we havent heard from eivie since 1st oct......hope she lets us know the outcome

I agree it would be lovely to hear how this all panned out. Particularly as so many of us spent a lot of time giving advice, even if we didnt always agree with eath other!

I follow all of the complaints threads and think its only polite to update members when they have tried their best to help.

I think its best to assume that you won't be getting an update. The member has not visited since 4th October.

Sorry it's been so long,

I would say that i have everyright to question what she has written to establish the truth,

Yes, you do, and I am happy you have. TBH I still can't believe the situation happened myself; it beggars belief that a young girl no matter how stupid or naive would say she did not want to go on holiday when we should have been getting in the car on the way to the airport. I still don't know how we got there on time.

Now the clue is in the package deal, Airlines will only change a name up to 3 hours before flight. If its a package deal you have to deal with the company. Now i would like to know who the holiday was booked through for one. I did read it was an early morning flight. Most package deal changes would involve a telephone call and you are looking at maybe office hours. Now someone may be able to tell me differently. In any event i would like to know the company as this was done very quickly.

Hi Steve, this is how it was done.......I was informed at 6.10, 5 mins before we were due to get in the car that the friend did not want to go. I asked her what was wrong, she said she felt ill, I asked what her mother had said and she told me she had not contacted her; I suggest she did this as a matter of urgency. I telephoned the Thomas Cook out of office hours helpline at 6.20 and they confirmed that a name change could be made at the airport. I spoke to the friend again and she said she wasn't going and her mum had said it was up to her whether she chose to go or not. We threw stuff in a suitcase for younger daughter and left for the airport at 6.45. Arriving at the airport in record time, 7.55am, we went straight to the Thomas Cook desk (not check in) it took about 10 mins to change the name, my daughter authorised this as lead booker. The girls were then told to go straight to priority check in as their flight was about to close; so they checked in just on time. It wasn't until they walked through to the departure lounge that I was certain they had made it. All the way to the airport I was convinced they would be too late or take too long to do a name change. It really was this late.

I appreciate some people are sceptical about the events as I described, I would be too. But what reason have I to make things up? That would not help me with the very helpful support and advice I have received on this forum. I have only ever tried to provide truthful facts without embellishments. It really was that bad and that late, I am starting to wonder myself if it really happened. The only aspect of this that I cannot prove is how ill this girl was; again all I can say is that I can evidence a facebook comment about asking for tickets to a festival at the weekend 3 hours after she should have been on the flight. I also have pictures of her enjoying a meal with family and friends (including her father) the next day when she was on "serious medication". I don't know why she left it so late to actually say she was not going to go? I cannot evidence the time she said this but I have a record of a phone call to Thomas Cook at 06:22:39am, the flight was at 9am.

Anyway we did have a phone call from the father, not Steve I'm sure! He asked if I was willing to discuss some kind of recompense for his daughter. I said I was, but no figure was discussed. He told me his daughter had visited the doctor and was on "serious medication", he said she had a sore throat. I explained that she had not appeared too unwell and when asked she just said "I don't feel well and I know I will be ill", I explained to the father that there would be no way I would leave a sick young girl unsupervised in my house. I explained to him exactly what had happened on the morning and that our concern was that our daughter would lose her holiday and money. His daughter did not give us the luxury of time to think any decision through. After the conversation he said he would speak to his daughter about what we had told him and he would get back to us.

Now this is the biggest reason for the long delay in replying as I am still waiting for him to "get back" to us. Whether I told him something he wasn't aware of or maybe it's just too time consuming, I don't know.

