Advice needed urgently! Re- holiday cancellation

Ozzy1905

I am really stressing out about this situation i am in, any help would be greatly appreciated!

I booked a holiday for me and my two brothers to Cuba online with a well known holiday company for £1778.40 total (£592.80 pp). A day after booking, a friend said he wanted to join us. I tried to add a person to the booking but couldnt manage to do so (im not very techy). On my profile on the website it gave me an option to cancel the whole booking with zero cancellation fees. I thought it would be easier to cancel the current booking and re-book for the 4 of us. Shortly after cancelling the trip I received an email saying i had been charged a cancellation fee of £1600.56 and would only be getting £177.84 refunded.

Luckily i took photos of the page where it said zero cancellation fees before i clicked cancel. I can prove this if needed.

This all happened around midnight and i could not get in touch with the company as it is out of hours for their customer service dept.
I will be on the phone to them in the morning.

Will they refund me the whole amount so i can re-book for all 4 of us or have i lost £1600??

If that is the case, can i stop the cancellation of the holoday and just go ahead with the original 3 of us?

Any help is very appreciated thanks in advance

hollydays

Who is the company

jpsartre

I don't think anyone can answer your questions. If the flights were purchased separately and have been cancelled it is not usually possible to re-instate them. Not sure what the situation is if it's a true package holiday. I wonder if there's a confusion between cancellation fees and non-refundable elements of a booking. E.g. technically there's no fee to cancel a Ryanair flight but you don't get anything back either (except for taxes). I've got my fingers crossed that it's simply a matter of someone pushing a button to reinstate everything.

Westin

Can you tell us the Operator and dates of travel? Also handy to know if a package or Flight+ arrangement.

lea2012

I'd hazard a guess and say if it's Cuba and a big holiday company it's likely to be Thomas Cook or TUI. Nobody can answer the question other than the holiday company so try to speak to them today.
If it's a package it should be easier to resolve but only they can tell you that really.

PeacefulWaters

I thought it would be easier to cancel the current booking and re-book for the 4 of us

Sometimes you just have to pick up the phone.

Good luck.

Ozzy1905

Thanks for all the responses so far.

Yes it it TUI and it is a package holiday ie. flights and hotels were not booked separately.

I am going to call them now but im so scared and anxious

jpsartre

So what's the outcome?

Pollycat

It sounds unusual for zero cancellation fees to be offered on a package holiday.

shaun_from_Africa

Ozzy1905 wrote: »

On my profile on the website it gave me an option to cancel the whole booking with zero cancellation fees.

Are you 100% sure that the zero fees for cancellation was for the whole booking and not just for any optional extras that formed part of the booking? (Insurance, parking etc)

As Polycat stated, a full refund for a package holiday is extremely rare and it might have been an error on the website. If this is the case, they should still honour the full refund if you can provide proof of what was advertised.

Voyager2002

As others have said, you need to speak with them. Explain the whole situation and what you want very clearly: it is highly unlikely that you would be allowed to cancel and get a full refund, but since what you want is to go ahead with the holiday and add an extra person to the booking, they ought to be able to oblige.