Groupon refund rights

Mackers12

Hi all,
I hope you are all keeping well. I had bought a Groupon in Dec for a hotel stay as a Christmas present for my sister. She booked to arrange to stay at the hotel in late March...

The long and short of the issue is that the stay didn't go ahead as scheduled due to COVID-19, but when I tried to reschedule the stay for her recently (as things were opening up), the hotel said we must 're-activate' the voucher through the Groupon engine. Groupon consider the voucher is expired and redeemed, so we're not able to reactivate. The Groupon CS rep said in writing I would get a full refund if the hotel provided an email to confirm the stay did not go ahead and that a refund was entitled. I got this confirmation and provided it to Groupon, and agreed to the refund. Then a different Groupon rep responded to say that the only option would be to receive Groupon credits. 

My question is, what are my rights for pushing for a full refund? Does the fact Groupon explicitly offered a refund make a difference (ie could this be considered a contract?). I'd rather the refund than the credits, obviously! 

Thanks in advance! 

Aylesbury_Duck

You're almost certainly only entitled to credit. Such is the Groupon business model.  You buy credit to redeem for the eventual product or service.  They only have to refund you in the same format if the product or service isn't available.

Sandtree

Mackers12 said:

 Does the fact Groupon explicitly offered a refund make a difference (ie could this be considered a contract?). I'd rather the refund than the credits, obviously! 

No, a contract legally requires three things... an offer, acceptance and consideration (normally in the form of payment). You’ll find odd looking deals done where someone pays £1 for a company in major difficulty but that token payment is the consideration that makes it a contract.

additionally there are certain recognition to authority levels else you could agree to pay £1 for a £5bn cheque and go halves with the agent afterwards. 

The problem with GroupOn and their business model is that they contract to only provide a voucher and clearly they fulfilled this by virtue of your sister being able to book. As a consequence your rights are relatively limited subject to the possible luck of a poorly worded set of terms.

Mackers12

Thanks all, sounds like I'll take the credit note in that case! Cheers for the advice.