I assume that the Alicante to Barcelona trip was dependent on you arriving in Alicante? In my opinion, and I am not a lawyer, is that Expedia are under no obligation to refund you anything. It is not Expedia/Iberia's fault that you were unable to travel (no matter what the reason) therefore they don't owe you a refund. Personally, I would take whatever refund they offered.

Hi

Thanks for the response. I would agree with your comments in most circumstances, however, there is an implied duty I would have thought regarding their failure to allow me to discuss the matter with them prior to my flight to Spain being cancelled. For example looking at re-arranging dates, which is allowed, though a fee would be due. Secondly they offered me a full refund and I accepted.

Thanks

Surely if they offered you a refund which you accepted, they can't change their minds a week later or am I missing something? That's how it reads anyway.

They could rely on this being a genuine error, but they haven't even indicated they made a mistake! Sadly I need to know the legal stance on this - not sure that just the common sense one (which I subscribe to too) will suffice.

I'd say the legal stance is you have no claim if the easyjet flight wasn't part of the package. Why weren't you able to contact Expedia before the booked departure date? I'm surprised they've offered to refund anything. Your contract rights will be in the T&Cs of the booking confirmation but I wouldn't expect them to allow any refund on what was basically a no show for a package starting in Alicante.

Thanks for your comments.

With regards to contacting Expedia - this is quite simple - they didn't respond to either one of two emails in time, and no matter how long you phoned them it proved impossible to speak to anyone. Not exactly reasonable, I'd say. I have asked to discuss subsequently the possibility of re-arranging the trip, but they refuse to discuss anything. A clear breach of the T&C's.

I have also asked that they repay the tax element of the flight (this is a requirement), which they have offered when they changed their mind about a full refund, and I have informed them that this must be refunded whilst the rest is disputed. They refuse to respond.

Sadly for them they did make an offer which was accepted. I was surprised they offered to, but at the end of the day this doesn't take away from the fact that they made an offer, knowing the reason for me being unable to make the trip, and being fully aware of the itinerary of the trip. A mistake on their part possibly , but I do feel that it is reasonable to conclude that my acceptance of their offer confirms the contract, given the information I have just indicated to you.

I would like to add that their continued refusal to discuss the matter is a disgrace - so avoid Expedia anyone who reads this thread!

I'm assuming the easyjet cancellation was due to the ash cloud. In which case at that time all travel company phone lines were in melt down with thousands of stranded passengers trying to get through and the email server was probably about to burst, so I'd say their failure to answer was unfortunate rather than unreasonable. On the other hand, if the flight was cancelled for some other reason before the ash problem then you would have a point.

But either way the Expedia T&Cs will have cancellation conditions that either say you can't or which set deadlines which you had probably gone past. So they could have picked up the phone on the first ring and said tough! The bottom line here is that this booking was always at risk of something going wrong with the easyjet part and you should have had proper insurance to cover it - Easyjet were never liable for consequential loss and Expedia were never liable for Easyjet problems.

I'm not sure that them making a later refund offer locks them into a new contract, although I can see your point there (maybe Breach of Promise rather than Contract, anyone know if that is still legally enforceable???).