Holiday Ammendment Issue with Well Known Holiday Company

beamer_2

I am desparately looking for advice on the following.
Booked a holiday (Flights and Hotel in Lanzarote) with a reputable online ATOL company. for 20th Nov to 29th Nov.
Flight operator advised me that the flight out has been changed to a day later and I therefore let the holiday company know straght away. There are no alternative flights on the original date from my Airport.
Holiday company have now told me that I have the following options due to the hotel not taking any new ammendments.
1. Stick with the booking as it is but if I do not arrive for checkin at the hotel on the original date they will cancel my whole weeeks stay.
2. Change the booking to the new dates for which the holiday company want an additional £890 (around the price of the original booking meaning total cost will double).
3. Advise of a new hotel that they can price up for me. I assume this will also be additional cost of some kind but may be the cheapest option.
4. Cancel the whole holiday for around £460 meaning I lose half the cost of the holiday and have no holiday to show for it.

Further to this, I have stuck my neck out and contacted the hotel directly to see it they would genuinely cancel the whole booking and refuse me my room if I got there a day late. Awating reply.
I have also priced flights from and alternative airport wich is reasonable but a huge hassle timewise.
My other thought would be to see if the Airline would change one leg of my flights to another airport so that I can get to destination on the original date. I again assume there with be significant costs in this and still a bit if a hassle.

Have I got any rights to make the Holiday company honour my booking with the slight change of date at no cost?

I have exactly the same issue with an identical holiday in March 2026 and this has been ammended and advised that I will be refunded the difference due to it being less days.

eskbanker

This would be considered a significant change under the Package Travel Regulations, so they're obliged to offer you alternatives (not necessarily at zero cost) or a full refund.

There's no need to be coy about exactly which "reputable online ATOL company" you're referring to, so naming them may influence the responses, not least when there are few, if any, online-only operators who'd generally be considered reputable as such....

beamer_2

Didn't want to push names too much but happy to say, whilst not a major player, they are still doing big business. First time ive used "Love Holidays" and the one end of the scale to the other is strange.
I agree that even a resonable cost would have been palatable however, the numbers they are talking about is quite frankly a joke.

eskbanker

Ah!  I had a feeling it might be one of those companies rather than a reputable one as such....

They have form for failing to recognise their obligations under the PTRs, as they just cobble together components and are forced to label them as a package, but they seem to have difficulty in accepting the consequences.

Familiarise yourself with the key part of the PTRs and take it from there:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2018/634/regulation/11

beamer_2

Will do thanks. Just looking at the Package Travel and Linked Arrangements  just now.

NoodleDoodleMan

May I ask who the flight operator is ?

Their changing the departure day is at the heart of this issue.

As Eskbanker suggests "reputable" is a matter of opinion that may not get universal agreement from clients in dealings involving LH.

beamer_2

Yeah I agree that "repuitable" was rather a loose term to use and is subject to opinion.
Flights were with Ryanair.

silvercar

1. Stick with the booking as it is but if I do not arrive for checkin at the hotel on the original date they will cancel my whole weeeks stay.

Very unlikely in my experience. Cancelling a no show is one thing, cancelling a booking when the client or their agent has notified them that they won’t be checking in until the next day is unlikely. Flights being delayed a few hours often means a client doesn’t arrive until the early hours of the next morning.

We have on occasional long haul holidays chosen to book our room from the night before in order to ensure we have access to the room from our early morning arrival rather than have to wait around, exhausted and in need of a shower, for a mid afternoon check in.

beamer_2

Thanks silvercar. Very much how i see it. What does it matter if I checkin on the day or a day later. They still have my money.
I very much get the feeling that they are trying to rip me off. Especially after reading some of the stuff in the Package Travel and Linked Arrangements Regs.
I have even found they are not exactly complying with their own T&Cs
As it was their Service Provider that caused the iissue they should have offered alternative arrangements as close to what I had booked as possible or allowed me to cancel with full refund. They also should have given me 7 days to reply instead of the 48 hours they have stated.

Grumpy_chap

This changing a holiday to Lanzarotte via LH seems surprisingly familiar:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6606686/looking-for-advice-loveholidays-easyjet-situation/p1

Oddly, the author of the other thread has been offered a complete swap without penalty!

Anyway, for the OP, how did the flight operator communicate the change?
As this is a package holiday , any change should be communicated via the package operator who is responsible for making the various parts of the package work together.
If the airline contacted the OP, and the OP then contacted LH, did LH see this as a change being initiated by the OP for the OP's preference rather than a change initiated by LH (or their supply chain)?

beamer_2

Grumpy Chap.
The flight change was comunicated directly with me then I had to do an online "Change of Flight" with LH as per their T&Cs. 
As stated in my original post, I have an "carbon copy" holiday booked with LH for March 2026 which was changed without any issue whatsoever and they have even refunded the difference due to this being a day less on holiday.
This specific one is apparently being hampered by the hotel according to LH. I am being told they are not willing to ammend the booking.
Further to this I have only just heard back from the Hotel, after me emailing them direct, and they have no issue at all with me checking a day late but will not refund the difference.

This leads me to believe the customer service is variable and looks like at times incompetent. Or are they just trying it on? The situation they put me in was either pay for the new holiday or pay a cancellation charge with no alternative. Some people would have just given in.
Then followed up with a message to say that I could identify another hotel and they could price it for me. Might just do this and see how they approach it.