Package holiday - company have changed accomodation

peterearl

peterearl said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

In that case, it would seem an option for you go back saying that you want a full refund - as it seems clear that a change of resort is a 'significant' change under the regs as posted on the thread. 

ArbitraryRandom said:

In that case, it would seem an option for you go back saying that you want a full refund - as it seems clear that a change of resort is a 'significant' change under the regs as posted on the thread. 

I have told them I want a full refund several times, this was their last response "We can refund the accommodation booking but, unfortunately the flights are non-refundable.

Please advise therefore if you are happy for us to cancel the accommodation only, or if you would like us to await an alternative accommodation from the Supplier.


Please advise".

I rejected that as unacceptable and reiterated I wanted a full refund, I referred them to the 2018 regs. I have not had a response, the latest exchange was on 8th Feb. I have avoided saying I wanted to cancel as I felt that may be used against me although their own terms and conditions and the 2018 regs say that I have a right to cancel and receive a full refund.

eskbanker

peterearl said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

In that case, it would seem an option for you go back saying that you want a full refund - as it seems clear that a change of resort is a 'significant' change under the regs as posted on the thread. 

ArbitraryRandom said:

In that case, it would seem an option for you go back saying that you want a full refund - as it seems clear that a change of resort is a 'significant' change under the regs as posted on the thread. 

I have told them I want a full refund several times, this was their last response "We can refund the accommodation booking but, unfortunately the flights are non-refundable.

Please advise therefore if you are happy for us to cancel the accommodation only, or if you would like us to await an alternative accommodation from the Supplier.

Please advise".

I'd suggest a response along the lines of:

I note that, two weeks after advising me of a significant change to my booking, you have failed to propose comparable alternative accommodation without undue delay, as required by the PTRs and your own terms.  It is unreasonable to expect me to wait indefinitely for such alternatives to be identified and I must therefore insist that you do so within 7 days, as I require adequate time in which to consider my response.  Should you fail to identify comparable accommodation by then, I intend to exercise my right to cancellation for a full refund of all monies paid.

peterearl

eskbanker said:

peterearl said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

In that case, it would seem an option for you go back saying that you want a full refund - as it seems clear that a change of resort is a 'significant' change under the regs as posted on the thread. 

ArbitraryRandom said:

In that case, it would seem an option for you go back saying that you want a full refund - as it seems clear that a change of resort is a 'significant' change under the regs as posted on the thread. 

I have told them I want a full refund several times, this was their last response "We can refund the accommodation booking but, unfortunately the flights are non-refundable.

Please advise therefore if you are happy for us to cancel the accommodation only, or if you would like us to await an alternative accommodation from the Supplier.

Please advise".

I'd suggest a response along the lines of:

I note that, two weeks after advising me of a significant change to my booking, you have failed to propose comparable alternative accommodation without undue delay, as required by the PTRs and your own terms.  It is unreasonable to expect me to wait indefinitely for such alternatives to be identified and I must therefore insist that you do so within 7 days, as I require adequate time in which to consider my response.  Should you fail to identify comparable accommodation by then, I intend to exercise my right to cancellation for a full refund of all monies paid.

Thanks, some further information as to what has already been said (by me to them) may help. I responded to their first message (after a couple of unproductive 'phone calls) within 2 days on Monday 5th Feb advising that as per the 2018 regs I wanted "a full refund within 7 days", they didn't respond for another 8 days and only after a further prompt from me,  my second and latest message to them was 3 days ago where I again asked for a full refund and quoted the 2018 regs again and they haven't yet responded. All in all I advised them that I wanted "a full refund within 7 days" 13 days ago.

In respect of a significant change their terms and conditions state "we will offer you the choice of the following options:-

(for significant changes) agreeing to the changed arrangements,

accepting the cancellation or terminating the contract for the arrangements and receiving a refund (without undue delay) of all monies paid; or

accepting an offer of alternative arrangements of comparable standard from us, if available."

As they are offering choices I'd want to write back today to accept the choice (as stated in the terms and conditions) of their cancellation with a full refund - n.b. in their message to me they did include that choice but they worded it as "refund of accommodation" with no mention of flights and subsequently asserting that the flights are non refundable - when writing I'd include that if they deemed that they weren't cancelling then I assert my right to cancel etc. The disadvantages to me to give another 7 days are that they may be hoping for a cancellation from the "Stag do" hotel - which is currently fully booked - which they would then offer to me which we don't want and giving another 7 days potentially only leaves 14 days until our planned departure.

