We have a section in our Holiday Advice forum regarding this type of problem:- Click Here

However as your parents have had to accept the holiday and are at resort now? I would suggest you contact Ros Fernihough first thing in the morning on 01922 621114 She is a travel law lawyer and will give you free advice on what your parents should do now.

Take notes of what Ros suggests and pass on her comments to your parents.

Good Luck.

The Tour Operators blamed the hotel for the over-booking and pretty much abdicated all responsibility for any problems.

This is not true. Your contract is with the TO, not the hotel.

May I suggest that your mom first off makes a complaint to the TO's representative in the resort and give them the opportunity to put it right. Not doing this might result in you not being able to complain and ask for compensation at a later date.

Mark

If your parents are already in TFS and unhappy with their new hotel - perhaps if they visit their originally booked hotel and ask to speak to the hotel manager this might help.

If they explain that they were really looking forward to staying at XX hotel and if the hotel had availability could they move there, the hotel manager may be sympathetic and offer them a room. A pleasant approach with a smile could work wonders and pull on the heart strings o f the hotel manager! If this works they could call the TC office in TFS and explain that they have a room at their original hotel and request that TC contacts the original hotel to confirm the move.

I have a feeling that the hotel may have only been in an oversold situation for part of your parents stay (perhaps just a night or two) rather than the 28 nights that your parents had booked. If this is the case it would be a great shame to spend so long in a hotel that they are not happy with.

If this works they could call the TC office in TFS and explain that they have a room at their original hotel and request that TC contacts the original hotel to confirm the move.

Whilst I agree that an approach would do no harm, and would assist in any claim, you should bear in mind that the TO may have contracted X number of rooms and already sold them. Any others may either not be available, or at a price in excess of what the TO is willing to pay.

You should also consider that the TO is telling the truth, irrespective of what you may read on HT they do tell the truth, and are often put in this position through no fault of their own.

Anyone posting on HT should consider that we are only expressing OUR opinion.

The advice to contact Ros Fernihough is the most sensible way of tackling your problem and, will "ensure you get the correct legal advice" as to how you should go about sorting this out.

fwh

fwh
I'm curious to know what stage of overbooking the TO would not be directly responsible for??? If they overbook they are surely putting theirselves in the position?
regards
Marie

This is a first for me, I'm inclined to disagree with fwh on one point.

and are often put in this position through no fault of their own

As Marie asks, how can this be anybody's fault but the T.O.'s ?

I'd accept the situation if, say, one wing of the hotel is suddenly closed due to essential and emergency building repair work - the T.O. may have been informed only at the last minute.

I suspect this is a simple case of the T.O.'s systems failing to detect an overbooked position and/or a renegotiation between the T.O. and the Hotel owner has resulted in them being allocated a lower number of rooms.

If the hotel has availability but the T.O.'s allocation is full the T.O. could purchase (at higher cost of course) further availability in order to meet their contractual obligations. So, my first advice would be to contact the hotel from the U.K., determine their avail. and if any, put this to the T.O. as the favoured solution. The cost is irrelevant. The T.O. has breached his contract by failing to accommodate in the booked hotel. The response from the T.O. should provide damning evidence should they refuse on pure cost grounds.

Assuming the T.O. cannot or will not move your parents, check the comparitive facilities of each hotel pointing out to the T.O. any lack of facilities. Ignore any additional features as these are irrelevant - if they were important to your parents they could have chosen their current hotel instead of the one booked. Loss of facilities requires the T.O. to provide compensation. Proximity to shops and amenities is a facility they may have been deprived of - get the T.O. to agree to reimburse receipted taxi fares to an acceptable limit - say one return journey per day on average.

Finally, it's my understanding that any significant change so close to the departure (13 hours is, frankly, a joke) warrants compensation. A solicitor will be best placed to judge the amount.

