School Trip deposit

DullGreyGuy

RefluentBeans said:

I wouldn’t be as quick as others here to just give up. They can only take and keep for their losses.

But the above is also a caution, they can keep their losses and so if things had been booked already and there is a fee to pay to change the name on the booking, the admin for the school to readvertise it, admin for doing the refund etc they may well find their losses are more than the £75 deposit and would be entitled to come after the rest. 

 The fact they say its a hot potato and book early to avoid disappointment may also be a stretch and you find they dont resell it and therefore increases their losses.

In my line of work I've seen many people complain and then end up in a worse position and we have seen cases here where some have gone for quick fixes/easy wins and come unstuck after. 

Grumpy_chap

My guess is that the "he'll go anyway" line will be knocked back as I assume the College will mutter something about health & safety, insurance, safeguarding, etc. meaning a non-student (at that institution) cannot travel on the trip.

The College also seem to have considered this outcome in the comments about the trip being non-refundable even if not at the College.

On balance, this is probably one to take the hit and move on.

RefluentBeans

DullGreyGuy said:

RefluentBeans said:

I wouldn’t be as quick as others here to just give up. They can only take and keep for their losses.

But the above is also a caution, they can keep their losses and so if things had been booked already and there is a fee to pay to change the name on the booking, the admin for the school to readvertise it, admin for doing the refund etc they may well find their losses are more than the £75 deposit and would be entitled to come after the rest. 

 The fact they say its a hot potato and book early to avoid disappointment may also be a stretch and you find they dont resell it and therefore increases their losses.

In my line of work I've seen many people complain and then end up in a worse position and we have seen cases here where some have gone for quick fixes/easy wins and come unstuck after. 

I don’t disagree that there could be a penalty. Indeed any complaint is a risk, especially if they sense a legal challenge coming up. 

Like I said it could be worth probing exactly how far the booking has gone. As an organiser of events, you tend not to book people’s tickets for travel until you know exact numbers. So I can see that the school probably wouldn’t after a booking go to EasyJet and buy a seat (for example). 

In addition, could be worth asking if there’s a waiting list of people to get on the trip. 

The point I’m making really is that the school can’t just pocket that £75 if they rebook themselves and get the next parent to pay the same amount of money. The whole point of the legalisation seems to be to prevent bad actor companies from putting in non-refundable payments and then hoping (and praying) the consumer will cancel so they can keep the money. To me there’s some more leeway with schools and they get a few more benefit of doubts, but ultimately they are often quite large enterprises and so they only get so many benefit of doubts. 

I personally think it seems dodgy to advertise a school trip to parents of students who may not even be attending there yet. I think there’s a good case to get at least some portion of money back. And if the school asks for more money then that’s certainly an opportunity to ask the school how they’ve mitigated their losses. 

pinkshoes

I run school trips.

I've had people drop out before and I returned the deposit once I'd found a replacement less the cost of the name change of the flight. 

The company we booked through didn't charge an admin fee thankfully. 

I'd speak to then and see what stage the booking is at.

Perhaps you could suggest to them that he still can go? I wonder what they'd say??

I'm not sure our school insurance would cover it so we'd probably have to refund.