Package travel regulations - loss of enjoyment

phillips101

We recently had a luxury honeymoon package holiday (part package, part staying with family, part self-booked, all flights were part of the package). The package part contained flights, accom + tours.

During the holiday the following went wrong:

Hotel didn't have our booking, car breakdown, two cancelled flights one of which was rebooked in a lower class and one which required a two day delay to get to our destination. (The flights totalled 20 hours with an 18 hour layover, rather than 8 hours direct)

That destination was meant to be a roadtrip so we actually lost 3-4 days of our vacation because we had to rush to get to our far away hotel, plus we lost the opportunity to stay with a very sick relative we had planned to visit.

Anyway, safe to say it was really pretty !!!!!! for quite a lot of the honeymoon as we were constantly stressed about what would go wrong next.

Am I right in understanding the PTR in that the travel agent is ultimately responsible for refunding us for our disappointment and missed days of the vacation?

They have offered us £380 for a missed tour due to the flight delay, and that's all. If we total the missed days as a proportion of the package it comes to over £2k, and that's not even factoring in the disappointment and stress that they are (apparently) also meant to compensate us for.

Is my understanding correct, should I request money from them?

(Insurance doesn't cover delays mid-vacation at all. The agent sold us this insurance and was VERY surprised this was the case and actually phoned the insurance themselves to triple check. I will be complaining separately about the sale of this insurance)

EDIT: Additional question. If I am not happy with the travel agent's response, what is the next step? Does section 75 cover PTR responsibilities - or would it be small claims?

eskbanker

phillips101 said:

Am I right in understanding the PTR in that the travel agent is ultimately responsible for refunding us for our disappointment and missed days of the vacation?

They have offered us £380 for a missed tour due to the flight delay, and that's all. If we total the missed days as a proportion of the package it comes to over £2k, and that's not even factoring in the disappointment and stress that they are (apparently) also meant to compensate us for.

Is my understanding correct, should I request money from them?

The package organiser is on the hook to refund items you paid for but didn't receive (not just missed tours but missed hotel nights, for example), and you might be able to construct a loss of enjoyment case from this precedent one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarvis_v_Swans_Tours_Ltd

How have you calculated your £2K figure?

phillips101 said:

...two cancelled flights one of which was rebooked in a lower class and one which required a two day delay to get to our destination. (The flights totalled 20 hours with an 18 hour layover, rather than 8 hours direct)...

You may have a claim against the airline if these flights were within scope of the UK261 (or EU equivalent) regulations?

phillips101

Thank you.

Yes I calculated the figure from the lost days of the holiday, pro-rated from the total package cost. In total we lost 36 hours from our original arrival time to our actual arrival time, however the flight changes to overnight meant we could not get to our accommodation (staying with family - we were not safe to drive as extremely tired, we arrived on a 13 hour overnight flight at 5am in economy) so we missed a further day. We were literally just sat waiting for an emergency hotel's checkin to open, then we went to sleep. This last day might be a bit of a stretch to claim I admit.

I also detailed separately a loss of enjoyment figure for each thing that went wrong. I was extremely reasonable in general on these. But considering the total package was £22k I do expect loss of enjoyment to be a non-trivial amount.

> You may have a claim against the airline if these flights were within scope of the UK261 (or EU equivalent) regulations?

The flight was on the other side of the world so these don't apply as far as I understand them.

eskbanker

phillips101 said:

I calculated the figure from the lost days of the holiday, pro-rated from the total package cost.

Not sure that's really tenable - the basis of any refund would normally be related to the actual cost, i.e. if you missed a night at a hotel then you'd be due the value of that night, rather than a pro-rated refund including an element of flight costs, for example.

phillips101 said:

The flight was on the other side of the world so these don't apply as far as I understand them.

I'd assumed that your reference to losing days meant that the start of your trip was delayed, but if flight delays occurred mid-trip then it may be harder to claim loss of days as such.

phillips101 said:

Additional question. If I am not happy with the travel agent's response, what is the next step? Does section 75 cover PTR responsibilities - or would it be small claims?

Section 75 simply grants you the same rights against your card provider that you have against the package organiser, i.e. if you have a valid claim against one then it's exactly the same with the other.  Ultimately it'll probably come down to what you can negotiate with the provider (or card company) though, as it sounds unlikely that there'll be a clear legal or contractual entitlement to the sort of figure that you have in mind, which could make a court claim challenging.

phillips101

Thanks so much for these responses, I appreciate it.

My understanding of the PTR was that it should refund you the difference in value of holiday received and holiday paid for.

So the package was for 32 nights/days of vacation. But the package I received was for 30 nights. And if I had known at booking time that the flight in the middle would take 20 hours plus an 18 hour layover with one leg at a lower class than booked - well, a holiday with that in the middle of it would sell for a lot less than a holiday with an 8 hour direct flight.

On that basis do you not think I am eligible to the difference in price? It was a direct result of Air New Zealand's failure, which makes the agent responsible as per the PTR.

(And this isn't even touching the topic of loss of enjoyment that the PTR says they should compensate for, which is on top of the difference in holiday price. We actually phoned them before this hell-flight and asked to be sent home, as we were so miserable and fed up of everything going so wrong, but they said we would have to pay for it ourselves and get no refund - which AFAIK contravenes the PTR but that is a separate discussion / complaint to be made. I think a 36 hour delay constitutes a "major change" to the holiday)

eskbanker said

Not sure that's really tenable - the basis of any refund would normally be related to the actual cost, i.e. if you missed a night at a hotel then you'd be due the value of that night, rather than a pro-rated refund including an element of flight costs, for example.