What do you think?

eskbanker

peterearl said:

Thanks, some further information as to what has already been said (by me to them) may help. I responded to their first message (after a couple of unproductive 'phone calls) within 2 days on Monday 5th Feb advising that as per the 2018 regs I wanted "a full refund within 7 days", they didn't respond for another 8 days and only after a further prompt from me,  my second and latest message to them was 3 days ago where I again asked for a full refund and quoted the 2018 regs again and they haven't yet responded. All in all I advised them that I wanted "a full refund within 7 days" 13 days ago.

In respect of a significant change their terms and conditions state "we will offer you the choice of the following options:-

(for significant changes) agreeing to the changed arrangements,

accepting the cancellation or terminating the contract for the arrangements and receiving a refund (without undue delay) of all monies paid; or

accepting an offer of alternative arrangements of comparable standard from us, if available."

As they are offering choices I'd want to write back today to accept the choice (as stated in the terms and conditions) of their cancellation with a full refund - n.b. in their message to me they did include that choice but they worded it as "refund of accommodation" with no mention of flights and subsequently asserting that the flights are non refundable - when writing I'd include that if they deemed that they weren't cancelling then I assert my right to cancel etc. The disadvantages to me to give another 7 days are that they may be hoping for a cancellation from the "Stag do" hotel - which is currently fully booked - which they would then offer to me which we don't want and giving another 7 days potentially only leaves 14 days until our planned departure.

What do you think?

To me the regulations (as largely mirrored by TR's terms) envisage a one-off exercise of presenting options without undue delay, one being a full refund, so technically I believe you were entitled to cancel as soon as they proposed the accommodation in the other resort.  However, I don't think it's unusual for there to be a certain amount of iteration to identify suitable alternatives, so if they effectively asked for more time to find something more appropriate then it really boils down to how much time would be reasonable, and the extent to which they're able to commit to a timescale rather than leaving it open-ended.

I do think you'd be within your rights to highlight that they still haven't identified a suitable alternative two weeks after recognising the need to (within a massive resort stuffed with hotels), and therefore you're not prepared to wait any longer, but I'm just looking at it from the perspective that they've made it fairly clear that they're not going to issue a full refund, and therefore you're probably going to need to take this up via chargeback with your card provider and/or small claims court, so it's worth considering how your actions would appear to an independent third party.  If it's too obvious that you're angling for a refund rather than waiting for what could ultimately be an insignificant change to the trip, that might not help your chances.

peterearl

eskbanker said:

peterearl said:

Thanks, some further information as to what has already been said (by me to them) may help. I responded to their first message (after a couple of unproductive 'phone calls) within 2 days on Monday 5th Feb advising that as per the 2018 regs I wanted "a full refund within 7 days", they didn't respond for another 8 days and only after a further prompt from me,  my second and latest message to them was 3 days ago where I again asked for a full refund and quoted the 2018 regs again and they haven't yet responded. All in all I advised them that I wanted "a full refund within 7 days" 13 days ago.

In respect of a significant change their terms and conditions state "we will offer you the choice of the following options:-

(for significant changes) agreeing to the changed arrangements,

accepting the cancellation or terminating the contract for the arrangements and receiving a refund (without undue delay) of all monies paid; or

accepting an offer of alternative arrangements of comparable standard from us, if available."

As they are offering choices I'd want to write back today to accept the choice (as stated in the terms and conditions) of their cancellation with a full refund - n.b. in their message to me they did include that choice but they worded it as "refund of accommodation" with no mention of flights and subsequently asserting that the flights are non refundable - when writing I'd include that if they deemed that they weren't cancelling then I assert my right to cancel etc. The disadvantages to me to give another 7 days are that they may be hoping for a cancellation from the "Stag do" hotel - which is currently fully booked - which they would then offer to me which we don't want and giving another 7 days potentially only leaves 14 days until our planned departure.

What do you think?

To me the regulations (as largely mirrored by TR's terms) envisage a one-off exercise of presenting options without undue delay, one being a full refund, so technically I believe you were entitled to cancel as soon as they proposed the accommodation in the other resort.  However, I don't think it's unusual for there to be a certain amount of iteration to identify suitable alternatives, so if they effectively asked for more time to find something more appropriate then it really boils down to how much time would be reasonable, and the extent to which they're able to commit to a timescale rather than leaving it open-ended.

I do think you'd be within your rights to highlight that they still haven't identified a suitable alternative two weeks after recognising the need to (within a massive resort stuffed with hotels), and therefore you're not prepared to wait any longer, but I'm just looking at it from the perspective that they've made it fairly clear that they're not going to issue a full refund, and therefore you're probably going to need to take this up via chargeback with your card provider and/or small claims court, so it's worth considering how your actions would appear to an independent third party.  If it's too obvious that you're angling for a refund rather than waiting for what could ultimately be an insignificant change to the trip, that might not help your chances.