Good Luck Musey, and please let us know the outcome/progress.
Mike

Perhaps my exact choice of words could have been better. People do have a habit on HT of assuming that the TO is always in the wrong. Being realistic we know that is not always the case. It is possible that the TO has been dropped in it by the hotel.

Whilst 13 hours notice is unacceptable from the point of view of the traveller, without a proper explanation from the TO anything we say is conjecture. Direct approaches to the hotel, as has already been suggested, will I am sure get an explanation of the true circumstances. That will then enable Musey to decide what action should be taken.

I do think that many of the stories we hear about could be resolved far easier if there were less accusations and more facts.

fwh

fwh highlights the common practice of hoteliers overselling rooms. Just as scheduled airlines "over-sell" seats to compensate for no-shows, hotels worldwide practice the same.

As a simple example of a 100 room hotel, the hotelier allocates his rooms as;

30 rooms to Thomas Cook
30 rooms to Thomson
20 rooms to Cosmos
10 rooms to Sunvil
20 rooms to First Choice
15 rooms for own sales

The Hotelier has therefore over contracted his rooms by 25% by "selling" 125 rooms

The Hotelier obviously wants to gain maximum occupancy and revenue Ideally 100%, but that is unlikely given check-in/check-out dates. Most hotels would be happy with occupancy anywhere above 85%.

Each operator may normally only sell say 80% of their room allocation. The unsold rooms being released back to the hotel at a pre-agreed number of days before the arrival date (known as the release period). The hotelier, being used to this average occupancy builds this no-show or under utilised room allotment into his calculations when contacting the hotel rooms in the first place. If the average 80% sales are achieved then 100 rooms are sold - the hotel is full - everyone is happy!

Most of the time this "over-sale" situation works out. Sometimes it doesn't and the hotel, being faced with more check-in arrivals that available rooms, will "walk" the arrivals to an alternative hotel. This is often done only when the customer arrives in the lobby to check-in, so in this Tenerife situation it could have been worse - at least an alternative was found and customers notified before departure (small consolation to these customers I know)

It is therefore very possible that the hotel is guilty of this situation and only notified the tour operator at short notice of their position, having initially hoped that the oversold situation would clear up - but in this case didn't.

So - not always the tour operators fault. They are just the messenger with the bad news.

One final point, booking with a tour operator who holds a long term and steady relationship with the hotel would normally help the case and minimise the tour operators customer in an over booking situation. I feel quite sure that the Hotelier has probably received "an ear full" from TC's Contracts Manager and/or Resort Manager over the situation and I'm sure the Hotelier given the option would have only "overbooked" the TC customer as a last resort. Far likely to be moved first are those who booked a cheaper room rate via the internet or a smaller travel organiser who does not give as much business to the Hotel.

What I don't understand is why a hotel or tour operator would do this to people who had booked a months holiday. You would have thought they would have wanted to keep people who made that kind of longish booking happy for repeat business purposes.

Surely its easier to have one couple for 4 weeks rather than say 4 couples for one week each.

Regardless of if its the TO or the hotel at fault, 13 hours notice of a change must be breaching certain terms and conditions made at the time of booking.

I agree with doepsmc that it does seem strange that a 28 night booking is walked.

With regard to a breach of contract because only 13 hours notice was given- terrible though this is for the customers, providing the new hotel is of same or higher standard I think the tour operator will be covered within the terms and conditions of the booking.

I have been over-booked twice in the past. Once we were told before departure and once on arrival at the hotel reception. Not best pleased in either case. Managed to move back to the original hotel within 3 days / 1 day after negotiations with the tour operator and hotel once in resorts.

To answer doepsmc's point about being better to keep a 4 week booking than 4 one-week bookings......

I might be a little too cynical here but I expect the T.O. would rather upset just one couple rather than four couples or groups. They probably profile their clients and would guess the older couple having booked for a month are most likely to accept the change rather than request a refund.