I have spent a great deal of time trying to find out information and I did contact Ros' office and spoke to someone; not Ros, they were very helpful, but as it is a civil matter, not really a travel one, they could not really help, although they did offer some useful advice. I got some free advice from a local solicitor who could not really say where we stood legally but suggested that such a small amount would not be worth pursuing. I contacted a very helpful online service he gave me some encouraging telephone advice. I think generally the opinion has been that because she pulled out a literally the last minute with what transpires to have been a sore throat then it was her decision not to travel and disinclination to travel does not get you your money back. There was other "stuff" going on that my daughter has posted earlier in the thread about the girl saying the weekend before that her bf had just returned from 6 weeks away and she did not want to leave him and could my daughter's bf go instead, she apparently had started to take antibiotics that she had kept from a sometime earlier when she had been prescribed them for a sore throat, but hadn't finished taking them. I had not put any of this in my original posts because I have tried to keep to the hard facts for which I can provide evidence.

She left my daughter and the rest of us in a very tricky situation. It this happened again I don't know that I would do anything differently.

TBH if it was my daughter that had done this to her friend she would have got short shrift from me. No matter how young the girls are they are old enough to book a holiday and deal with the consequences of their actions. If they pull out at the last minute I would have thought the illness would have to be so severe to require urgent medical attention, as one solicitor pointed out a sore throat does not stop you going on holiday. The way I see it is...if she really was really ill on the morning of travel I am sure I would have recognised this and sought medical assistance for her and I would certainly have contacted her parents, I would not have left her to wait an hour to be picked up. If she had been ill for a while, as she says, and was considering going for tests then this was a pre-existing condition and as such her insurance company would have to have been informed. I asked her father why she hadn't visited the doctors the previous day and he said she was fine then, she was fine at my house the previous evening when she came to stay and she was fine until she awoke at 5.30. I find it hard to believe that an illness so serious that meant she couldn't go on holiday materialised at 5.30 in the morning and did not require medical attention until much later that morning when "serious medication" for a sore throat was prescribed. But at the same time this person knew she would be well enough to go to a music festival and was out enjoying a meal the evening after she was too ill to travel.

Apologies again for not getting back sooner and I would like to thank everyone for their comments, the support I have received has been very much appreciated.

Hi eevie
Thanks so much for coming back to update us and clarify a few points.

As you've not heard from this girl's father for over 3 months, let's hope that he's decided, after further discussion with his daughter, that he's not going to follow a financial claim up.

Lastly the one a struggle with an being a father to 2 girls is having to almost force the younger sister to go. I do not know of many teenagers who are offered a holiday not wishing to go, call me a cynic but i do struggle to understand that one.

I would just like to answer this point and as prettypollycat posted.......

The younger girl may have had commitments (Saturday job, horse riding, dancing lesson, boyfriend - anything at all) that may have made her reluctant to drop everything and go on a holiday she'd not prepared for.

..........my younger daughter did have commitments. She does have a Saturday job, she did miss Ballet lessons, driving lesson, bf etc. She also missed her first day of school and enrolment into upper 6th. She had not prepared for the holiday, she had already been with a friend's family for a week to Spain so she had had her holiday that summer. She had not had any injections for travel to Egypt so they remained on the complex for the week as my elder daughter did not want to risk her catching something. My elder daughter took the responsibility of "looking after" her younger sister quite seriously, so this meant her holiday wasn't as relaxed or carefree as it would have been. I actually have another daughter who was home from uni at the time, she would have liked to have gone, but I didn't even give her the option as she had a summer job and I did not think it acceptable that she let work down to go on holiday. Had she not been working then the oldest daughter would have been the natural choice to take.

what is unreasonable about asking the younger sister to pay less the cost of the name change ect.

Younger sister has no money and only went so older sister did not lose holiday. It may be reasonable to ask for some payment, but what is a reasonable amount? After you have taken off all expenses eg name change, insurance, cost of lessons missed, money to spend, factor in loss of enjoyment for daughter whose holiday was spoiled etc How much are you left with?

Or are people saying that if you are a lead passenger you can change a name on the ticket and let someone else go for the cost of the name change and screw the other person over.

