Multi Ticket Merlin Attractions London

revs

I bought a multi-ticket attraction ticket for 5 people to visit London Eye, Madame Tussauds, Big Bus Tour for £50 each.  We visited Madame Tussauds and used the Big Bus Tour.  On our final day we queued for the London Eye but after 30 minutes they closed the attraction due to a technical fault.  Merlin have offered to extend the London Eye tickets for the next 12 months, but we won't be visiting London again in the next year, and probably not for several years.  They've offered a refund of £2 per ticket (deducting the price of the Madame Tussauds and Big Bus from £50).  A total of £10 refunded for 5 tickets on the London Eye.  This refund is insulting and just demonstrates the greed of this company.  I've challenged this refund but they are not prepared to budge.  Do I have any rights to receive a refund for the full cost of the London Eye?

eskbanker

I don't see that you'd have any right to a refund for the full cost of the London Eye, as you didn't pay that.  I'd have thought that there'd be an argument that it would be fairer to tot up the spot price for the three attractions and using the £50 paid to work out a notional discount, so if you were getting the three at, say, 25% off standard price, then that discounted value would be an appropriate recompense.  However, that would just be a negotiation ploy really, and it could be argued that extending validity is fair - do the Ts & Cs make any reference to this situation?

revs

I agree notional discount would be fair.  There's nothing in the T&C to reference.  I knew they would come back with the bare minimum as you can see from the visiting some of their attractions, that they attempt to squeeze every last penny from the visitors.  It appears that a multi-ticket offers zero discount if one of the attractions closes - that's not mentioned in the T&Cs.

Alderbank

The T&Cs have quite a bit to say.

Firstly, Merlin say they have the right to close any attraction at any time without notice 
That's fair enough. They need those conditions in case of public safety, police orders, extreme weather, etc.

However they go on to say 'If the whole Attraction is closed for any of the reasons set out above, Merlin reserves the right to determine appropriate compensation to affected Visitors and for any reason.'

Terms in consumer contracts must be fair, that is they must* be excessively one-sided. I think the above is an unfair contract term. Only Merlin has any say. So if they close an attraction with a normal price of £37 and they say 'We decide that compensation for the £37 you paid is £2' you would have no opportunity to negotiate.

In law, unfair contract terms can be ignored.

Further, and even worse as far as I am concerned, Merlin continue, 'Tickets will only be exchanged or refunded if Merlin, in its absolute discretion, chooses to do so.'

Finally, as @revs refers to above, they really rub it in by saying, 'For the avoidance of any doubt, pre-booked tickets are non-refundable in the event that admission is refused or relinquished for any reason. '

I think these terms are appalling in a consumer contract. They seem really unfair and as such are without legal effect.

Does anyone else agree? @the_lunatic_is_in_my_head?

https://www.madametussauds.com/london/tickets-prices/ways-to-visit/multi-attraction-tickets/

*typo - they must not be excessively one-sided. Thanks to @Okell

Okell

Well I agree with you - but I'd point out that you've omitted an important "not" in the first sentence of para 4...

born_again

Do you have any of their attraction's you could visit locally & see if they will allow that?

https://www.merlinannualpass.co.uk/our-attractions/

Alderbank

Okell said:

Well I agree with you - but I'd point out that you've omitted an important "not" in the first sentence of para 4...

Oops- thanks for spotting. I need to go to SpecSavers again!

revs

Here is their latest email, apparently as the tickets were booked on the Madame Tussauds website, this is the lead attraction?? 

'I am sorry to read you were unhappy with the amount offered.

To shed more light on the situation, when you buy a combination ticket, you are buying a Standard ticket for your lead attraction (in this case Madame Tussauds), and a heavily discounted upgrade to your other attractions, in this case London Eye and Big Bus. A partial refund is always calculated using the cost of a full price Madame Tussauds ticket, and it does not include any advance discounts that can be found on our website. This is because advance discounts are not applicable to combination tickets, as two discounts cannot be used at the same time. As your Madame Tussauds London and Big Bus tickets have been used, all we can refund is the upgrade portion of your ticket.

We appreciate that this is not what you expected. Our combination tickets are such a great deal that we don't want our guests to miss their chance to visit all attractions, and therefore, we initially offered an extension on your tickets.

If you would like us to, we are still more than happy to honour our initial offer and extend your tickets until August 2025. Otherwise, we can proceed with the partial refund, but £10 is all we can offer.

We apologize if this causes any disappointment, but please do let us know how you'd like us to proceed with this, and we'll do our best to assist.

We look forward to hearing back from you.'

Alderbank

Their published prices for London Attractions Combo Tickets for this afternoon include:

Madame Tussauds + London Eye + Big Bus £55

Madame Tussauds + Big Bus                        £50

What were the prices when you booked?  They might be doing you out of a couple of quid per ticket. Not worth taking them to court unfortunately.

revs

Only booked them the start of August, 3 adults and 2 children for £240.  Tickets today are £264.  Greed, they can't get enough!

Aylesbury_Duck

revs said:

Only booked them the start of August, 3 adults and 2 children for £240.  Tickets today are £264.  Greed, they can't get enough!

Not greed, just market forces in action.  There are always big queues outside the waxworks and the wheel.  Clearly no shortage of people wanting to visit in the summer holidays, so the pricing reflects that.

The waxworks bemuses me.  I can sort of see the attraction of the models of world politicians, historical figures, etc. but seeing tourists from  the US and Far East queuing to see waxworks of Ant and Dec is just bizarre.  And the Marvel stuff?  Wax likenesses of fictional cartoon characters?