Love Holidays - Vast difference in estimated cost - Unsure what to do next.

DangerLiam

Hello all, 

First post here, from what I can see this is the right place please forgive if not and either move/remove. Apoligies in advance for the sheer length of this too, I'm feeling pretty worn down and I think partially need to vent along with seeking some advice.

I'm writing this while away and somewhat finding myself stuck in a loop that feels like it might be by design.

In brief, I booked a Hotel through Love Holidays and at the time of making the booking there was an estimate of fees/taxes to pay at the hotel of around £28. However on arrival I've been charged over £200 for those fees/taxes.

It was spesified at this point that this "estimate" was based on current exchange rate so at best I wouldn't expect much of a change more than £2/3

I've been trying to get Love Holidays to accept this mistake on their end and offer some kind of help but I'm just being met with unhelpful responses.

What I hoped was that I could post the full corrispondence here and see if what I'm explaining isn't clear enough, what I can do better / do next?

So my first point of call was to give them a ring, I explained the problem which they tried to away by simly saying fees/taxes are to be paid and not linked to them. I had to repeatidly explain that during the booking stage they specifically gave an estimate of what the amount would be and that to be so vastly different from this can't be correct. At this point I told them I had an original screenshot from the time of booking which they asked me to email over and they would pick up from there.

What I sent them was a full screen shot of the page from the time but the important part of that image is this.



I was also asked to email a writen explination of my issue. From there the email corrispondence has been as follows ...

-- From Me ----------------------------------------------

Further follow up to this as requested on the call.

As you can see from the screenshot, when I booked this hotel through your website I was given a very clear price of £526.19, with a clear section of the page explaining that roughly £28 of that would be payable at the hotel when I arrive as a local tax.

On arriving today however I have been asked to pay $280+ in taxes and even after explaining the situation was given no choice but to pay that if we want to be able to stay in the room.

Realistically that's a pretty big chunk of the money we need for our holiday so realistically I need something done in this regard as soon as possible.

-- From Them --------------------------------------------

Thank you for your recent correspondence. We apologize for any inconvenience you've experienced. Your satisfaction is our top priority.

Please be informed the taxes are something which can be collected by the hotel only at the screenshot as well you will notice we have mentioned that is not the amount you need to pay it will be changed at the hotel.

You can also find this information on our terms and condition "Certain countries/cities/airports/hotels impose additional taxes and charges, such as departure, tourist or city tax, facility fee or compulsory resort fees. These additional fees are payable directly to your accommodation or local authorities and are for maintenance of local facilities and services. These taxes cannot always be collected by us or your Service Providers in advance. You are wholly responsible for paying these taxes and charges locally prior to check out, and they are subject to change by pronouncement of overseas governments."

In closing, please accept our repeated apologies for any inconvenience and personal disappointment that has arisen on this occasion. We would like to thank you for your valued custom and for taking the time to contact us.

-- From Me ----------------------------------------------

I understood and accepted that there would be an additional charge when I arrived, it’s not the notion of a charge that I have a problem with.

The issue here is that when booking, your website gave an estimate that this amount would be around £28 and on arrival it has instead been charged at almost 10 times that much.

It’s impossible to plan for, or expect, a difference of that amount. Clearly the information you originally provided is false advertising as I would simply not have booked at this price as there were much cheaper options I was looking at when deciding.

This is a major and obvious fault in the way you’ve handled this and needs to be fixed.

-- From Them --------------------------------------------

Thank you for contacting loveholidays and bringing your issue to our attention.

We are sorry to hear about the issues you are encountering while in the resort.

We request you to please share the receipt for the amount that you have paid at the hotel, so that we can check what are the charges are for.

As we have explained already- All hotel fees and tourist taxes are locally payable, directly to the hotel. The amount shown is estimated at particular exchange rate, but will be charged in local currency at the hotel.

Once we received the same invoice, we will surely check and will assist you further.

We are genuinely sorry for any inconvenience this caused you.

-- From Me ----------------------------------------------

Again I understand that there are fees and that they are payable locally. The issue isn't with the existence of fees it's that your website, while booking vastly underrepresented what these would be.

