European Court

edgeshat

First of all I'm new to the board so hope I'm posting in the rite forum and secondly hi.
My question is has anyone had any experience of the European small claims court, Our story revolves around our holiday last year where when we turned up at our hotel the whole of the reception was locked up and there was not a soul to be seen (got to hotel 1 am ) . After eventually contacting our holiday company they could not get hold of anyone from the hotel so it was left up to us to find a room for the first night so we weren't sleeping on the street. The next day the holiday company said they had found us a replacement hotel and that payment was needed straight away to book. Which we did but when we got to second hotel they said they did not have a room for us and to be quite frank we wouldn't of wanted to stop there anyhow. It was disgusting. So it was left up to us to find a 3rd hotel where we could stay for the 2 weeks but at more than 3 times what we could afford. We booked the holiday through on the beach but they used hotel beds for the booking which is why we need to ask about the European Court as hotel beds main office is based in Spain. I know it's quite a long story but any information would be greatly appreciated as we need at least some of our money back to clear our credit card as we have still over 2000 pounds on it due to this fiasco of a holiday. We did hear from them this week offering £167 compensation which to be honest we found a bit of a insult. Again many thanks for reading and hope someone can help.
P, Ormsby

agrinnall

If you paid OTB for the initial booking then it's them you have a contract with and I can see no reason why you shouldn't simply take them to court - if you win (which I hope you will) then it's up to them whether they take any further action to recover their costs from third parties that they subcontracted.

And please in future research the company you are booking with before doing it, I can't recall ever seeing anything good said about OTB.

cono1717

As above you bought the item from them so any costs they incur they need to recover as far as you're concerned they are the ones that need to pay you for the disruption to the service (think how when you buy something from Currys you don't have to deal with the manufacturer).

I have used OTB on the past and whilst one of the hotels was a bit manky we did barely pay more than £200 for a week since we just wanted a quick getaway. Have people had really bad experiences with them??

Gavin83

Was the hotel you ended up staying at of the same standard as the original hotel you booked? If it's 3 times the price I question if it's better but I guess it's possible that you got a great deal on the first place. Were they the same star class for example?

Although you should be entitled to money back for this I'd expect this question to be asked of you. You are responsible to mitigate your losses and you shouldn't really benefit from the situation so if your original hotel was for example a 2* and you've booked a 5* hotel they'll want to know why.

edgeshat

It's not the fact that the 3rd hotel was 3 times better, the fact is that the 2nd hotel are refusing to refund us even though they didn't have a room for us as promised. Along with all the taxi fees to get us from hotel to hotel. None of this was our fault so am hopeful of the court being in our favour. Was just hoping that there was a bit of advice in using them.

wealdroam

edgeshat wrote: »

It's not the fact that the 3rd hotel was 3 times better, the fact is that the 2nd hotel are refusing to refund us even though they didn't have a room for us as promised. Along with all the taxi fees to get us from hotel to hotel. None of this was our fault so am hopeful of the court being in our favour. Was just hoping that there was a bit of advice in using them.

Haven't you read the replies you have received?

You need to chase On The Beach - for you losses.
Everything you have lost is their responsibility.

On The Beach Limited is an ABTA member - no. K0813.
Maybe ABTA can help you.

edgeshat

Many thanks for the replies so far. We did contact abta at the first instance and sent them a full detailed report with receipts and photos but the response from them was that OTB were just the agent's and not the holiday provider which is hotel beds which they stated are not abta members so as far as abta were concerned it was end of case. I still have all the correspondence and would post it up but I work away from home all week. I have to admit though I did ( and still do ) find it strange as we paid OTB for our holiday so thought our contract was with them. The offer that came of £167 was from hotel beds, so needless to say that I'm more confused about it than ever. Again many thanks for everyone's help. I have a feeling it's not going to be a quick fix. ��

bod1467

Do the OTB T&Cs make it clear that they are acting solely as an agent (and payment portal) for Hotel Beds? If not then your contractual relationship is with OTB regardless of what ABTA say.

edgeshat

Hi bod1467. .
I'm pretty sure that OTB do have that on their website though how clear it is stated I'm not sure because as far as we were concerned OTB were our holiday provider, sure that's why abta couldn't pursue this case for us as hotel beds are not members. Which takes us back to possibly using the European Court system.

Latazza

Thats the main reason why you should never use OTB or low cost holidays.

As you were stranded adn they found the hotel which you had to pay for, did yu pay by card? Surprised it hasnt been asked

wealdroam

Latazza wrote: »

As you were stranded adn they found the hotel which you had to pay for, did yu pay by card? Surprised it hasnt been asked

If you read the original post again, you will see that the OP did not use the replacement hotel that the holiday company found.
The OP decided to find his own replacement and it is that hotel that the OP paid for.

Are you really surprised it hasn't been asked?
The OP told us in the original post:

edgeshat wrote: »

...any information would be greatly appreciated as we need at least some of our money back to clear our credit card as we have still over 2000 pounds on it due to this fiasco of a holiday.

Clearly they paid by credit card.