P&O - Treatment of loyal Customers

Smyth62

My lovely ex mother-in-law who is 82 years old had two cruises booked with P&O for this year. The bookings were both made last year and she was really looking forward to them. The first one was due to sail in May and the second one in October. She had paid in full for the May cruise and a deposit of £222 for the October one. The lead passenger was another member of the family and when the pandemic hit, without checking with the mother-in-law he cancelled the cruise, there was no way he or anybody else would be travelling. The ex mother-in-law wrote to P&O requesting a future cruise credit. P&O responded stating that as the lead passenger had cancelled, this ruled out any chance of her receiving a full refund, they said she would receive 50%. Is that correct? Regarding the other cruise for which she paid a deposit of £222 they said she would loose her deposit. is that also correct? Please could anyone help, I can’t believe that companies treat existing Client’s this way, does customer loyalty count for nothing these days. She doesn’t want a refund, she just wants to be able to put all the money she has paid towards another cruise, when safe to do so. To date nothing has been received so why can’t they do a FCC?  Please can anyone help?

bagand96

If the customer cancels a holiday, it will be subject to the Terms & Conditions for customer cancellation.  Usually with holidays there is a sliding scale of how much refund you are entitled to, which reduces the nearer you get to the departure date.

Unfortunately the lead passenger, although maybe thinking they were doing the right thing, jumped the gun. They should have waited until P&O cancelled the cruises, at which point 100% refund would have been due. 

If they won’t budge they won’t budge. There’s maybe one angle which would be that under contract law, cancellation fees must be reasonable and reflect the loss to the provider.  In theory, given P&O cancelled the cruises anyway, it could be argued there is no loss to them.  However it’s likely you may have to take them to small claims court for a victory on that.

Thrugelmir

Smyth62 said:

 does customer loyalty count for nothing these days. 

I've been shoppong in Tesco's for decades. They still refuse me a discount at the checkout. 

Neil49

She should refer to the lead passenger as they are the only person that P&O are legally authorised to deal with.

As mentioned above, it looks like they jumped the gun by cancelling. I'm presuming they also cancelled the second one hence the complete loss of deposit.