I understand the website said that they were an estimate based on currency exchange but it's impossible to try and say that a 10x difference is based on currency changes when the pound to dollar exchange rate hasn't changed by more than 3 or 4 pence per dollar in the past month.

In terms of an invoice, speaking to the hotel there system only logs a charge to the account per day so at the moment I only have the charge for one night which you can see attached is $20.43, however as we are staying 14 nights, this will equate to a charge of roughly $286 over the course of our stay.

What you can also see attached is the £250+ pending charge which includes the $50 deposit to the hotel.

Again this is really as simple as, based on the advertised cost on your website at the time I booked, I expected to pay no more than around £30 in fees/taxes on arrival and have now been billed £200+. As you mentioned the wording on your site states the estimate would only change based on the exchange rate which has not moved anywhere near enough to account for this discrepancy.

This mistake is solely the fault of the advertising of the cost on your website at the time of booking and needs to be remedied as soon as possible as this is the primary card I need to use to pay for things while away and if I end up hitting my limit as a result of this I'm going to be completely stuck.

(Along with this message were the following images)

[Image removed by Forum Team]



-- From Them --------------------------------------------

Thank you for the response .

As we can check the hotel have charged you resort fee, taxes as mentioned in the invoice.

For the pending charges, I would request you to please reach out to the reception once to confirm is it safety deposit.

As these are the pending charges you have not been charged , they will be on you account as the pending charges.

In case it is a safety deposit, please be informed that the hotel will refund you this amount at the time of check-out.

-- From Me ----------------------------------------------

I'm not sure if you're being deliberately obtuse or not reading my entire email. I have fully detailed the pending charges and the breakdown of them.

As mentioned there is a $50 deposit included in that cost however that isn't enough to account for the entire discrepancy.

The invoice they have been able to provide me is for only one night as each charge is added per day of our visit so the $20.43 amount will be added again for each of the 14 nights we are staying, which as I said is going to total around $286. It's not possible for every charge to be on an invoice until the end of the holiday but it is clear that they charges will be added.

-- From Them --------------------------------------------

Thank you for your recent correspondence.

We are sorry to hear about the issues you are encountering while in the resort.

We see that the hotel charged you resort fees and taxes as mentioned in the invoice sent through.

We advise that you ask the hotel reception to confirm if it is a safety deposit fee, as it is showing as a pending amount.

If the hotel reception confirms that it is a safety deposit, the amount will be refunded to you by the hotel upon check-out.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience and disappointment that has been caused on this occasion.

We would like to thank you for your valued custom and for taking the time to write to us.

-- End of message chain --------------------------

So at this point it feels like they are either purposly not understanding my point about the daily charge or are somehow missing it, if that's an error in how clear I'm making myself then it'd be helpful to understand that.

My next point of call was going to be to get a second invoice today that would show two days charges and send that across with another explination of and perhaps a full dollar by dollar list of what I see the charges adding up to, however I'm somewhat desperate to not have to wait 2 full weeks to be able to have them even begin to understand the problem when I have the final invoice.

It feels like Love Holidays are going to simply do nothing towards resolving this issue so my next question I guess would be where I take this once home.

To complicate things (I would assume) the original booking was paid through my Chase Card which then wasn't accepted for the transaction to pay the fees/taxes/deposit and so that payment has had to be made on a Lloyds Credit Card.

If you've made it this far thanks for your time, and honestly any help/advise will be greatly appreciated. 

elsien

Sorry, too long so I didn’t read all of it.

What country/area have you gone to and have you checked independently what the local taxes should be?

