First Choice will not cancel! Help!

Voyager2002

villaprincess wrote: »

Hi, I am having a nightmare with First Choice at the moment. We booked a holiday for next summer back in August but having been made redundant back in May and my new job not paying as much as I thought it would, there is no way we can afford to go.

I emailed the shop to ask them to cancel the booking and they are saying they are unable to cancel as we have not paid the full deposit?! We paid £250.00 at the time of booking (low deposit) with the rest of the deposit, £550.00 due in about 10 days.

They are basically asking me to give them another £550 to cancel my holiday but then I'll loose the deposit because I've cancelled!

I explained to them that I can't afford to do that and they said that I would go down as a 'low-deposit defaulter',which means that after the date the £550 is due, their head office will cancel the booking and chase me for the remainder of the deposit!

Has anybody got any idea of how I can move forward with this?

Your travel insurance should cover all the costs of cancellation.

Anyway, yes, they are acting within the law. You are legally obliged to pay them the remainder of your deposit: if that is not possible then offer a reduced amount and see if they will accept it. Otherwise they can take you to court and obtain CCJs against you; refer the debt to collection agencies, and of course trash your credit record. I have no idea which of these things they actually would do, but they are all open to them.

duchy

Suppose it's a case of how bothered you'd be if it DID go all the way and you did end up with a CCJ.

I'm a bit confused...you got made redundant back in May ...got another job and then in August booked a holiday without knowing how much the new job paid ? If that is correct your insurance won't cover you as you booked the holiday after redundancy and not before.

Quentin

Voyager2002 wrote: »

Your travel insurance should cover all the costs of cancellation..

No chance.

Travel insurance doesn't cover you for not being able to pay for your holiday deposit because you cannot afford it!

Presumably the op can pay anyway but just doesn't want to as has changed her mind about taking the holiday and doesn't like the idea of the full deposit being forfeited.

marsman802

I doubt the OP has travel insurance this far in advance but I might be wrong. I'm shocked how many ppl leave it until the night before to buy insurance...

Quentin

There is no advantAge waiting to buy travel insurance. Unless you are like the op and simply decide not to complete the purchase!

It's no cheaper leaving it and you lose the cancellation cover.

duchy

How exactly would travel insurance cover the OP ?
The redundancy was long BEFORE the holiday was booked.

It'd be like taking out house insurance the week after your house burned down and expecting the insurance company to pay out !

spacey2012

The law says they can only charge for what they can account for as a loss or it becomes a contractual penalty.
They are obviously not out of pocket at this stage as that would be extremely poor business planning.
Unles they have suffered an actual financial loss they can account for in very precise terms and support with accurate paper work they actually owe you £250.
If they send demands counter invoice for return of the £250 at the earliest possible time demanding they account for losses.