Christmas Dinner Money Refund

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

The cost isn't just the persons salary as if the person wasnt messing about having to ring round the waiting list they'd be selling/generating revenue.  £50/hr is a fairly standard ball park for admin type work, my client charges a lot more than this for its unqualified staff and wish our managing agent charged so little for our leasehold. Doesn't take long for all the above to hit 1hr 12 in total. 

When my wife was the manager of an establishment she'd be expected to deal with something like, on top of everything else for which there often wasn't enough time in the day, she was on salary so was paid either way and everything had be done either way.

When she was head chef at a pub owned by a brewery the pub had a manager (for just that pub) who was paid an obscene salary, especially for a village pub, who seemed to spend most of his time talking to the customers so something like this would probably be dumped on someone being paid minimum wage to do on top of everything else they had to do.

It wouldn't surprise me if a business could come up with some fluff as to why it costs £60 but in reality it probably costs nothing, as with most things on here the side that can articulate themselves best has the greater chance of winning and this is probably one of those situations where that works against the consumer . 

Glad you accepted the rest of the comment. 

There is a naivety saying it doesn't cost the business anything, sure they arent going to pay someone overtime but if they are dealing with this they arent dealing with something else. Now they may be grossly over staffed so people are sitting around with nothing to do, and that may explain why so many pubs are failing, but in a half decent run business nothing is for free. 

Back in my call centre sales days I could get called in to take over a call from a member of my team, by your logic it was free as it was done in my 9-5 shift but the time I am spending talking to an angry customer I am not coaching my team, I'm not running the sales board/competition, I can't do a price override and ultimately sales are lost. Given we got circa £120 commission per sale losing just one sale vastly exceeded my salary for multiple days (back then). The loss to the business wasnt my salary, it was the commission the team didnt earn for the business.

Can't say I've spent much time doing analysis on the pub trade, though based on the purchases of our other local's publican they are certainly making good money especially as they've hired extra staff so they and their wife no longer do shifts. 

It was similar to a friend of the Mrs who asked my opinion on taking her craft business to her full time job. You call it "fluff" but she said it cost her £5 in materials and about 1hr to make per product. She wanted to get £10/hr so said she was charging £15 per unit. Great you think but it didnt take 1 hour nor cost £5. Sure it took her 1 hour to sit down and do it but it took her time to go to the shop to buy the materials, time to get to the market, 3 days sitting at the stall, dealing with emails, writing the news letter, taking the product photos. Materials were out because there is wastage, prototypes etc. She too was taking the basic view as you suggest, in reality she was getting circa £2 per hour.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

Glad you accepted the rest of the comment. 

There is a naivety saying it doesn't cost the business anything, sure they arent going to pay someone overtime but if they are dealing with this they arent dealing with something else. Now they may be grossly over staffed so people are sitting around with nothing to do, and that may explain why so many pubs are failing, but in a half decent run business nothing is for free. 

Back in my call centre sales days I could get called in to take over a call from a member of my team, by your logic it was free as it was done in my 9-5 shift but the time I am spending talking to an angry customer I am not coaching my team, I'm not running the sales board/competition, I can't do a price override and ultimately sales are lost. Given we got circa £120 commission per sale losing just one sale vastly exceeded my salary for multiple days (back then). The loss to the business wasnt my salary, it was the commission the team didnt earn for the business.

Can't say I've spent much time doing analysis on the pub trade, though based on the purchases of our other local's publican they are certainly making good money especially as they've hired extra staff so they and their wife no longer do shifts. 

It was similar to a friend of the Mrs who asked my opinion on taking her craft business to her full time job. You call it "fluff" but she said it cost her £5 in materials and about 1hr to make per product. She wanted to get £10/hr so said she was charging £15 per unit. Great you think but it didnt take 1 hour nor cost £5. Sure it took her 1 hour to sit down and do it but it took her time to go to the shop to buy the materials, time to get to the market, 3 days sitting at the stall, dealing with emails, writing the news letter, taking the product photos. Materials were out because there is wastage, prototypes etc. She too was taking the basic view as you suggest, in reality she was getting circa £2 per hour.

I can't disagree with anything you say I just feel £60 is very steep for this, as I said if it really cost a restaurant £60 to rebook a table the cost would be prohibitive and everywhere would be taking a £60 "deposit", if we were talking £10 or £20 that would be a bit more agreeable. 

Lost opportunity is very hard to quantify (I appreciate your previous comment about fixed costs makes some sense here) but that should be balanced against gained opportunity, if I cancelled a table booking I'm pretty certain the restaurant would make more out of the party who replace us,  I begrudge paying 3 quid for a glass of coke out of a tap that takes unpleasant and £7 for a small desert that's been defrosted so stick to one drink and would rather take a walk after the meal and get an ice cream or such somewhere else.

