the **** of them and get sqillions in compensation.

Poor_Churchmouse

jpsartre wrote: »

Which company did you book through? There are plenty of dodgy sites out there that compete on absolutely nothing but price (that's most of them actually) and since that seems to have been your main criteria when booking it is not unlikely that you've run into one of them. Personally I'd be inclined to take the refund and look for accomodation elsewhere. Even if you're in the right, are you really prepared to go to court over this?

I'm not prepared to go to court, but I will be going to Abta. I'd rather not name them at this stage until they've answered me (although all the pointers indicate that they won't give me what I want). I'm just pretty saddened that I paid my money, they sent me the hotel vouchers and we entered a contract that now appears worthless? As for booking with anyone else, I've spent a week looking and there is nothing priced in the same ball park (which is probably the real reason they've cancelled on me!) so I'm stuck with the £470 flights and no accomodation....unless they do the right thing.

Obviously_the_best

I'm betting On The Beach or Travel Republic?

jpsartre

From what I've read, TR will generally offer alternative accomodation in case of overbooking. I suspect, however, that the acccomodation wasn't cancelled due to overbooking but for some other reason. If it was something like a pricing error it makes more sense why the company would insist that the OP pays the difference.

almond

I doubt you have a leg to stand on,
did you book flights and hotels together as a package? you should be able to read t&c on your booking, somehow I think it will say your contract is with the hotel , we act as a third party supplier. If it was a package abta will be able to get involved but it all depends what your contract says, can you post it so we can have a look

Caz3121

Poor_Churchmouse wrote: »

BUT whilst searching t'interweb a few weeks ago I found a holiday at a price that seemed too good to be true.

How much were you charged for the accommodation?

almond

Regrettably, your booking cannot be honoured due to a system error with the hotel supplier.
When an accommodation provider makes a change to a booking, they must offer cancellation of the accommodation booking without penalty.
your on line agent acted as a third party so you have no rights split contract