breach of holiday contract?

GeneralsDon123

Hi Everyone any advice would be really helpful.

We unfortunately suffered a family bereavement just before Christmas.

As a result we decided to book Christmas break away last minute. We booked a 3 night break to Spain staying in hotel connected to a theme park. We booked an all inclusive holiday with easy jet. For just under £1000.

Unfortunately when we arrived the hotel informed us that they didn’t offer all inclusive in the winter months.

They advised speaking to easyJet which we did and they offered us £180 while they investigated.

We didn’t take the £180 as I didn’t feel this offered a fair resolution.

The finally responded and admitted liability with the following 

‘We've investigated this, and we're able to see that a technical error allowed you to select 'all inclusive' when booking your holiday, however this should not have been available to book at that time. 

The hotel have confirmed that the board basis rates charged within your booking were for 'bed & breakfast', rather than 'all inclusive'.

They still will only offer £180 and £50 future credit.

We only booked the holiday as it was all inclusive and the cost to upgrade to half board was £220 plus we had to pay for lunch , drinks and snacks. I feel this ruined our holiday and would like to know if escalating will lead to a potential refund of the whole holiday?

In your opinion is it worth taking to ABTA ombudsman? Or even contacting the bank for a potential chargeback as holiday mis sold?

Thanks for any advice given

swingaloo

If you only went for 3 nights, breakfast was included and take into consideration that the most expensive part of a package is the flight than I dont think £180 is that bad an offer. You are not going to get back the full cost of your holiday however far you take this.

Keep_pedalling

So when you opted for all inclusive, what was the difference in price to the B&B rate option?

NoodleDoodleMan

£180 appears reasonable(ish) for a 3 nighter.

From recent experience I would suggest not getting involved with Easyjet over a relatively small amount - unless you want to go through protracted hoops and obstacles.

Their price for B&B and upgrades is the yardstick for cost comparison, not what the hotel might or might not quote.

GeneralsDon123

Thank you for the reply’s 

£180 doesn’t go very far for lunch dinner and drinks for 3 people 

there was no rate for B&B just a half board and full board slightly more expensive as included eating in the theme park

is it not false advertising if they don’t honour all inclusive?

GeneralsDon123

Done that we spent an extra £301 including the upgrade to half board

They still kept the offer at £180

saajan_12

GeneralsDon123 said:

We only booked the holiday as it was all inclusive and the cost to upgrade to half board was £220 plus we had to pay for lunch , drinks and snacks. I feel this ruined our holiday and would like to know if escalating will lead to a potential refund of the whole holiday?

What did you end up doing - did you pay this £220 to get the dinners included and then buy additional items? 

Arguably refunding the £220 plus your receipts for additional food gets you back to the same position you would have been financially with an all-inclusive. Unfortunately it doesn't quite have the ease of walking up and grabbing anything which you'd have with all-inc but its hard to quantify the inconvenience. 

A full refund is a non starter, you'd only ever be entitled to monies to cover parts of the contract they breached, its not torn up entirely. 

NoodleDoodleMan

GeneralsDon123 said:

Done that we spent an extra £301 including the upgrade to half board

They still kept the offer at £180

I very much doubt if Easyjet will improve on that amount, it's indicative of their default policy on such claims.

Hoping the client will take a pragmatic choice and accept the money, rather than engage in protracted efforts to secure better compensation.

 

daveyjp

£180 for three for 3 nights is £20 per person a night.  I'd tell them to jog on.

We budget on £100 a day each for meals and drinks when going on a B&B foreign holiday.

As above itemise your extra costs and send it to Easyjet for them to reconsider as £20 is derisory.

GeneralsDon123

daveyjp said:

£180 for three for 3 nights is £20 per person a night.  I'd tell them to jog on.

We budget on £100 a day each for meals and drinks when going on a B&B foreign holiday.

As above itemise your extra costs and send it to Easyjet for them to reconsider as £20 is derisory.

Yea this how I feel but appreciate it may be difficult to get them to pay more

i have already sent them the receipt of an upgrade to half board and lunches coming to £301 and they refused to increase on the £180

i appreciate that they won’t cover the whole holiday just very frustrating as we only picked as water a sort all inclusive break 

bagand96

I think they're trying it on. As you say you entered into a holiday contract with them. 

GeneralsDon123 said:

The finally responded and admitted liability with the following 

‘We've investigated this, and we're able to see that a technical error allowed you to select 'all inclusive' when booking your holiday, however this should not have been available to book at that time. 

The hotel have confirmed that the board basis rates charged within your booking were for 'bed & breakfast', rather than 'all inclusive'.

This response is poor, whatever rate the hotel charged easyjet Holidays is nothing to do with you. easyjet Holidays sold to you on All Inclusive basis. 

If this had come to light before travel then that explanation might be more reasonable. And they'd have had the option of letting you accept it, or offering a cancellation with full refund. (ie put you back in the position you were in before entering into the erroneous contract) 

As the holiday had started the option to cancel is clearly not available. They can't put you back into the position you were in before entering the contract, so they should make good on the contract. 

I also think you're being very reasonable with your claim, it's not as if you've gone out every day fine dining and expect easyJet to cough up. You minimised your outlay and sensibly upgraded to HB at the hotel (easyJet could and should have arranged for that at no cost to you) £301 and £180 are not far apart it's rediculous they won't apply some common sense.

You have the option of ABTA arbitration. Some people find that process opaque. Your other option is small claims court. You'd start with a Letter Before Action, again outlining your claim (simple, factual, with evidence) and giving them 14 days to respond. That may be enough to persuade them, but no guarantee.

On the face of it, seems very clear cut, but if you're going to go down the court route you'd need to have a read of easyJet Holidays T&Cs (especially any parts relating to erroneous information) as well as Package Travel Regulations 2018.