I guess I have to make a choice between strengthening my case by giving them another 7 days against the risks that if I do that and they still don't deliver it will then only be 14 days to when we want to go and seats on flights may not be available or more expensive and ditto for hotels.

eskbanker

peterearl said:

I guess I have to make a choice between strengthening my case by giving them another 7 days against the risks that if I do that and they still don't deliver it will then only be 14 days to when we want to go and seats on flights may not be available or more expensive and ditto for hotels.

Agreed - if, for the sake of argument, TR did back down and accept that you'd be entitled to a full refund, you'd still need to weigh up whether it makes more sense to take that and start again from scratch, or to stick with the allegedly non-refundable flights and book your own accommodation with another provider (or directly with a hotel).

There's nothing particularly significant about seven days either, it was just a suggestion and you could just as easily give them 48 hours or anything else you feel is reasonable!

Grumpy_chap

I wonder whether, especially given the time constraints, the OP might be better to look for available hotels via the Travel Republic website that the OP would consider suitable and then offer those suggestions to TR.  Given an open question may be slow and, as we've seem already, what TR consider a "suitable alternative" may not match with what the OP considers a "suitable alternative".  It is quite difficult for another individual working at TR to second-guess the priorities of the OP.

peterearl

eskbanker said:

peterearl said:

I guess I have to make a choice between strengthening my case by giving them another 7 days against the risks that if I do that and they still don't deliver it will then only be 14 days to when we want to go and seats on flights may not be available or more expensive and ditto for hotels.

Agreed - if, for the sake of argument, TR did back down and accept that you'd be entitled to a full refund, you'd still need to weigh up whether it makes more sense to take that and start again from scratch, or to stick with the allegedly non-refundable flights and book your own accommodation with another provider (or directly with a hotel).

There's nothing particularly significant about seven days either, it was just a suggestion and you could just as easily give them 48 hours or anything else you feel is reasonable!

When booking the original package holiday the combined cost of flights and hotel was a reasonable deal in terms of cost, I could have got it a bit cheaper if I'd booked them separately but not by much, however, the figure they quoted (verbally on the 'phone) that they'd refund me for accommodation meant that the remaining amount for the flights was significantly greater than had I purchased just flights independently either then and still now to the tune of about £250.

I'm also sure that the amount they offered to refund for accommodation was significantly less than the price advertised (hotel only) on their website at the time I booked but I've no way of proving that - it seems they have effectively added on a termination fee due to their termination. Therefore if I decided to keep the flights I'd be £250 down before I start and I'd be limited to what hotels are available for those exact dates - the type of accommodation we chose was self catering - currently there is only one which comes up on Travel Republic for our dates in the resort we chose and the cost for the hotel alone is more than double what we paid for the package so I doubt they'll offer that and neither will that be one we'd choose if we have to pay for it - the nearer we get to 3rd March the less availability - where as if I don't keep  those flights I'm able to be flexible with the dates and more likely to be able to find a comparable accommodation. I'm pretty sure that changing from self catering to room only would be considered a significant change as it changes the whole nature of the holiday.

peterearl

Grumpy_chap said:

I wonder whether, especially given the time constraints, the OP might be better to look for available hotels via the Travel Republic website that the OP would consider suitable and then offer those suggestions to TR.  Given an open question may be slow and, as we've seem already, what TR consider a "suitable alternative" may not match with what the OP considers a "suitable alternative".  It is quite difficult for another individual working at TR to second-guess the priorities of the OP.

Grumpy_chap said:

I wonder whether, especially given the time constraints, the OP might be better to look for available hotels via the Travel Republic website that the OP would consider suitable and then offer those suggestions to TR.  Given an open question may be slow and, as we've seem already, what TR consider a "suitable alternative" may not match with what the OP considers a "suitable alternative".  It is quite difficult for another individual working at TR to second-guess the priorities of the OP.

Thanks, we booked self catering and currently there is only one that comes up on TR website for our dates and resort and just for the hotel it's more than double the cost of our original package of flights and hotel, TR will be aware that it's available and they've not offered it.

eskbanker

peterearl said:
I'm pretty sure that changing from self catering to room only would be considered a significant change as it changes the whole nature of the holiday.

Not sure I'm following that line of argument - surely those are two identical meal plans as far as the PTRs are concerned (i.e. none), although obviously if one has cooking facilities and the other doesn't then that probably would be deemed a significant change?  You seemed reluctant to countenance a move from a hotel to an apartment initially though (over and above the different location)?

Anyway, going back to the main issue, one other aspect perhaps worth factoring into your thinking is that, as well as significant changes (in features, location, etc), any price increase of more than 8% triggers the full refund rights too, so if they're unable to find something comparable within 108% of your package cost, they can't force it on you....