Holiday complaint - what would be reasonable compensation?

GizmoJ

Hi. I went on holiday with my wife and daughter over New Year, and had a number of different issues/problems. These included (in order of seriousness):

- no running water in the hotel for 2 days (not able to wash/shower, nor flush toilets (communal area toilets were pretty much overflowing). I have no idea how there were preparing food in sanitary conditions during this period.
- the day the water came back on, all towels were removed from the room by housekeeping and not replaced. This also happened to numerous other guests
- no bedding on arrival for my daughter - they knew we were a 3 as they had the room 'ready'. We arrived at 4:30pm, and finally got bedding at 10:30pm

There were a few other issues that ,on their own, are not too bad, but with the issues above became magnified (things like no side dishes/vegetables available in the restaurants etc.)

I have been in touch with the tour operator (won't say who just yet, but a major one) on a few occasions. In response to my first email to them they replied with a bunch of templated paragraphs that didn't actually address any of my concerns. They appeared to have looked for a few buzz-words and copied/pasted from a script.

My reply to that was replied with much the same - they obviously hadn't bothered properly reading my email (things like, we understand it is inconvenient when you can't have a shower when you want, like it was just off for an hour or so).

After replying to that, I received yet another email from them not fully addressing the issues and, even more frustrating, saying that they weren't aware of any problems there. This is despite massive queues for their reps while I was there. I rang them about this, and stated that they were either a) incompetent if they didn't know, as I feel sure the reps may have mentioned it ,or b) lying that they didn't know anything about it , and that my bet was b)

To add insult to injury (well, being fobbed off), I received a further email this morning offering me a grand total of £90 compensation for the problems (to be taken in the form of a voucher against another holiday with them). This was on a holiday costing £4k+

So, I guess my question is ,what would you consider reasonable given the circumstances? I'm not a compo chaser, but the more they are lying/fobbing me off, the more annoyed I'm getting about the whole thing.

Thanks :-)

comeandgo

Where were you on holiday? It would make a difference to my expectations if hotel in New York or remote Tanzania.

GizmoJ

Cape Verde. As it's not a massively established destination I wouldn't have had an issue if water/power was unavailable for an hour or two, but this was two full days, The hotel told us it was 'a problem with the whole island', but talking to holidaymakers at other hotels, they didn't have any problems with a lack of running water, leading me to believe it was isolated to our hotel. Having all the towels removed from the room once the water did come back on just added insult to injury

leylandsunaddict

If you've had 2 replies inside 6 weeks you're doing extremely well, even if they didn't address your points!

Out of curiosity, which island and hotel was it?

GizmoJ

:rotfl: Yeah, there is that I suppose. Would rather they had bothered to read my emails though

It was the Melia Dunas. The 'split' hotel (Sol Dunal) had the same problems with water supply, but other hotels including the Melia Ilana next door, were absolutely fine

comeandgo

To b honest I would not have even bothered, Cape Verde is an African country with very little in structure for holiday goers. These things happen, it cost you nothing financially.

Voyager2002

comeandgo wrote: »

To b honest I would not have even bothered, Cape Verde is an African country with very little in structure for holiday goers. These things happen, it cost you nothing financially.

Excuse me! Cape Verde is off the coast of Africa, like Madeira and the Canary Islands. Two of Cape Verde's islands have been thoroughly developed for tourism with plenty of infrastructure for holiday-makers (since nothing else happens there), so these kinds of things are certainly not to be expected there.

As an aside, I lived for two years in one of the worlds least-developed countries on the West African mainland and travelled a lot for work, staying in hotels in the region. I NEVER experienced anything like this: while the water supply was often interrupted it was always restored within a few hours.

All in all, the OP is right to feel extremely annoyed.

Westin

I think the water issue is valid as should be worth some compensation being paid.

There were well publicised weather problems in the Cape Verde islands over Christmas/New Year with flight cancellations and displaced holidaymakers in the wrong areas. This "might" have meant that contact with the tour operator's staff were a little more difficult as their reps may have had a lot on their plate to deal with.

If they have offered £90 to date then there may be further movement as I also think that is rather mean if you had no running water for two days.

I believe the typical calculation for compensation on full days without, or withdrawn major facilities is calculated using a formula of a 60/40 split between flight/accommodation, divided by the duration of the holiday to get to a nightly figure, then times that by the number of full days without major facilities. I can't see the duration of your holiday but taken as 7 days in the calculations below;

Holiday Cost (and you can't include travel insurance, airport parking etc) - £4,000

Divided by 3 adults / £1,333.33pp (or take the correct pp price from your holiday invoice).

Proportioned 60% air/40% accommodation / £533.33 pppn

£533.33 / 7 night x by 2 days loss of major facilities / £152pppn

It might be worth responding and asking for your case to be reviewed and to suggest a figure of compensation you will be happy with - say £150 pp.

They certainly should also be giving you the option for the amount to be refunded as a cheque or bank transfer rather than just holiday vouchers. Stick firm on that if you would prefer the money back.

GizmoJ

Thanks Westin. Yeah it was a 7 day holiday, and the figures were something like I was looking at, but just wanted to see if I was being unreasonable. Like I said, I'm not a compo chaser as a rule, and one or two minor issues wouldn't have unduly bothered me, but it was a combination of those minor issues, along with the water situation, and compounded by the way the tour operator has handled the complaints that irks.

And you are right - flights to Boavista were diverted to Sal, and I know a lot of people were put into the Dunas hotels. There was an unconfirmed rumour doing the rounds that the hotel hadn't paid the water company for the extra capacity, and they had been temporarily disconnected. No idea if that is true or not, but after talking to residents at other hotels when we were at the airport, and finding out that they hadn't had any water problems, it does make you wonder. It may also explain the tactical removal of all towels from lots of residents rooms as soon as the water went back on (the queue of angry people in reception was a sight to behold :rotfl:)

I get where comeandgo is coming from, and a minor inconvenience would have been fine, but at the end of the day this was still a 4K holiday in a supposed 5* resort, so you kind of expect a certain level of amenities, like being able to flush the toilets.

mick_vandick

You are unlikely to get 2 days accommodation costs back as i presume you ate and drank these days and could use the hotels facilities such as the pool etc.
Without a doubt worth more compensation than you are getting though but not the equivalent of 2 days accommodation costs.
There are people mentioning the lack of water in reviews on TripAdvisor and in one response the hotel admits it so copy these and send them to the tour operator.

Sicard

And you can always use the 'Trip Advisor' feedback threat as a tool in your armoury.