Granted few people probably think like this but OP may have a glass of wine where as the the booking who replaces them could drink the place dry. It's unknown so it's hard to quantify either way but does seem unbalanced to speak of random lost opportunity without considering random gain. 

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Glad you accepted the rest of the comment. 

There is a naivety saying it doesn't cost the business anything, sure they arent going to pay someone overtime but if they are dealing with this they arent dealing with something else. Now they may be grossly over staffed so people are sitting around with nothing to do, and that may explain why so many pubs are failing, but in a half decent run business nothing is for free. 

Back in my call centre sales days I could get called in to take over a call from a member of my team, by your logic it was free as it was done in my 9-5 shift but the time I am spending talking to an angry customer I am not coaching my team, I'm not running the sales board/competition, I can't do a price override and ultimately sales are lost. Given we got circa £120 commission per sale losing just one sale vastly exceeded my salary for multiple days (back then). The loss to the business wasnt my salary, it was the commission the team didnt earn for the business.

Can't say I've spent much time doing analysis on the pub trade, though based on the purchases of our other local's publican they are certainly making good money especially as they've hired extra staff so they and their wife no longer do shifts. 

It was similar to a friend of the Mrs who asked my opinion on taking her craft business to her full time job. You call it "fluff" but she said it cost her £5 in materials and about 1hr to make per product. She wanted to get £10/hr so said she was charging £15 per unit. Great you think but it didnt take 1 hour nor cost £5. Sure it took her 1 hour to sit down and do it but it took her time to go to the shop to buy the materials, time to get to the market, 3 days sitting at the stall, dealing with emails, writing the news letter, taking the product photos. Materials were out because there is wastage, prototypes etc. She too was taking the basic view as you suggest, in reality she was getting circa £2 per hour.

I can't disagree with anything you say I just feel £60 is very steep for this, as I said if it really cost a restaurant £60 to rebook a table the cost would be prohibitive and everywhere would be taking a £60 "deposit", if we were talking £10 or £20 that would be a bit more agreeable. 

Lost opportunity is very hard to quantify (I appreciate your previous comment about fixed costs makes some sense here) but that should be balanced against gained opportunity, if I cancelled a table booking I'm pretty certain the restaurant would make more out of the party who replace us,  I begrudge paying 3 quid for a glass of coke out of a tap that takes unpleasant and £7 for a small desert that's been defrosted so stick to one drink and would rather take a walk after the meal and get an ice cream or such somewhere else.

Granted few people probably think like this but OP may have a glass of wine where as the the booking who replaces them could drink the place dry. It's unknown so it's hard to quantify either way but does seem unbalanced to speak of random lost opportunity without considering random gain. 

It's certainly at the higher end of acceptability, in my opinion, but again we are talking about some random day but a very particular day. Our chain local has no option, it's simply £65 a head so no option to go elsewhere on the day for your desert to save money. Our non-chain local are drinks only for the 3 hours they're open.

Your also playing to my point that these things should be done on an average basis else everyone who has to cancel would claim to be tee-total and they'd assume everyone else on Xmas day is going to drink like a fish.  It gives clarity to everyone if costs are fixed and transparent from the start else the OP potentially would face the cost of trying to resell the table and then also the loss of profit from the six empty chairs if they failed to sell it or undersold it (ie table cannot be divided down and only get a family of 4 to take it). It's a highly profitable day for those willing to be open. 

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

DullGreyGuy said:

Your also playing to my point that these things should be done on an average basis else everyone who has to cancel would claim to be tee-total and they'd assume everyone else on Xmas day is going to drink like a fish.  It gives clarity to everyone if costs are fixed and transparent from the start else the OP potentially would face the cost of trying to resell the table and then also the loss of profit from the six empty chairs if they failed to sell it or undersold it (ie table cannot be divided down and only get a family of 4 to take it). It's a highly profitable day for those willing to be open. 

Like I say I can see the sense in it, I'm sure there was a higher court case where they took the costs and business acquired over the year and used an average (frustrated contract for a wedding during Covid IIRC).

If OP said they'd cancelled on the 23rd of Dec I'd have far less sympathy but with 2 months odds are someone will walk in off the street and book the table any way, if you was taking fixed costs I would have thought a sliding scale would have a greater change of being classed as fair. 

DullGreyGuy said:Our chain local has no option, it's simply £65 a head so no option to go elsewhere on the day for your desert to save money.

Yes indeed, that's one of the reasons why we don't have a table booked for Christmas dinner  

Grumpy_chap

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

If OP said they'd cancelled on the 23rd of Dec I'd have far less sympathy but with 2 months odds are someone will walk in off the street and book the table any way, if you was taking fixed costs I would have thought a sliding scale would have a greater change of being classed as fair. 

