TUI holiday problem

Waxer

We’ve found ourselves in a problem with our holiday. We booked a last minute TUI holiday online on Saturday 22nd early morning, to fly out on Sunday 30th  via easyjet, but we failed to check our daughters (10yrs) passport and its expired. When we found out later that day we tried to cancel the holiday (call centre was then closed) but had to resort to using the chat and got a recorded recommendation from the other end that it could be taken care of as it’s in the cooling off period. We called and called the call centre on Sunday but no one picked up. We also tried going to a TUI branch on Sunday but they couldn’t help because it was booked online. On Monday TUI call centre said that we had no option to refund and would suffer 100% loss if we cancel.

Of course we are trying to get an emergency/ fast track passport renewal for my daughter (interview booked Thurs 27th) but that’s probably going to arrive well after the Sunday.

If we hang on till the passport arrives and pay for later flights ourselves we will miss a chunk of holiday and next day flights for 4 people are likely to be extortionate.

Is there anything we can do about this to recover / cancel from TUI?

eskbanker

Have you found anything in TUI's Ts & Cs that suggests that there's a cooling-off period?

bagand96

Package holidays and travel arrangements are excluded from the Distance Selling Regulations so there's no legal right to a cooling off period.

I don't believe TUI T&C's allow for a cooling off period so I'm not sure why you'd have been told that.  The Terms and Conditions (tui.co.uk) state that a cancellation within 14 days of departure is 100% termination fee.  Even trying to postpone to a later date is treated as a cancellation this close to departure so it doesn't seem that's an option either.

Only thing you can do is to try and speak to them again and see if you can appeal to someone's better nature and see if there's any way they'd make an exception.  However there's no requirement for them to do so and frontline customer service staff won't have the authority so I'm not sure if it would work.

elsien

Holidays are exempt from the normal cooling off period timescales. Regardless of what they told you, have you checked the terms and conditions to see what they say?

How old is your daughter? Can you not fly out and she join you once her passport is sorted, presuming she’s an adult (which she may not be.)
I don’t know why it needs all four of you to stay behind and pay to travel later on either way. 

Voyager2002

Daughter can stay with Granny while the rest of the family use the holiday.

twopenny

Sadly that's probably the only option.

Though the ongoing resentment from the child and guilt from the parents may be not worth the money.

I wonder how daughter feels? Life's strange, she may be relieved to be left behind with her friends and grandparents.

NoodleDoodleMan

"Is there anything we can do about this to recover / cancel from TUI?"

Simple answer is no unfortunately.

If she is prepared to stay behind, assuming that is a realistic option, then you should consider going anyway - make the best of a bad situation.

I'm sure she'll find a way in which you can make it all up to her in the not too distant future.

An afterthought - when you book with TUI online don't they ask for passport details of all passengers for API ?

Wouldn't your daughter's details flag up as invalid and therefore be rejected before you confirm the reservation ?

 

CKhalvashi

NoodleDoodleMan said:

"Is there anything we can do about this to recover / cancel from TUI?"

Simple answer is no unfortunately.

If she is prepared to stay behind, assuming that is a realistic option, then you should consider going anyway - make the best of a bad situation.

I'm sure she'll find a way in which you can make it all up to her in the not too distant future.

An afterthought - when you book with TUI online don't they ask for passport details of all passengers for API ?

Wouldn't your daughter's details flag up as invalid and therefore be rejected before you confirm the reservation ?

 

When they don't operate the flights, I don't believe they do.

When someone is potentially booking months out, why would they need passport information at that point? I've flown with airlines who have had no idea of my passport information (or indeed nationality) until I've arrived at the desk 2 hours before the flight, in a number of cases in a country that is not my country of citizenship/residence and I'd only arrived myself there hours before. For most TUI destinations that's completely acceptable.

There are no rights to cancel transactions related to travel so this will come down to the contract. Expect TUI to rigidly stick to this.

NoodleDoodleMan

"When someone is potentially booking months out, why would they need passport information at that point?"

Because if the passport would be recognised as invalid at the date of travel the system could recognise that at the time the booking is made and warn the customer accordingly.

Our travel agent always checks the status of our passports without fail whenever we look to make a reservation - in the era of modern technology that should be standard procedure with online bookings.

bagand96

NoodleDoodleMan said:

"When someone is potentially booking months out, why would they need passport information at that point?"

Because if the passport would be recognised as invalid at the date of travel the system could recognise that at the time the booking is made and warn the customer accordingly.

Our travel agent always checks the status of our passports without fail whenever we look to make a reservation - in the era of modern technology that should be standard procedure with online bookings.

And then cue the calls from others about unnecessary capturing and storage of data.  There is no need for an airline/tour operator to capture your passport data months in advance.  People may choose to enter their API early but the operator doesn't need it and not everyone would want to give it (data breach risk etc).

People may legitimately not have a valid travel document at the time of booking.  It's the traveler's responsibility and whilst it wouldn't be hard to implement what you suggest, I'd also suggest it shouldn't be hard for people to check their passports.

sheramber

Why should it be somebody else's responsibility to check your passport is in date?