I could be wrong, but I don't think so. Who is going to pay for the change of name on the holiday etc? Or if they can't get someone to replace your daughter does the price per person go up for the remaining people? Perhaps you could give more info, and then someone will be able to advise you better?

Maybe you could give us some more info i.e whether this £160 has already been paid in full , whether there is a remainder due which could possibly be the case if a low deposit was paid at the time of booking and who it was booked with i,e one of the main tour operators or a put together package where flights may nnot be refundable . Legally I dont believe she does but if she is on good terms with her friends still I would hope they could manage to sort something out amicably whereby if a friend takes her place she pays your daughter back the deposit she has already paid .

As sue says there will be a cost involved due to the name change .If that is one of the main tour operators it shouldnt be more than about £20-30 + the price may go up for the others due to possible under occupancy.

If my daughter cancels her holiday with her friends and they get someone to replace her does that person have to pay my daughter her £160 deposit?

Legally? No they don't - it's your daughter who has reneged on any mutal agreement (either signed and agreed or implied). Morally? We'd all like to think that s/he would.

But a bit more info would help people give more specific advice.

1) Is your daughter the lead name on the booking?

The lead name is the person who has the contract with the supplier and it's them who is legally responsible for the entire cost of the booking. Your daughter can't cancel her holiday in the legal sense unless she is the lead name. And if she is, she's going to have to persuade one of her friends to take that on instead. If she can't then she's going to remain liable for the whole amount until they get this sorted. If she's not the lead name then only the lead name can take your daughter off the booking and replace her with someone else. And in that inctance, your daughter can just walk away from this, lose her deposit and leave it up to the lead name and the others to pick up the mess. But hopefully you've brought her up to be a much nicer person than that though I suppose that much is going to depend on the circumstances leading up to her deciding that she doesn't want to go away with them anymore and whether she wants to keep the others as friends.

2) As Madsue says, there will be costs involved in taking her name off the booking and relacing it with someone else's. A good compromise might be that the replacement person gives your daughter the £160 minus the cost of any charges incurred. They would end up paying exactly the same as your daughter would have done in total and your daughter at least gets some of her deposit back depending on what the charges are for changing a name. This strikes me as reasonable - it doesn't seem fair that she gets back all of her deposit and that someone else has to pay the financial consequences of her changing her mind. How much the TO will cahrge for this varies between different ones and will also vary according to how far off the departure date is - they often increase the closer it's done to the date of the holiday and so it's in all their interests to get this sorted as soon as possible.

3) As lynwestie says, things get more complicated if the £160 pounds is a low deposit and hence only part of the total deposit due. Again if she's not the lead name then she can just legally walk away but the lead name will still have to pay the rest of the deposit for her in that case - not a good recipe for keeping them as a friend. Or the whole group of they feel obliged to help them out and divvy the remaining deposit due between them.

4) Similarly, the real cost to the others of your daughter cancelling will also depend on things such as whether the reamining members of the party will be charged an under-occupancy supplement if they can't replace your daughter on the booking. If they've booked an apartment/s through one of the main TOs then this will almost certainly apply. Alternatively if there price they're paying is based on a discount for 3 adults sharing what would otherwise be sold as a room for 2 then the two people your daughter would have been sharing with will lose that discount and find that their holiday will now cost them more. They might regard it as only reasonable that she pays them this if they can't find someone to take her place.

5) If she already has her holiday insurance on place she MIGHT be able to make a claim against that for the lost deposit if, for example, there are medical reasons for her having to cancel but she won't if it's simply a case of her deciding that she no longer wants to go or can't afford it anymore.

The bottom line is that whatever happens, this holiday is now going to cost more in total than it would have done, even if the rest of them can persuade someone else to take her place. It could be very little if they can find a replacement for her and if this is well in advance of the departure date then the charge probably will only be in the region of the £20/30 that Lynn suggests. But just how much more it COULD rise to will depend on a lot of factors but it doesn't seem fair to me, and probably won't to the others still going, that the only person who doesn't end up out of pocket is your daughter. If she wants to remain friends with the others she's going to have to be prepared to reach some sort of compromise agreement with them that ensures that they don't end up out of pocket as a result of her decidng, for whatever reason, that she no longer wants to go.

SM

I just don't get it - why do people go to the bother of registering, post a question and then never bother coming back to read the replies?

Suckered yet again into writing a long post for the benefit of a first and one time poster for it never to be read - why do I never learn?

SM

Sorry SMa, I can understand how you feel as the mods often reply to posts and some members will thank another member without even acknowledging the mod's post. You start to think your posts are invisible.

I would suggest replying to a first time poster with a brief acknowledgement, possibly asking for further information, and only spend time on a detailed reply if they acknowledge that post.

luci

That's a good idea Luci. SMa, it's very frustrating given that you've put a lot of time and effort in trying to help.

Hi Lucy, you've nothing to apologise for, I was just having a bit of a presonal rant :-) and as Shirley says, it's a good idea and one that madsue and lynnwestie clearly have put into practice already. I should learn from you all and will do as you suggest next time.

SM

SMa

I know in real world people of my age achieve invisibility but in the cyberworld when my posts are ignored I often wonder how they know how old I am.
Don't let the odd bad mannered member put you off continuing to post the detailed and invaluable info. that has helped many of our members in the past.

Judith

Hi Judith, I wasn't bothered by the apparent bad manners so much as the fact that the log details on the site indicate that having posted a question the OP never even came back to check if there were any responses Why bother posting in the first place if you weren't going to come back and look at the answers?

When I think about it in more detail, they could well have come back and read the posts without bothering to actually log-in and if that's what happened then they would have just been recorded as a guest. Perhaps they didn't like the answers they got and saw no need to bother replying and hence didn't bother logging-in again? Who knows? It won't put me off but I might well do as Lucy suggests with 1st time posters in future - a brief answer in the first place until there is evidence that they are going to engage with replies in some way.

But as woman who has also reached a certain age I am also all too familiar with the invisibility syndrome as well This is why I go through phases of having purple and blue 'highlights' put through my otherwise grey hair - there are times when one has to do something to grab the attention of 1st year undergraduate students

SM

The question really should be was it a genuine post?
Look at this

Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:13 am
Last visited: Tue Mar 06, 2012 12:25 am

The post was made at 12.25 am - not many of us around at that time and they have not been back since.

Like others I also think it is only courtesy to at least acknowledge the assistance given.

fwh

Another forum I belong to we have the same issues. People pop up ask a couple of questions, get answers and either don't read them or don't say thanks. A couple of weeks ago I spent some time scanning about 20 pages from a book and then emailing them and I still haven't had a thank you.