I thought this but when the delays originally happened I phoned the agent from Hawaii and asked them if the (expensive) tour we would miss would be refundable, they said no. I asked them what I should claim from insurance, could I have a breakdown of costs so I could claim an accurate amount - they said no. They said they were "unable" to break down the cost of a package holiday, and any claim to insurance should be pro-rated per number of days based on total package cost. They told me this freely.

(Insurance denied the claim as I was not covered for delays mid vacation, which I _think_ I agree with after combing through the papers.)

eskbanker

phillips101 said:

Thanks so much for these responses, I appreciate it.

My understanding of the PTR was that it should refund you the difference in value of holiday received and holiday paid for.

So the package was for 32 nights/days of vacation. But the package I received was for 30 nights. And if I had known at booking time that the flight in the middle would take 20 hours plus an 18 hour layover with one leg at a lower class than booked - well, a holiday with that in the middle of it would sell for a lot less than a holiday with an 8 hour direct flight.

On that basis do you not think I am eligible to the difference in price? It was a direct result of Air New Zealand's failure, which makes the agent responsible as per the PTR.

Perhaps we're at cross purposes here - if you paid for 32 nights of accommodation and only received 30 then you should indeed be entitled to a reduction commensurate with the cost of those two nights' accommodation, but not a refund of 2/32 of the entire package cost.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/634/regulation/16 isn't very specific though: "an appropriate price reduction for any period during which there is a lack of conformity".

phillips101 said:

eskbanker said
Not sure that's really tenable - the basis of any refund would normally be related to the actual cost, i.e. if you missed a night at a hotel then you'd be due the value of that night, rather than a pro-rated refund including an element of flight costs, for example.

I thought this but when the delays originally happened I phoned the agent from Hawaii and asked them if the (expensive) tour we would miss would be refundable, they said no. I asked them what I should claim from insurance, could I have a breakdown of costs so I could claim an accurate amount - they said no. They said they were "unable" to break down the cost of a package holiday, and any claim to insurance should be pro-rated per number of days based on total package cost. They told me this freely.

(Insurance denied the claim as I was not covered for delays mid vacation, which I _think_ I agree with after combing through the papers.)

To borrow the famous Mandy Rice-Davies quote, they would say that, wouldn't they!  In other words, an agent's view of what you should claim from your insurer wouldn't necessarily correspond with what the agent could be held liable for if pursuing them instead....

Was there really no breakdown of the £22K in your original paperwork?

phillips101

Perhaps we're at cross purposes here - if you paid for 32 nights of accommodation and only received 30 then you should indeed be entitled to a reduction commensurate with the cost of those two nights' accommodation, but not a refund of 2/32 of the entire package cost.

I think we are talking a little at cross-purposes but that's ok, it is good to hear others interpretations.

My point is that the package was for a 32 day holiday, and I received a 30 day holiday. 32 days of dining out, experiencing new things, seeing new places, seeing family on the other side of the world.

If someone had booked a package - flight plus a tour - for a three day holiday but their outbound flight was delayed by 36 hours you wouldn't expect them to get no compensation, I don't think. Even though they could _technically_ still go on vacation with the package, it is clearly not what they paid for. I think there is an interpretation that the PTR protects the holiday you paid for, as structured by your package, not just the components of it. Isn't that the point of it, really? But clearly it is not as clear-cut as I thought / hoped.

Was there really no breakdown of the £22K in your original paperwork?

No. There was an initial £85 deposit, a cost for the added on insurance, and a single whopping great charge for "all the rest of it" (flights, cars, tours, and accom).

In fact when I was preparing for the insurance claim the agents actually sent me two documents, one "original itinerary" and one "actual itinerary", both of which showed the same price, showing they valued both vacations (our ideal vacation, and the actual vacation we ended up with) at the same price, despite my losses and extremely unfavourable flight choices in the latter. They definitely wouldn't be able to sell both itineraries at the same price to anybody else.

eskbanker

phillips101 said:
I think there is an interpretation that the PTR protects the holiday you paid for, as structured by your package, not just the components of it. Isn't that the point of it, really? But clearly it is not as clear-cut as I thought / hoped.

My point is really that there's a distinction between quantifiable tangible costs, such as the value of a night in a hotel, and more qualitative issues such as loss of enjoyment, and it's much easier to justify the former than the latter in court - that doesn't in itself mean that you can't make the latter stick though, just that there isn't a formula readily available.

Hoenir

phillips101 said:

My point is that the package was for a 32 day holiday, and I received a 30 day holiday. 32 days of dining out, experiencing new things, seeing new places, seeing family on the other side of the world.

I've never seen that included as part of a holiday package.  Tenuous to say the least. 

phillips101

I've never seen that included as part of a holiday package.  Tenuous to say the least. 

It's true that wasn't a line they put into my itinerary! But it does play a very large part in how furious I am - we paid this travel agent to get us to this country as part of a package, so we could see very sick family members who were unable to make it to our wedding, and might never be able to visit the UK again.

But it got all !!!!!! up, and we couldn't visit. The travel agent did not deliver me the time in New Zealand that I needed, that I had bought from them in the package.

eskbanker

phillips101 said:

I've never seen that included as part of a holiday package.  Tenuous to say the least. 

It's true that wasn't a line they put into my itinerary! But it does play a very large part in how furious I am - we paid this travel agent to get us to this country as part of a package, so we could see very sick family members who were unable to make it to our wedding, and might never be able to visit the UK again.

But it got all !!!!!! up, and we couldn't visit. The travel agent did not deliver me the time in New Zealand that I needed, that I had bought from them in the package.

To what extent was it the agent's fault though?  The PTRs do ultimately hold the package organiser liable for performance of the package, but presumably the issue here arose from an airline cancelling a flight, or was the agent deficient in coming up with suitable alternative arrangements?