What would you have done if you were 20 and had booked and looked forward to a holiday with your friend and then the friend stayed at your house ready to go, but in the morning decided they didn't want to. Remember you are a 20 year old girl going to Egypt. Would you let your daughter go alone, would she really want to go alone? What would you have advised your daughter to do? If your daughter was the friend who felt ill what would you say to her? Would you say never mind you have a sore throat best not to go, don't worry I'll be over to get you when I can, then we'll see about getting you to the doctors, but don't worry you can look forward to our meal out tomorrow and why not go to the festival with your friends at the weekend?

Eevie having two teenage daughters myself, i would do exactly the same as you had done. I would not even have discussed with the Father any reimbursement.

I would just forget about it now, i would think the Father has let it drop by now.

hi eevie....thanks for letting us know what happened....I would just let it all slip into the past now...it doesnt look like you will hear from the girl or her father again....and look at it as a valuable lesson both your girls will have learnt... tweetie

It gets stranger. ....

The evening after posting my update, a few days ago, my daughter heard that the "friend" has told people that we have paid her the money in full as we were too frightened to go to court! She also told them that because she had been ill for a while and my daughter knew she was ill then apparantly we thought that she would be entitled to her money back!

Now people really will think i'm making this up, if this girl's behaviour wasn't so maddening it would be funny.

Or are people saying that if you are a lead passenger you can change a name on the ticket and let someone else go for the cost of the name change and screw the other person over.

Yes. As lead name everything is in your hands so to speak. An ex friend of mine booked us both a holiday but put it in my name as I knew more about holidays etc. We had a fall out and she went to the Travel Agents to change the booking as she'd paid for the holiday. She wasn't allowed to do the change so the TA contacted me & I took my name off the booking.

eevie2468 wrote:

The evening after posting my update, a few days ago, my daughter heard that the "friend" has told people that we have paid her the money in full as we were too frightened to go to court! She also told them that because she had been ill for a while and my daughter knew she was ill then apparantly we thought that she would be entitled to her money back!

Sounds to me as though she's trying to save face.

My thoughts too, Glynis.

And I also thought 'What a silly, immature person she seems to be'.

The evening after posting my update, a few days ago, my daughter heard that the "friend" has told people that we have paid her the money in full as we were too frightened to go to court! She also told them that because she had been ill for a while and my daughter knew she was ill then apparantly we thought that she would be entitled to her money back!

Sounds like possible slander to me.

Dave

Slander? Maybe but how about letting it drop? All seems a bit daft now as I doubt the girls going to sue anybody, she sounds a bit dipsy!
I just wouldn't worry about it anymore. It'll do more harm than good. Just think to yourself 'Rollox to it'

So now that you have "paid in full" you are under no further obligations regarding any refund. What goes around comes around.So forget it. Just tell your daughter to amend her Christmas card list.

Thanks for posting an update - always wondered what had happened. It does sound like the "friend" is now trying to save face, but can't say I'm surprised given her previous behaviour. Lets hope the matter has now been put to bed for good and you hear no more about it!

Thanks for updating us on this. With a friend like that, who needs enemies?

Sounds like possible slander to me.

Definition of Slander here;

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:slander&ei=uFFKS4WKJ4700gTw3ITlAQ&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition

Something that moderators have a great deal of problems with when checking posts. We may all express our personal opinions when asked for assistance but ALL parties need to consider carefully what they say.

I said back in August;

Lots of comments and advice. Some good and some not so. At the end of the day it is a matter to be sorted out between your daughter and her (ex) friend. All the views here are from strangers who do not have to live with the advice they give.

Nobody is sure if she has managed to get a doctors certificate, so that may have some bearing on the matter. Calls to insurers suggesting that she is not telling the truth if she makes a claim are dangerous things to do. They can come back and bite you, so I would suggest you forget that idea.

There are always two sides to a tale, when things quiet down you might get a proper story off this girl and her reasons for why she changed her mind.

Having read all that has been posted I still hold the same viewpoint. It is a matter to be sorted out by the interested parties - all the rest are just opinions.

After all this time without being resolved I suggest you just forget it and out it down to experience. If the other party should decide to take it to court I doubt they will get any satisfaction.

fwh