Love holidays are correct in that it is a local charge that is nothing to do with them and is out of their control. Which is why it’s an additional amount paid to the hotel, and not directly to loveholidays - you would have have paid it wherever you were staying. 

https://www.loveholidays.com/faq/hotel-taxes-fees/

FWIW Love Holidays are not renowned for their customer service, and I wouldn’t expect you to get very far with a refund when you get back. 

cw8825

realistically, it looks like a typo on the love holidays website

Can see that you have travelled to the good old USA and yes the hotel resort tax can be eyewatering

I dont see that you would have much recourse here about the actual fees
They are correct in stating the resort fees are set by the hotel
The resort fees are the resort fees, whether you booked by love holidays or by any other provider you would still have had to pay the same fees

Was there a specific reason you booked with them over anybody else?
If it was due to the lesser taxes your going to be SOOL


Quick search on booking.com shows the tax you have been charged is about right

Hoenir

US hotel pricing can often appear cheap. I would have questioned £35.58 a night at the outset. Often there's local taxes applied on top. 

mr_stripey

probably have to suck it up, however frustrating it is. Had similar when went to NYC where the fees ended up being higher than the booking agent had indicated. Though in the overall scheme of things £200 extra on a two week holiday to Florida is probably small change!

Alderbank

The hotel is the Ramada Gateway in Kissimmee, Florida. The country is USA. The area is popular with guests visiting Disney World and Universal Studios among other attractions.

Tourist tax is 6% + sales tax in Florida. It is not payable daily, you normally pay it when you check in before they will hand you the room key. £28 looks about right.

Tourist tax is certainly not 50%!

Love Holidays seem to be saying the £250ish is a refundable deposit levied by the hotel in case you accidentally leave without paying your bar bill. This happens sometimes in Kissimmee. They say it is either a pending charge, which will just drop off your account after you have checked out, or if they have actually taken the money it will be refunded once you have checked out and their towels and dressing gowns are still where the Ramada expect them to be.

Penguin_

A friend of mine has just come back from a hotel in Florida & they had to pay a security deposit, have you checked 100% with the resort if this is it?

tacpot12

I would suggest that you do need to send any invoice after three or four days to show how the resort charges are building up. I think Love Holidays are going to stand behind the legal concept of what an estimate is, but also that they should pay you some compensation for misleading you. I would expect the level of compensation is going to be small - £50 would seem to be adequate for the disruption of having to contact them about the issue wheile you are on holiday. Had they told you the correct estimate you would still have to had paid these fees, and barring some extra interest on your credit card (that you probably won't incur), you haven't lost very much financially. Don't forget the in law you are required to  minimise you losses, e.g. by paying off your credit card promptly if you are able to do so.

I've learned from many years travelling to the USA that it is not safe to travel with just one credit card. Your  card may be declined or maxed out due to additional charges. so always take at least two credit cards to the USA.

Sorry to hear you have had this problem. Your experience might inform others who are considering Love Holidays as a booking agent. 

DangerLiam

Thanks all for taking the time.

So answering a few bits

cw8825 said:

Was there a specific reason you booked with them over anybody else?

The whole reason was the overall price show yes, as I was looking at a number of places at the time, mostly airbnbs, this ended up being the choice based on price especially as it seemed as though all additional fees were advertised ahead of time.

Hoenir said:

US hotel pricing can often appear cheap. I would have questioned £35.58 a night at the outset. Often there's local taxes applied on top. 

I guess looking back this'll be the biggest anoyance on my end. I guess my only explination at the time was that because I had booked my flight and gotten a very very heavy discount because it was all booked the second week in September it didn't seem too crazy for the price of a hotel to also be somewhat low if they were looking to shift empty rooms on short notice.

--

My big annoyance I guess is that I feel lied too in that initial description of "Total Price" I don't have a problem with the idea of fees/taxes or even really what they are, my big problem is that if I had been told those in advance I would have selected to stay and book elsewhere.

DangerLiam

Penguin_ said:

A friend of mine has just come back from a hotel in Florida & they had to pay a security deposit, have you checked 100% with the resort if this is it?

I have doubled checked this with the hotel, of the amount currently pending on my credit card only $50 (roughly £37) of it is the security deposit the remaining amount is fees & taxes

Caz3121

If looks like the Love Holidays estimate does not include the Resort Fee. The Other Info under the hotel on their website says

• Resort fees apply and are payable locally, directly to the hotel

They should certainly make it clearer that their "Hotel fees & local tourist tax*" does not include Resort Fees (or amend the estimate to include)