By confirming this booking you are agreeing to accept our terms and conditions and any charges for amendments to or cancellation of your booking. Full details of our terms and conditions can be found at our web site

Says it all, I'm afraid........

The website states T& Cs - (copied and pasted)

Since we incur costs in cancelling your arrangements, you will have to pay the applicable cancellation charges up to the maximum shown in the table below (the cancellation charge detailed is calculated on the basis of the total cost payable by the person cancelling excluding insurance premiums and amendment charges which are not refundable in the event of the person to whom they apply cancelling).
Period before departure within which notice of Cancellation by us Amount of cancellation charge

119 days or more Loss of deposit
118 – 36 days 75% of holiday cost
35 days or less 100% of holiday cost

Sorry, but I don't think that you have any comeback here...

ATB,J.

Why are you cancelling ?

If it is a medical reasons you may be able to claim off of your travel insurance, also some of the more comprehensive policies cover Redundancy as well. If it is something that could be deemed as disinclination to travel then you won't be able to use that route.

Don't really understand the timescales of this complaint:-
Booked in March -cancelled in July? (6 months before cruise) - comes on the forum with complaint in November?? Why so long after cancellation?

As to insurance -I'm pretty sure that the cruise company would have suggested claiming the loss of deposit on insurance policy -so either there wasn't a policy in place or the Ins. co. won't accept the reason for cancellation as a valid one.

I thought that as well brewerdave.

You are unlikely to ever get a four month 'cooling off' period.`

With airlines and some holiday companies I beleive you get a 24 hour 'cooling off' period.

This is incase you make an error on your booking, and notice in that time frame.

Apart from that I have never really heard of 'cooling off' periods in relation to booking holidays.

To all who have replied, many thanks.
This is my first Forum experience and I was not sure what to expect. I suppose that I was looking for a little "tea and sympathy", how wrong can you be.
I do appreciate the honesty and frankness of your responses.
Yes, I am the fool who booked a holiday and then found that he could not afford it and wanted his deposit back.
I totally accept that the T&C state that you forfeit your deposit if you cancel.
I have never needed to cancel before and was not aware of the loss of deposit, I always assumed that you would lose a proportion of that deposit depending on how close to departure you cancelled.
However several points arise.
The holiday company can charge what ever deposit they wish (in my case 25%)
What determines the size of the deposit?
If they retain that deposit I would have expected that they could provide some breakdown of where it went, they will not!
Some one has my money and not very much work has been involved.
If the holiday is resold why shouldn't I receive some refund.
Why is there no "cooling off" period for a holiday booking?
Why can't you transfer the deposit to a lesser priced holiday?
I suppose that I am really angry with myself for being such a fool and giving away £1700 and am trying to get a crumb of comfort for myself and any who follow in my footsteps (try not to!)

I'm confused. You read the terms and conditions before agreeing to them so why the surprise that you forfeit the full deposit? They are quite clear. You agreed to pay that amount of deposit. They don't have to tell you where it goes to.

Cooling off periods and DSR have never applied to holidays. Even if they did it certainly wouldn't extend to several months so wouldn't be applicable anyway.

I'm not unsympathetic Mike - it's a very hard lesson. We have all been there at some time, and hopefully have learnt some lessons, but there is no saying that we wouldn't be in your position in another different situation again.
Totally different subject, but I was once lamenting on the unfairness in this world re. the affluent and the starving and a very wise friend said to me, ''Jenny, you are intelligent enough to know that life is not fair, never has been and never will be.'' She was right of course but it still hurts doesn't it!

I think Mike raises an important point regarding the return of monies IF the holiday is resold.
Clearly there would be an administration charge and possibly a loss if the holiday is resold at a discount .
Apart from those items the TO simply pockets the rest as a windfall profit.
Perhaps it's legal but is it fair?
Possibly it is worth someone, or organisation, challenging this type of contract as simply being "unfair"

The key issue is,in my eyes, how clearly it is laid down when booking, that initial deposits are non refundable, regardless of whether the holiday is resold or not. After all, the TO wouldn't strictly know whether the holiday is resold until the date of travel in many cases.

Having just done a dummy web booking on a Thomson holiday I was amazed how many layers of drilling down are required to find out that deposits are lost in event of the booker cancelling (more than 70 days prior to holiday) - perhaps the way round it would be for a flag to be raised when paying the deposit warning that the deposit is non refundable?

Because it is laid out in the booking conditions -and you have to tick a box to say you have read them!!-don't believe the contract could be regarded as unfair.

HOWEVER, phone booking opens a whole new can of worms

Slightly off topic, however CenterParcs offer an insurance policy at the time of booking (£20ish) that pays out 100% of your holiday cost, including the deposit, should you need to cancel (with a valid reason). I do think more travel agents should offer something similar, to protect against instances where you pay large deposits and then say, you lose your job and can not pay the balance.

I didn't mean to come across as unsympathetic as I can understand it must be awful to lose that kind of money. But it doesn't help to give false hope, and raise expectations when the reality is the issue will be covered in companies T&C's.

It's worse to suggest there might be hope if there isn't, so many regulars answer in a factual manner.

I have no idea how a company (or a court of law) could determine if a specific unique holiday had been resold? The reality is all the component parts will go back into a generic pot and at some point some bits may or may not be sold off to other people, probably at different prices and pulled together in a different way.

