Thomson Compensation - Abta Arbitration or Small Claims Court?

FatFrank

I've reached a deadlock with Thomson over a compensation claim, is the best route now via the ABTA arbitration scheme or the small claims court? There were various problems during our hotel and £100 per person was initially being offered to Thomson clients, later increased to £200 per person on the day we left resort. We opted to address the problems when we returned home but Thomson have refused to engage with us, only providing a (very lame) response when we were forced to go via Abta due to Thomson's lack of response. No compensation has been offered to us and they have now failed to respond to further correspondence.

richardw

Small claims court. It appears they are being unreasonable.

mick_vandick

Personally i'd go through ABTA arbitration, thats what it is there for.

PeacefulWaters

mick_vandick wrote: »

Personally i'd go through ABTA arbitration, thats what it is there for.

Doesn't that cost more?

Alan_Bowen

The two are very different options. If you are happy to wait possibly up to 9 months, you may get more going to court but many people find that intimidating and although the initial fee may be slightly less than ABTA arbitration, you have to pay a further fee to get the matter listed for hearing. If you live in the south east of England, TUI are likely to turn up and defend the case, if you live in Cumbria or Cornwall, they may not. TUI itself has nothing to pay to defend court cases, if you win you may get more than you would through arbitration.

Arbitration is considerably quicker, it is all done in writing, there is no hearing and you should have a result in 2 months. There is a fee to pay which you get back if you are awarded more than any offer, which in your case appears to be nothing. Unlike court however, the tour operator has to pay an upfront fee which often results in an offer being made to avoid having to pay for the arbitration in the first place, although as others have commented, TUI appears to be rather more stubborn than some other operators. Many like arbitration, the percentage of customers winning is higher than going to court but the levels of compensation are generally slightly lower.

If you want a day in court then go for it, judges are very variable, some make sensible judgements, some seemingly talk complete nonsense, with arbitration, all those dealing with the cases are trained in travel dispute resolution