People have received or been offered lower amounts than claimed but if you accept it you will I presume be cashing the cheque as full and final settlement? Is this what their letter says, I would be interested to know?

Those of us who have posted about Monarch have had the same rubbish letters about an average customer in our 'gateway' (unbelieveable tosh) costing £8 pp for accommodation and £12 for food! I had that in a letter and refused it, am now about to take Monarch to Court. They never sent me a cheque even though I asked them to settle in my Letter before Action mentioned on this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2684387

Basically if you want all your money go to Small Claims and tell the judge, I reckon. They have acted shockingly in this matter so bring it on, I say!

That's just what the letter said, I have not cashed the cheque yet because I'm not really sure what to do next. Their must be so many people in the same situation, just what do we do next. Do you think small claims is worth it?

It is for me, depends how much you are talking about and if you want to pursue it.

My claim against Monarch is for six people's Right to Care (and includes compensation as we also had a second flight cancelled which Monarch have helpfully confirmed was not caused by the ash cloud).

I believe that Small Claims is fairly simple and only costs an up front fee that you add to your claim (I think the amount depends on the amount claimed, another poster who issued a Court claim against bmibaby said their Court fee was £65 which bmibaby then offered to refund along with paying back expenses out of Court).

If you lose you have to pay their costs but that's up to a certain ceiling, not huge Solicitors' costs (why not ask at your local County Court, Google them & phone the Court staff for the forms and ask them anything you are unsure of at the same time). Write down your questions then ask, some people have posted before that the County Courts are often pretty helpful to first-time claimants.

In your claim you can ask for interest at 8% on the full amount owed (return that cheque if you decide to take them to Court, then you'd be claiming the whole amount plus interest). You can also ask for your reasonable expenses - which if you win the judge may allow - typically up to £50 I think. I have never done this either but I will be doing so very shortly (busy with work this month).

Not saying we'll definitely win but there are several people on this forum who are going to try. Your first step now would be return the cheque saying you don't accept it and giving them notice of your intention to proceed with Court Action. Google 'Letter before Claim' Small Claims Court and you should find some useful results with examples of what will expect you to say in a letter at this stage.

Your choice really, the alternative is to bank the cheque and put it all behind you.

I have come to the same conclusion. See my last few postings under "Cyprus Airways".

Went to Lanzerote in April and got stuck there .
When returned like everyone sent in the hotel room bills about £315.00 to the airline to reclaim as they said they would on there website .
on Return we recived £720 delay money from the post office insurance Thats delay only they said you need to go to the airline for everything else


And to recived a letter saying they are not paying out !

Should i try and fight this claim ?

The letter reads :

27th Sept 2010

Dear Mr ---------

Further to your volcanic Disruption Claim, We have considered your documnets, and set out below proposals.


as you will appreciate, the events in April and May caused by the icelandic volcano were unprecedented and beyond the control of monarch airlines. Although there is no question of fault on our part ,we will of course honour our legal obligations to our customers to refund reasonable expenses.

Consistent with this, and having taken expert legal advise ,evaluation of all claims has been basd upon the 4 specified headings that are described in the legislation under which a claim can be made in relation to your "rights to care" during the period from your scheduled departure,until your actual departure.

These Categories are accommodation subsistence (meals) , Communications 2 phone calls emails faxes) and a transfer (from the airport to your accomodation and back) , If you were at the airport to check-in and then had to return again at a later date to fly.

In order to assess all claims on a fair and resonable basis, we have taken the average cost of 3 half board accommodation and the average amount claimed for subsistence in your gateway and used this to benchmark claims. The averages are based on the claims made to all passengers.

on this basis ,from the documentation submitted , your enttitlement would be :

Accommodation/meals £300 Allowance for 3 people for 5 nights

Communications £25 Your entitlement is to 2 phonecalls or emails

Although we estimate that a reasonable phone call,even from overseas ,should be no more than £3 or £5 we are nonetheless prepared to pay £5 per day for the days that we accept represent legitimate"rights to care" days.




Airport Transfer : We cannot accept claims for additional car parking. ourobligation is only to cover the cost of an actual tranfer if customers have presented themselfs at the airport but have been obliged to return to a place of accommodation owing to cancellation of the flight

i note from your correspondence that you submitted a claim to your travel insurance company ,and recived a payment of £720 already for the delay . On this basis that the payment you recived exceeds the amount of your claim with us , we will not be able to agree any payment to you in this instance.

We regret no being able to offer you a more favaourable responce.

