Refund for booked meal at Contini’s Edinburgh

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emmajones1976 said:

The source data says last updated 29th Dec 2021, actually.

Well found! So there's no certainty that that page said "non-refundable" when the OP booked before Christmas. Similarly unless the OP says otherwise there's no certainty they even booked from that page and may well have booked from the normal booking link on the homepage.

Thinking about it further the OP said "I gave my card details to confirm booking. I was then contacted to pay £90 for the a la Carter meal" so the payment was actually made on a separate occasion to the online booking. If the OP wasn't told at that point (and presumably they weren't or they would have mentioned it) that the £90 was non-refundable then that weakens Contini's case even further.

sheramber said:

So, no reason why you could not go.

The reason not to go was because the OP had cancelled the booking and given at least a week's notice.

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Laineyrose said:

 I quote ‘all bookings require card details in order to confirm your table. If you cancel giving us less than one weeks notice we will charge the card details provided £25 per person’.

Laineyrose said:

The quote I gave is what they sent to me when confirming booking and the cancellation policy was specifically for December. I had phoned the restaurant on 23 December

If you are referring to the "£25 per person" quote as being in your booking confirmation then I would absolutely not accept their voucher offer.

The quote states there is a charge of £25 for "less than one weeks notice" which clearly implies there is a smaller or no charge for notice longer than a week, which is what you gave.

As stated earlier you could argue for no charge but a more pragmatic and fairer option would be to quote their own T&Cs at them and insist on a refund less the £10 per person "48 hours – 23.59 day prior" charge.

I do have sympathy for restaurateurs generally but this restaurant has been in business for approaching 20 years and they'd been dealing with Covid for approaching 2 years when you made your booking; there really is no excuse for their amateurish, confusing and contradictory booking and cancellation policies.

Ditzy_Mitzy

MobileSaver said:

Laineyrose said:

 I quote ‘all bookings require card details in order to confirm your table. If you cancel giving us less than one weeks notice we will charge the card details provided £25 per person’.

Laineyrose said:

The quote I gave is what they sent to me when confirming booking and the cancellation policy was specifically for December. I had phoned the restaurant on 23 December

If you are referring to the "£25 per person" quote as being in your booking confirmation then I would absolutely not accept their voucher offer.

The quote states there is a charge of £25 for "less than one weeks notice" which clearly implies there is a smaller or no charge for notice longer than a week, which is what you gave.

As stated earlier you could argue for no charge but a more pragmatic and fairer option would be to quote their own T&Cs at them and insist on a refund less the £10 per person "48 hours – 23.59 day prior" charge.

I do have sympathy for restaurateurs generally but this restaurant has been in business for approaching 20 years and they'd been dealing with Covid for approaching 2 years when you made your booking; there really is no excuse for their amateurish, confusing and contradictory booking and cancellation policies.

We simply don't know what terms and conditions the OP agreed to at the point the meal was paid for; citing the website is pure speculation.  The OP has, presumably, got an email somewhere that does confirm what she agreed to.  It would be interesting to know what that says.

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Ditzy_Mitzy said:

We simply don't know what terms and conditions the OP agreed to at the point the meal was paid for; citing the website is pure speculation.  The OP has, presumably, got an email somewhere that does confirm what she agreed to.  It would be interesting to know what that says.

I agree and assumed that "If you cancel giving us less than one weeks notice we will charge the card details provided £25 per person" was what the OP was referring to here:

Laineyrose said:

The quote I gave is what they sent to me when confirming booking and the cancellation policy was specifically for December.

So unless there are more T&Cs in the confirmation email sent to the OP that we don't know about then they should be entitled to either no charge or just a £10 per person charge.

Laineyrose

The quote for Contini’s T & Cs re cancellation for December was a bit pointless as they contacted me to pay up front the £90, saying it should have said this on their website when booking(which it didn’t) so making the charges of either £10 or £25 is irrelevant.

jon81uk

Laineyrose said:

The quote for Contini’s T & Cs re cancellation for December was a bit pointless as they contacted me to pay up front the £90, saying it should have said this on their website when booking(which it didn’t) so making the charges of either £10 or £25 is irrelevant.

The website does state the Hogmanay set menu is £45 per person upfront and that it is non-refundable.
https://www.contini.com/hogmanay-at-cannonball-house

Laineyrose

As I said previously it does not say this when you book through Contini George Street and just checked this and says, ‘We take your card details to confirm booking and there is a £25 cancellation fee’

Ditzy_Mitzy

Laineyrose said:

As I said previously it does not say this when you book through Contini George Street and just checked this and says, ‘We take your card details to confirm booking and there is a £25 cancellation fee’

Sorry to harp on about this point, but did Contini's at any point confirm the terms and conditions applicable to your particular booking?  It doesn't really matter what it says on the website at this stage.

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Laineyrose said:

saying it should have said this on their website when booking(which it didn’t) so making the charges of either £10 or £25 is irrelevant.

As @Ditzy_Mitzy has hinted at, you have been a bit vague about certain aspects of the booking so I wouldn't be so sure about what is relevant or not...

Specifically, when you gave Contini permission to charge your card £90 are you saying categorically that you were not told over the phone or by email that it was non-refundable?

Can you confirm exactly which page on their site you initiated the booking from?

If you are 100% confident that you were never told about any cancellation charges other than the "£25 if less than one week" (which doesn't apply to your booking) then simply write a Letter Before Action to Contini asking for the full £90 refund within 14 days otherwise you will issue court proceedings for the refund plus legal fees. Keep it short and sweet but make it clear that at no point when booking or paying were you told it was non-refundable or that cancellations of more than one week attracted a cancellation fee.

Of course, you need to be prepared to actually issue proceedings and pay the £25 fee. And you will possibly need an itemised phone bill as evidence you called to cancel on 23 Dec plus evidence of your booking navigation through their site which at no point stated non-refundable.

If Contini respond with a view to a compromise then, as stated previously, in your shoes I'd accept/push a £10 pp cancellation fee rather than the stress/hassle/risk of court.

born_again

Spanner in the works time.
Just how do they define 7 days given that Christmas was on a weekend so there were 2 bank holidays (mon & tues)🤷‍♂️