This cynicism is based upon personal experience. 14 years ago I developed a database for a prestigious tour operator and it was able to 'target' a select group of potential customers (often as few as a dozen) for very specific tailored holidays. This technology has developed considerably since then. This kind of profiling is probably used by the large T.O.'s to ascertain the likelihood of a complainant taking legal action (via access to small claims court settlements). Like I said, I'm cynical.

Mike

I think more likely that the hotel has just rejected the booking (and possible more than one booking) and past this back to Thomas Cook rather than anything under hand that the tour operator is doing.

I agree with MikeCunliffe easier to bump one couple rather than four

i wonder what the percentages of small groups say a couple being bumped are compared to larger groups four or more adults and children. You know what they say strength in numbers.

The tour operator may have known for some time about overbookings.

When this happens the buck is passed onto the agency for them to phone the client and advise them. The agency could have known for some time, or may have tried to contact the client but no response. The agency sould also take system notes of dates and times.

There will be a date and time of release of information to the travel agent and should be noted on their system.

As for overbookings, the tour operator is not always (very rarely actually) responsible for overbookings.

There is a signed contract from the hotelier to the tour operator reservations with an allocated amount of rooms per week with a cost per person or room.

These rooms are then loaded onto the tour operators system so that everything matches up.

Even when the tour operator meet their agreed contracted room amount, local lets, long stays, small agencies in particular can cause overbookings.

it is the fault of the HOTEL reservations department for miscalculating their arrival and not the tour operator. If the tour operator suffers overbookings to their clients, the hotel will be handed the full invoice for the new hotel. There are instances where the incorrect amount of rooms are allocated onto the tour operators system by the uk sales team but this hardly happens. Overbookings happen in pretty much every hotel, usually peak season too!

And finally, the tour operator CANNOT detect overbookings until the HOTEL contact the tour operator in reost. Tour operator systems only bring up their allocation or guarantee of property.

Well I think that is a despicable situation, and I don't care who's fault it is, the fact remains that if a customer has handed over thousands of pounds for their once a year holiday they should NEVER EVER be given 13 hours notice of a change to the one they booke, sometimes up to a year ago(usually in my case!).
In my eyes that is still the responsibility of the TO. Most TO's have had our money up front 3 months in advance of the departure date - they have a responsibility to get us what we paid for: in any other organisation the company like that would find itself without customers and would swiftly sever ties with third parties who couldn't honour the contracts agreed.

Scotlad, thank you for that clear and concise posting; I can now see how this situation is very likely not the T.O.'s fault.

Marie, I also agree with you - it is the T.O.'s responsibility.

I can hold both views by accepting that whilst it's not the T.O.'s fault it is their contractual responsibility to resolve the matter to their clients satisfaction. The client's contract is with the T.O. after all.

I always measure a company's performance not necessarily upon their ability to avoid problems (that may, to be fair, be unavoidable) but rather upon their ability to minimise the effect and quickly resolve the situation. Perhaps by now Musey has spoken with the T.O. on his parent's behalf and all is fine?

An update would be welcome Musey.

Cheers, Mike

marie:

i can understand how you feel - as a holidaymaker the tour operator is your only point of contact but they cannot always be responsible for the overbookings.

however it is the tour operators job to look after the client.

in this case, there has been the offer of a full refund or a switch of accommodation - sometimes there has to be a downgrade but there is usually in-resort compensation negiotiated. there physically is nothing else they can offer.

Finally, it's my understanding that any significant change so close to the departure (13 hours is, frankly, a joke) warrants compensation. A solicitor will be best placed to judge the amount

Musey, as I said (above) some time back I believe your parents do have a case for compensation over and above being offered a full refund or acceptable, alternate accommodation.

I know this might sound harsh, scotlad but it's a tough life. Personally, if this happened to me and the T.O. did everything possible to make the best of the situation AND the alternate accomm. was OK I'd not push for further compensation - other than a discount voucher for that T.O. as I'd like to travel with them again. A T.O. that actually sorts a problem to the client's satisfaction and without hassle is a rare beast in my experience and should be nurtured and cherished

Mike