Yours Sincerely
Monarch Airlines

~~~~~~~~~

Volcanic Ash Claims handler

Thats what i was let to belive the airlines for hotels and meals were different cases as when i spoke to the post office insurance even they said on the phone that i had to contact them as you are only covered with the post office insurance as a delay . £20 for the 1st 12hrs and then £20 every 12hrs per person .


Do you think Monarch are trying to pull a fast one on this ?

We know they are trying to pull a fast one!

They are doing this to everyone, me included. We were stuck in Lanzarote as well but had 2 flights cancelled.

Read some other threads about Monarch cases on the board, that unintelligible rubbish wording about 'benchmarks and gateway' has been used as standard replies to others as well. The whole forum board view showing all current threads (all airlines) here makes useful reading::

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=201

And Cityboy thank you so much for your help so far.

I have cleared some space in my pm inbox and will be drafting a letter to send the full details off to my Legal Cover Insurers this weekend. So far I had only spoken to them on the phone.

I too was offered only £8/person/night for half board 3* accommodation at Easter in Cyprus. I rejected it and sent them the cheque back and now the AUC are taking it up for me. I don't know where they get their figures from but it is disgraceful considering the fact that they charged us nearly £1000 just to get a flight home! (which amount they have subsequently paid back). I did not claim for anymore than we spent and have receipts, so can't understand what the dispute is; I think they are just trying it on to see what they can get away with

The AUC are not 'taking this up for you' - at least they won't get your money back for you.

Check if you have legal cover on your Household or Motor or other insurance, if so then get them involved to take it up for you using the Small Claims track in the County Court. If you have no legal cover you can take them to Small Claims yourself - maybe post about this on flightmole for help if you need to go it alone, apparently Small Claims is quite straightforward.

I am in your position as well, the AUC have sent me a couple of 'sorry for delay' letters and I know in the end they'll just farm my case out to Spain (as we were stranded in Lanzarote).

I have to take Monarch to Small Claims, so do you. The AUC won't get your money back.

We're in exactly the same boat.
Has anyone had any success yet with not taking their first offer?
I'm also not happy about Monarch's - in order to calculate the value of your claim, use £1 = 1.25 Euro! The exchange rate was 1.10 in Cyprus during April. That reduced our claim by around £350.
We eventually flew back with Cyprus Airways who were a delight, needless to say, Monarch will not be our choice again.

I think most people are going through the pre-court protocols (Letter Before Action saying pay us or else Small Claim will follow) and checking if they have legal cover on their Home Insurance so that a Solicitor can represent them in the subsequent Small Claims cases. Or they are filing Court papers themselves in the absence of legal cover to pay for a Solicitor.

I am in the same situation. I have received 2 cheques from Monarch, but I am still not happy with the amount offered to cover my accommodation - £8 per night is their offer. I don't know whether to try a legal route - is the Small Claims Court the way forward? Has anyone got more that £8 per night from Monarch ,and if so, how?

Hi,
We have only just discovered this site. We are in the same position as you. Monarch offered us £20 as full and final payment. We rejected this and returned the cheque. We wrote to say we were looking at taking it to County Court and for them to re-consider. They did . . . . re-considered, not paying anything !

Seeing other threads, we checked our house insurance, and found we may be covered for legal cover. I hope so. Monarch have behaved atrociously, they clearly do not agree with the legislation. Many offenders disagree with legistation that they fall foul of, usually there is some means for the victim to seek redress. If this were about money, maybe there is (but aparently only through court action), if it's about changing airline policy (to care for it's passengers). . . . . well, the facts tell the story. That is the sad part.

Their aparent policy on this probably makes good business sense, perhaps 90% of customers will give up/accept defeat. Then fight the remaining 10% all the way, hopefully losing some more on route. So what if people say they won't fly with them again. . . . What choice is there ? Sounds like most of the airlines are playing the same game.

I am in a similar situation as many of you and I am not backing down. I have sent communications to the executive group at monarch and awaiting a further response from them. I will be going all the way with this one I am not backing down and will go to court if needs be without a shadow of doubt, they have outraged me beyond all comprehension

Same here, totally agree. We also are at the stage of preparing a Court claim against Monarch after being stuck for an extra week in Lanzarote.

I emailed Tim Jeans (Monarch top guy) and he never responded, not even an acknowledgement and no response from minions to that email either. SO I can't see the Execs helping you either!

Do check your House & Contents insurance to see if you have legal cover to help you with your Court case, I have and it's less of a burden knowing we won't have to face Monarch's slippery lawyers alone. Having said that. I don't want to put anyone off going down the Small Claims track themselves if they don't have legal cover, as Court is they only answer for some of these Airline claims and the reality is that no-one else (e.g. not the ATUC) is going to get your money back for you.

We received a simmilar reply to everyone else.
We only submiited a claim for £310 (all receipted and after we moved to the cheapest hotel we could find in Gibraltar) and after a long delay, we received a letter saying that the average price for our gateway was £40 per couple, per night, inclusive of food - absolute rubbish, furthermore on the basis that we received a £200 delay payment from our insurance company they would not be making any payment as the insurance payment exceeded their liability (our insurance di d not cover us any further).

I wrote a further letter saying that we did not accept 1. their figures as being reasonable or realistic; and 2. that the insurance payment was for delay - not for hotel and other costs.

I received a further letter from Monarch yesterday saying "On the basis that the payment made to you by your insurers caters only for departure delay benefit, I can confirm our agreement to make a payment to you in the sum of £135." - i.e. the costs clauclated by them with reference to average gateway prices.

I still feel cheated by Monarch and will send a further letter of complaint - but if you get the same initial repsonse as us, i.e. in relation to insurance payments removing their liability make sure you follow it up and hopefully get some payment.

best of luck

coupon mad,

in your earlier post #4, you mentioned another monarch flight being cancelled, but NOT as a result of the ash cloud. may i ask if this was one of the flights that had a '9' prefixed onto the normal flight number.

if so, it would be intersting to chat with you, as my friends had the same situation if it is.

HXDave

Yes, it was. Send me a pm by clicking on my username.

Coupon mad, you have PM.

excuse me, but i am fixing the toilet at the the same time, so popping on and off here......... lol