Roomerflex policy

Nh22169

I have a hotel booked with Love Holidays to Majorca on 17th April. Booked in Jan'20 and paid for a cancellation policy to April 15th to get 80% refund if needed. Still planning on going all being well but they have emailed saying they are refunding that payment for the policy ...are they able to do that? 

zxrmatt

I`m interested to find out the answer as the same has just happened to us.

Hotel booked with Secret Escapes with cancellation via Roomer but they have emailed to advise cover no longer in place. Nothing in their T&Cs to advise they could do this - doesnt seem right?

judvayne

had this happen to me for a hotel in shrewsbury !

zxrmatt

This seems to have appeared on secret escapes website - pretty sure it wasnt on there last night when i looked!:-
23. ROOMER CANCELLATION POLICY

23.1 Responsibility for the Roomer Cancellation Policy 

23.1.1 Roomer Travel Ltd., and its subsidiary Roomer Travel, Inc. and affiliates ("Roomer") is a third party agent who we use to process and administer a cancellation protection policy for our customers made available through the Services ("Roomer Cancellation Policy").
23.1.2 For the avoidance of doubt, Secret Escapes owes no obligations to you for the performance of the Roomer Cancellation Policy, and shall not be liable to you in any way in respect of any matter arising out of or in connection with the sale and purchase or operation of the Roomer Cancellation Policy, even in the event of Roomer's insolvency or if they were to cease trading or for any other reason which would result in Roomer being unable to fulfill their obligation to you in respect of your purchase of the Roomer Cancellation Policy. If you have any questions in relation to your purchase of the Roomer Cancellation Policy, you should contact Roomer.
23.1.3 Please note that Roomer, and not Secret Escapes, is:
(a) the seller, supplier and/or provider of the Roomer Cancellation Policy;
(b) the party who enters into a contract with you for the Roomer Cancellation Policy; and
(c) solely responsible for providing you with the Roomer Cancellation Policy. 

Can Secret Escapes change their terms and conditions?

zxrmatt

Just seen this at the bottom of their T&Cs -
"These Terms and Conditions were last updated on 12 March 2020."
Basically they have changed their terms after Roomer has pulled the cancellation cover - where do we legally stand on this?

MarkB2908

My son and I were traveling to Portugal to participate in a football tournament (in early April) which has now been cancelled / delayed until June/July. I had booked a hotel in Portugal through Prestigia. At the time of booking (Oct 2019) I purchased a cancellation option which gave me the ability to cancel my hotel reservation almost up to the day of departure (5th April). Yesterday I received an email from RoomerFlex stating "Due to the massive impact of COVID-19 on the global travel industry we are facing extremely high volumes of requests and we will need to refund your payment of the Cancellation Option fee. The Cancellation Option for your travel reservation will be voided. " So it looks like they have cancelled my cancellation policy. Is this possible or even legal of them ? I can see from the above that they have changed their T&C's, but these were not the T&Cs that I agreed to when purchasing the cancellation insurance.

Alan_Bowen

Legally the terms are set at the time you enter a contract and cannot be changed unilaterally without your consent. They are of course at liberty to change the terms for new buyers but it looks as though Secret Escapes are desperately backtracking when they discovered the company, which appears to be US based (401 Park Av South, New York to be precise), suddenly did this. As Secret Escapes introduced you to them, and no doubt earned a commission, I would pressurise them to put it right, either by telling the company what the English law is or by sorting it out themselves.

zxrmatt

Alan, we have been trying to get through to secret escapes but struggling as I guess they are flat out with COVID-19 queries. Will continue to try but not sure how successful we will be as they appear to be saying they are only an introducer and contract is between buyer and US based Roomer (however this wasn't made clear at the time of purchase)

zxrmatt

Secret escapes twitter states - "we were disappointed to learn from members that Roomer has emailed purchasers of the cancellation protection regarding a refund of this protection. This was done without our knowledge. We are continuing to work to better understand exactly what the situation is."