Holiday Cancellation and employee concessions

iwant2asave

Hello,

I used to work for a travel company and prior to leaving I had employee concession amounts of around £500 that I had available to use on holidays which was an employee benefit.

Unfortunately the travel company decided to stop virtually all flights from the airport I booked with and they changed the booking to another airport that was much much less convenient at 6am over 100 miles away.  They gave 2 options : 1 find and change the booking to another holiday ; 2 cancel and get a full refund.

I chose the refund option as I couldnt find any holiday at the same or lower price I originally paid and didnt want to end up paying more because of their decision to cancel their flight.  I got the deposit back but not the concession.  The terms and conditions on the concession scheme do not say anything about cancellation/refunds but I would guess they would normally be back available if I were still working there.

Is it worth me asking if they should refund the concession amount as some kind of holiday voucher etc or is this something that is unlikely to be possible?

Thanks,

MeteredOut

Its not clear to me if you're out of pocket after the cancellation and refund. Are you?

What were the T&Cs of the concession? You say "as far as you are aware" but are you trying to find out? I suspect it's one of these "this is not transferrable and has no monetary value" type of things.

Westin

I expect the ‘concession’ formed part of your employment terms. Have you read your employment contract to see what is mentioned?  I would expect most employee concessions to end when employment is terminated.

iwant2asave

MeteredOut said:

Its not clear to me if you're out of pocket after the cancellation and refund. Are you?

What were the T&Cs of the concession? You say "as far as you are aware" but are you trying to find out? I suspect it's one of these "this is not transferrable and has no monetary value" type of things.

Deposit-wise I am not out of pocket as it was refunded.
Concession-wise - I dont have access to the £500 concession that was on the cancelled holiday.

Got it, thanks -I have managed to find copy of the policy and it says nothing at all about cancellations let alone ones that are cancelled due to a significant change by the employer.

Basically my feeling is that it would be fair to allow me to not be worse off because they decided to stop operating from that airport.  But equally I can understand this could well be something I will have to put down to unfortunate circumstances and tough luck.

iwant2asave

Westin said:

I expect the ‘concession’ formed part of your employment terms. Have you read your employment contract to see what is mentioned?  I would expect most employee concessions to end when employment is terminated.

I have managed to find copy of the policy.  It states its not part of the employment terms.  Also fyi I just added some more info to the above comment which might be relevant.

MyRealNameToo

So you booked a £2,000 holiday but only paid £1,500 due to an employee benefit

You then ceased to be an employee

The holiday has since been cancelled and you are complaining you only are getting back the £1,500 you paid rather than the £2k value? 

If you were still an employee there may have been a debate on if your credit is reinstated or not etc but you arent so it's lost. 

elsien

You aren’t directly worse off because you have got all the money back that you paid out yourself. 

You no longer have the concession to use on a different holiday, but that’s a slightly different situation
I understand why you are asking the question, but I suppose it’s similar to if you buy something with a discount voucher and then get a refund  you don’t get the voucher back  to apply  to something else. 

iwant2asave

MyRealNameToo said:

So you booked a £2,000 holiday but only paid £1,500 due to an employee benefit

You then ceased to be an employee

The holiday has since been cancelled and you are complaining you only are getting back the £1,500 you paid rather than the £2k value? 

If you were still an employee there may have been a debate on if your credit is reinstated or not etc but you arent so it's lost. 

Ok thanks for the answer.  I was hoping that there might be a case for goodwill as I basically lost out just because they decided to stop operating from the only viable airport for me.

iwant2asave

elsien said:

You aren’t directly worse off because you have got all the money back that you paid out yourself. 

You no longer have the concession to use on a different holiday, but that’s a slightly different situation
I understand why you are asking the question, but I suppose it’s similar to if you buy something with a discount voucher and then get a refund  you don’t get the voucher back  to apply  to something else. 

Thanks for your feedback - I wouldnt even ask the question if the change was something caused by me...the change was caused because of them.

Anyway I guess the concensus seems to be that its not worth asking for anything.

elsien

Nothing wrong with asking - always worth a try. Just don’t be surprised if it’s a no. 

Grumpy_chap

If I understand the thread correctly, the OP worked for a travel firm and booked a holiday using an employee "perk" discount of £500.

Between booking and travelling, the OP left the employment of the travel firm. 
After that, the travel firm then ceased departures from the booked airport.
The OP has received a refund as the alternative airports were not suitable for the OP.
The result is that the OP has lost the "perk" discount of £500.

Usually, access to discounts of this nature would cease immediately on leaving the employment.  As others have said, the OP can't lose anything by asking for a discount / voucher / goodwill gesture.  I would not be confident of a positive response, but it may depend on the nature of the OP leaving the employer and what the OP is doing now.  

I also wonder how much value there is to the OP in pursuing this to get the voucher.  The OP has stated:
"the travel company decided to stop virtually all flights from the airport I booked with"
and
"they decided to stop operating from the only viable airport for me"
IF the OP is successful in having the value of the concession reinstated, will the OP actually benefit?  Surely, the OP would have a voucher for some discount from a future holiday departing from an airport that is not viable for the OP...