Surely this cannot be legal and a breach of contract????

This is a bit of a grey area because under UK law, companies are only required to make 'all reasonable adjustments' to enable disabled travellers to make use of their services etc and one of the things which bedevils all the legislation is that it is not clear what constitutes a 'reasonable adjustment' in a particular situation. I am assuming that the complaints about damage that the transfer company is referring to relate to damage to scooters rather than their coaches? If that is the case then you could perhaps offer to sign a waiver stating that you accept that the scooter is carried at your own risk - only you can judge whether you are prepared to do this in the light of whatever insurance arrangements you've made with the company hiring the scooter out to you.

Alternatively, your contract is with the travel agent who sold you this Thomas Cook package and if you have something in writing from them that proves they knew you were bringing your own scooter with you and had agreed that it would be transported on the transfer coach, then you stand a chance of arguing that this formed a part of your contract with them and that they should now pay for a transfer via private taxi instead. It will be important to establish whether transporting your scooter was an agreed part of your booking or not and whether Thomas Cook were informed and agreed to this at the time the booking was made. I would suggest that it probably won't be sufficent to just prove that you informed the TA, you would need to prove that they agreed that this was something Thomas Cook could and would do. I know that time is short for getting something sorted but however angry you are about this, the chances are that you'll get the best result by remaining calm and keeping your complaint concise and to the point if you pursue this in writing.

Also, bear in mind that should you not be able to resolve this amicably with them and you decide to pursue this as a case under the DRA laws, for you to be covered by the legislation you could well be required to prove that you are reliant on the scooter and could not go on holiday without it - the fact that you've hired one for this holiday could potentially undermine your case if they choose to go down the route of arguing that this is something you have done for your own convenience rather than it being an essential aid that you rely on to enable you to get on with your day to day life.

But one final point - does the hire company know that you are planning to take the scooter to Cyprus and have they agreed to you taking it out of the country? If they haven't, then potentially you have a far bigger problem than how you get it from the airport to your accommodation.

SM

Hi there, my husband has his own mobility scooter and we go with Thomsons, they will never take his scooter on their coaches and we always have to have a taxi but as a good will gesture Thomsons pay for the taxi on one of the journeys, this is organised because we always inform special needs at Thomsons.