Driving Experience - Refund

igloo1176

Hi all,

Wanted to run this past the forum to see if I have a leg to stand on before taking it further. 


I bought a driving experience for a friend's birthday. Bought one for myself to go along with him. 

Booked in for a Friday date. All good so far. 

As we get closer to the experience day they sent an email with the following message:
 

Following a previous email and voicemail left for you, we are emailing to advise that we will no longer be operational on Friday 6th September 2024 at this Circuit.

This date was provisional and therefore should not have been available. Due to system error it allowed both the website and staff to book onto the date. We can only apologize sincerely for any inconvenience caused.

We are however operational that weekend on Saturday 7th September 2024 or Sunday 8th September 2024 which we have availability for, these spaces will be on a first come first serve basis so please email as soon as you can as we will change this for you. If the spaces fill up we will respond with alternative dates.


I got in contact and rebooked almy friend and I again. 

Yesterday I received the same email for our next date.

Contacted them again and stipulated we need Friday dates as we both work weekends. They've offered dates in 2025 which I feel is a bit unfair after 2 cancellations so asked for a refund at which point they threw the t&C's in there that there are no refunds outside the 14 day cooling off period.

They also said that the circumstances were out of their control. 


Do I have any rights here?

Aylesbury_Duck

Did you buy vouchers for the experience, or did you buy the experiences directly?

igloo1176

For my friend I bought a "driving gift voucher" and for me I bought a "driving experience". Both bought directly from the companies website 

Aylesbury_Duck

igloo1176 said:

For my friend I bought a "driving gift voucher" and for me I bought a "driving experience". Both bought directly from the companies website 

Nice and complicated, then!

The voucher is the tricky one, because you got what you paid for: a voucher.  You'll need to read the terms of the voucher to see if they've been breached.  I suspect it gives them latitude to mess you about.

The experience is more straightforward, presuming that you bought the experience for a particular date.  If you did, then they've perhaps breached the contract and you could insist on a refund.

igloo1176

I don't think I booked a specific date. I think I booked the experience and then received an email voucher to book the experience. 

I'll check the T&C's as you suggest but sounds like I may be out of luck.

Thanks for the help 👍🏼

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

If they've cancelled two bookings and now only have 2025 I'd be pushing for a refund, can you tell us which company it is please OP?

Hoenir

Which racing circuit? 

Okell

As I've probably said on this board before, I wouldn't buy "vouchers" for anything - but equally I don't buy the argument that if you do buy a voucher then all you are doing is buying a piece of paper (or an email or an online link)

If you buy a voucher for a driving experience, you are buying a driving experience when you buy the voucher.  So long as you don't let the voucher expire, you are entitled to redeem it for a driving experience.  If that can't be done -  through no fault of your own - you should be able to claim a refund from the seller of the voucher regardless of any T&Cs which claim you can't do that.  Such T&Cs must be unfair under the legislation and therefore unenforceable.

In this case the service provider has failed to provide the service with reasonable care and skill (they allowed their staff and the OP to book a track session when the track was not available) and they similarly messed up the one opportunity of a repeat performance that the legislation permits by demonstrating the same lack of skill and reasonable care.  They're obviously incompetent.

I'd want a full refund.

(I'm not a lawyer but I can't believe that a court would say to the OP "Sorry - you can't have a refund because the T&Cs say you only bought a voucher."  If the sellers of vouchers don't want to pay out refunds they should choose more competent and reliable partners)

igloo1176

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If they've cancelled two bookings and now only have 2025 I'd be pushing for a refund, can you tell us which company it is please OP?

Hoenir said:

Which racing circuit? 

Hi,

Sorry all. I couldn't see anything in t&C's to help me so had left it there. I didn't get notification of your replies to my post which I'll look to change. 

It's www.ingliston .co.uk

Okell said:

As I've probably said on this board before, I wouldn't buy "vouchers" for anything - but equally I don't buy the argument that if you do buy a voucher then all you are doing is buying a piece of paper (or an email or an online link)

If you buy a voucher for a driving experience, you are buying a driving experience when you buy the voucher.  So long as you don't let the voucher expire, you are entitled to redeem it for a driving experience.  If that can't be done -  through no fault of your own - you should be able to claim a refund from the seller of the voucher regardless of any T&Cs which claim you can't do that.  Such T&Cs must be unfair under the legislation and therefore unenforceable.

In this case the service provider has failed to provide the service with reasonable care and skill (they allowed their staff and the OP to book a track session when the track was not available) and they similarly messed up the one opportunity of a repeat performance that the legislation permits by demonstrating the same lack of skill and reasonable care.  They're obviously incompetent.

I'd want a full refund.

(I'm not a lawyer but I can't believe that a court would say to the OP "Sorry - you can't have a refund because the T&Cs say you only bought a voucher."  If the sellers of vouchers don't want to pay out refunds they should choose more competent and reliable partners)

This was along the lines of my thinking. You make a mistake once - ok. Make the same mistake twice and suddenly I don't think it's a good idea racing fast cars on your track!

PHK

Okell said:

As I've probably said on this board before, I wouldn't buy "vouchers" for anything - but equally I don't buy the argument that if you do buy a voucher then all you are doing is buying a piece of paper (or an email or an online link)

If you buy a voucher for a driving experience, you are buying a driving experience when you buy the voucher.  So long as you don't let the voucher expire, you are entitled to redeem it for a driving experience.  If that can't be done -  through no fault of your own - you should be able to claim a refund from the seller of the voucher regardless of any T&Cs which claim you can't do that.  Such T&Cs must be unfair under the legislation and therefore unenforceable.

In this case the service provider has failed to provide the service with reasonable care and skill (they allowed their staff and the OP to book a track session when the track was not available) and they similarly messed up the one opportunity of a repeat performance that the legislation permits by demonstrating the same lack of skill and reasonable care.  They're obviously incompetent.

I'd want a full refund.

(I'm not a lawyer but I can't believe that a court would say to the OP "Sorry - you can't have a refund because the T&Cs say you only bought a voucher."  If the sellers of vouchers don't want to pay out refunds they should choose more competent and reliable partners)

I’m not sure I agree with this. The court would say you bought a voucher and so should expect what the accompanying terms say should happen. 

If the terms say that the venue can re-schedule then the venue haven’t done anything wrong. 

You could argue that the terms are unfair, but that would only be the case if the terms were one-sided and didn’t allow the purchaser to re-schedule. 

There’s a consumer article in the Guardian this week about Virgin hot air experiences which reaches the same conclusion. 

igloo1176

Obviously I'm not going to court over a £90 driving experience. Won't be using this lot again. 

I get that the T&C's say no refunds but you'd think that if they made the same mistake twice which led to pushing out the experience by months that they'd consider a refund. 

Ah well.