Cancelled event! Help!

slglasgow

Hello,

My husband entered an Ironman in Alcudia 2019, which was understandably cancelled. It was cancelled due to Covid-19 and he received a race voucher to use on another event.He used this voucher and paid extra to enter the Ironman Cork race which was due to take place in August 2021. This has also now been cancelled.

Ironman have sent out various emails offering deferral to the following year, or a race voucher for IronMan Ireland events. Neither of these options were ideal. As he had to make a decision within a certain timeframe, he selected race voucher. Then emailed Ironman to query the option. At this point, he was given the option of a refund. This option hadn't been set out in any of the previous emails, so he had assumed a refund was not possible. When applying for the refund, it was then refused on the basis that he had already selected a race voucher and the terms state that he would no longer be eligible for a refund.

The customer services department have advised him to contact their legal department, which he has and he received this response today:

thank you for your email. The right to request a refund if an event is cancelled or postponed is based on the laws applicable to our contractual relationship. The options we offered in our emails were in addition to your legal rights, and therefore we did not mention those legal rights in an extra note as they should be known to you. Also the deadlines were only with regard to the additional options, not any legal rights. If you have actually used the option to take the voucher before you asked for a refund or other options, we cannot help you here, as you have accepted this option legally binding to you and us. You are therefore now bound by your decision to take the voucher option.

Where do we go from here? Please can anyone help? It cost around £500 and money is very tight at the moment due to unemployment due to Covid-19.

TIA!

JJ_Egan

Ironman Cork presume that comes under Irish laws .

slglasgow

I'm not sure...?

mattyprice4004

If you're dealing with a legal department, you probably should at least know the country they're based in so you're looking at the relevant legislation when forcing your point. 
Your options (if they are in Ireland) are limited to taking them through the Irish courts, which I can't imagine will be cheap. 

user1977

slglasgow said:

I'm not sure...?

Well, neither are we, but presumably your husband can see the terms he signed up to and check?

JJ_Egan

As far as i can tell its run by a Florida company overall .

But local events may be under local laws .

slglasgow

OK thanks everyone. I will have a look and maybe confirm with them.