Timing of the cancellation is critical to the reasonableness and how likely it is to fill the table.

I would say, based on personal experience, that by now (so four weeks to go) it will be getting difficult for a restaurant to fill a vacant table.
This is based on my wife's and my experience this year.  We were keen to do Christmas dinner out rather than all the faff at home. 
To do that was dependant upon whether MiL expected to be invited to ours for Christmas lunch so, beginning of October, we asked her what she planned and said she'd be welcome to ours.  She was unable to make a decision.
She still could not make a decision by two weeks ago.
Last week, there was no where we'd want to go that still had tables, so we bit the bullet and ordered our turkey to cook at home.
MiL now says she won't be coming.  It makes no difference as we won't be looking for a table out given that we already committed to the turkey etc.  
If someone now cancelled at one of the places we'd be happy to go, we won't know anyway.

DullGreyGuy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Your also playing to my point that these things should be done on an average basis else everyone who has to cancel would claim to be tee-total and they'd assume everyone else on Xmas day is going to drink like a fish.  It gives clarity to everyone if costs are fixed and transparent from the start else the OP potentially would face the cost of trying to resell the table and then also the loss of profit from the six empty chairs if they failed to sell it or undersold it (ie table cannot be divided down and only get a family of 4 to take it). It's a highly profitable day for those willing to be open. 

Like I say I can see the sense in it, I'm sure there was a higher court case where they took the costs and business acquired over the year and used an average (frustrated contract for a wedding during Covid IIRC).

If OP said they'd cancelled on the 23rd of Dec I'd have far less sympathy but with 2 months odds are someone will walk in off the street and book the table any way, if you was taking fixed costs I would have thought a sliding scale would have a greater change of being classed as fair. 

DullGreyGuy said:Our chain local has no option, it's simply £65 a head so no option to go elsewhere on the day for your desert to save money.

Yes indeed, that's one of the reasons why we don't have a table booked for Christmas dinner  

Commercial courts are seeing big changes, they used to hate fixed "fees" (never call them penalties) for breaches and insisted on actual costs even if the contract stated it would be £X... hence also why lots of things are specified as "services" which really are breaches but courts had less issue with pre agreed costs for services -v- awards for breaches. 

Over the last decade they are really starting to see that as long as the costs arent punitive there are advantages for all for pre-agreed fees. 


Similar to Grumpy_Chap, at this distant out the vast majority will have already arranged, hence saying it will take time because many on the "waiting list" will have made other arrangements by now. Hence it's not 1 call to fill it but potentially many calls and potentially having to accept less than 6. 

If it had been cancelled 3 months or more out then yes, absolutely agree it wouldn't take any effort.


Technically we do have a table booked... but it's literally a table, to be delivered to our home. I'm amazed how cheap they are to hire, the company we've used a few times charge for the days you want it not the days you have it. Tell them you want it for 1 day you pay the 1 day fee even though over Xmas you'll have it for almost 2 weeks. 

born_again

Is it not about time that for situations like this the consumer rights were amended to cover a non refundable deposit?

Same as like Travelodge having 2 levels of booking one of which is cheaper & non refundable. Purchasers choice to make that decision.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Grumpy_chap said:

She still could not make a decision by two weeks ago.
Last week
If someone now cancelled at one of the places we'd be happy to go, we won't know anyway.

DullGreyGuy said:

Similar to Grumpy_Chap, at this distant out the vast majority will have already arranged, hence saying it will take time because many on the "waiting list" will have made other arrangements by now. Hence it's not 1 call to fill it but potentially many calls and potentially having to accept less than 6. 

If it had been cancelled 3 months or more out then yes, absolutely agree it wouldn't take any effort.

Just to note OP cancelled "mid October" so some 5 or 6 weeks ago, it was being raised now as they just noticed the despot wasn't refunded. 

born_again said:

Same as like Travelodge having 2 levels of booking one of which is cheaper & non refundable. Purchasers choice to make that decision.

I don't think Travelodge is different to anywhere else, based on the CMA guidance these terms would be likely be classed as unfair.

born_again said:

Is it not about time that for situations like this the consumer rights were amended to cover a non refundable deposit?

I think part of the problem is that consumer contracts require balance, if a place says you pay £100 if you don't use the service then the place should also offer as part of the terms £100 if they can't offer the service but that rarely seems to be the case. 

Look at retail with acceptance on dispatch but customers being told before dispatch it's too late to cancel because it's in the warehouse already. 

Businesses seem to want it both ways and there seems to be very little enforcement, I understand the complex issue of working out exactly what costs or loss of profit are (although you'd expect a business to have a fair idea on this point) but that ordinary position does create balance, if one party breaches the contract the other pays damages (in accordance with contract law).