Holiday cancellation

Myszka1

Hi guys,

I hope I can get some help from you.

One evening we decided with my partner to go for ski holiday.
When we choose right holiday we went to option complete booking, soon after we have received email saying this is a copy of the booking and within next couple days I will receive confirmation of the booking and invoice with the account number to pay for holiday.

While we were still waiting for confirmation we decided to cancel such a holiday due to personal reasons. This decision has been made in less then 48h from first email from holiday company.

We wrote an email to cancellation team saying due to lack of confirmation of booking and personal reasons we would like to cancel holiday.

Email that we received from the company was saying that now we have to pay 70% of the cancellation fee. :mad:

Please help me to understand if the company has got rights to ask for any money if no deposit has been paid until now and now final confirmation of booking received.
Company says that by clicking book holiday I automatically sign a contract with them for holiday

However:

Terms and conditions states:
"In the case of electronic bookings, company will immediately confirm receipt of the booking by e-mail. However, this confirmation of receipt of the booking shall not constitute company acceptance of the booking. "


As far as I understand the booking is not complete because I have not received final confirmation. so this company doesn't have a legal ground to ask for any money.

Please advice on that. I am not willing to pay £700 but at the same time I do not want to be taken to court for that.

Thanks in advance

Ganga

I presume you clicked on the terms and conditions when you booked the holiday,you will have to check them but i bet it states that once you agree to the holiday you will have to pay a % to cancel

Alan_Bowen

As a general rule, when you book on line, you are committed and will be subject to cancellation charges. However in this case it appears the company specifically states that there is no contract until they conform the holiday and if they did not do that there is no contract at all. It seems to me that the company wanted to avoid selling something on line until a human had actually checked they could provide the holiday requested at the price offered, that is their right, but in this case, it seems to me they cannot then insist on cancellation charges when there is actually nothing to cancel.

I assume you provided a credit card to 'reserve' the holiday, you should check with your card issuers to see if any charge has been made and make sure you have evidence of your notification that you did not want to proceed, otherwise they will just issue a confirmation invoice and claim you did not cancel before it was issued.

Myszka1

Hi Alan,

Thank you for your replay that's was very helpful.

When I made an initial booking I did not provide any card details.
I have chosen option to do bank transfer, So with the proper confirmation of the booking I should get a bank details to pay for holidays but because I did not receive conf nothing has been paid. Even on the website I have not been asked for deposit.


So my question for that company is why do they want to charge me for something that has not being paid so far?.

All my cancellation has been done via email so I do have a proofs.

Thanks again

Nick_C

A holiday company accepting payment by bank transfer sounds dodgy TBH!

Which company is it?

Myszka1

Snowtrex:)

Nick_C

Does look like you cancelled before they accepted the booking. Politely tell them the contact wasnt created and no further correspondence will be entered into

macman

Why on earth would you do a bank transfer to pay for a holiday? Even if the provider is genuine, that gives you no protection at all if they go bust before your holiday. Always use a credit card, even if you just pay a small amount on it.

Nick_C

... and of course if they accept credit cards, they can no longer make a surcharge!

Alan_Bowen

If you have paid nothing , you seem to have beaten the company. However reading reviews, others seem to have thought they were only asking for a booking and discovered that the company considered an enquiry was a confirmed booking, so maybe wait and see their reaction.

The real problem may be that the company is based in Germany and I wonder if the terms and conditions have been written in German and then badly translated. If they have in my view, that is their problem, not yours, but they may disagree!