Your booking would have a unique reference number & that will never be sold on to anyone else. The flights will now cost more or less, the berth will now cost more or less etc etc it's a legal minefield and you would need a good lawyer to challenge it. Unlikely a no win no fee'er would touch it.

What I do find odd, is that they won't let you transfer the money to another booking?

I have certainly done this with proper holiday companies like Thomson and Cosmos, I remember I transferred a holiday from May to September one year, no problem, just paid a £xx per person amendment fee and the difference in cost.

I think it might be because you have booked through Hays who are an OTA and trade differently from tour operators like Thomson.

It seems shortsighted of them as presumably although you are no longer in a position to spend nearly £7000 on a holiday, you would have been spending more than the deposit you are forfeiting so they are losing out.

Have you tried ringing again to see if you get a different telesales person who is more co-operative ? Some of the shonky OTA's have an inconsistent approach. Different person, different day, different outcome sometimes. Although I though Hays were one of the more reputable of these types of companies.

It's a hard lesson to learn and I would be devasted too

Chris wrote:

Slightly off topic, however CenterParcs offer an insurance policy at the time of booking (£20ish) that pays out 100% of your holiday cost, including the deposit, should you need to cancel (with a valid reason). I do think more travel agents should offer something similar, to protect against instances where you pay large deposits and then say, you lose your job and can not pay the balance.

If you're made redundant travel insurance should cover.

I don't think the travel agents should offer such policies unless they're acting as the principal, but it might be something the tour operators/cruise companies etc could think about.

Does the Centre Parcs one cover for change of mind or deciding you can't afford what you've booked, or is it more like a standard insurance eg death, illness, redundancy etc etc?

del949 wrote:

I think Mike raises an important point regarding the return of monies IF the holiday is resold.
Clearly there would be an administration charge and possibly a loss if the holiday is resold at a discount .
Apart from those items the TO simply pockets the rest as a windfall profit.
Perhaps it's legal but is it fair?
Possibly it is worth someone, or organisation, challenging this type of contract as simply being "unfair"

Well, this bloke didn't think it was fair. He won his case and Thomson were granted the right to appeal at the high court....they didn't.!

http://www.ttgdigital.com/news/questions-remain-over-cancellation-charges-as-tui-is-granted-high-court-appeal/4690670.article

Sanji x

Unfortunately you have to subscribe to read that article.

It is very interesting, as this item continues, more and more doubt is cast on the actions of Travel agents in relation to cancellation charges.
I have printed below the article to which Sanji refers:

"Tui Travel’s decision to appeal a ruling in favour of a customer who cancelled his holiday at the last minute has raised more questions than answers.

The travel company lost the case in the small claims court when Bruce Crawcour, from Shrewsbury, claimed that the company had “made no significant loss” through the cancellation of his £2,200 Thomson holiday.

Tui originally charged him the whole amount because the cancellation was within two weeks of departure. But Crawcour won his case at the court in Telford, which awarded him the full cost of the holiday plus £300 in court fees.

He had carried out research on Thomson’s website to show that the company had managed to resell the flights and accommodation, which demonstrated that it had suffered “no significant loss” and he should be refunded instead.

He argued in court that Tui’s terms and conditions relating to cancellations were in breach of Unfair Terms Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 and the 2004 guidance from the Office of Fair Trading on Unfair Contract Terms in Package Holiday Contracts.

The travel company has now been granted leave to appeal against the decision in the High Court.

Although Tui has not given any details on what grounds it is making the appeal, appeals from the small claims court can only be made due to serious procedural irregularity during the case or the judge making a mistake in law.

Legal sources confirmed that while judgements in the small claims court are not binding on other similar cases, any ruling in the High Court could potentially set a precedent in how companies apply terms and conditions relating to cancellations.

Ian Skuse, partner at law firm Piper Smith Watton, said this kind of case in the small claims court was “very rare”. “It’s more common for customers to claim that they didn’t know about the charges because they weren’t told about them,” said Skuse.

“It’s quite unusual for a customer to do some detective work on the internet to be able to establish how much the tour operator lost.”

Tui said in a statement: “We note the court’s decision in the case. We have obtained leave to appeal the decision and as such it would be inappropriate to comment further.”

-----------------------------------------------
This was a person not just claiming a deposit refund but a complete holiday!
I do accept that the Travel Agent should not be out of pocket on any cancellation and the Deposit paid should reflect what costs the agent will incur in the event of cancellation.
It is no use any more stating "It's in the T&C that you agreed to" if those T&C contain unfair demands--- as was proven with Budget Airlines.
The debate continues.

Dave
That's strange because I read it, otherwise I wouldn't have posted a dead - end link ... ....try these
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2570258/Grandfather-wins-pay-Thomson-Holidays-landmark-legal-case-refused-refund-Spanish-trip-cancelled-wife-fell-ill.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travel-advice/10662931/Thomson-case-could-spell-end-of-unfair-holiday-cancellation-charges.html

Sanji x

Thanks Sanji -just read them -makes interesting reading altho' not quite the same as the op's story, mainly because of the last minute nature of the cancellation.

Couple of points - the Mail suggests that Thomson HAVE appealed the case - wonder if its still in process - I'd be VERY surprised if Thomson left it unchallenged??
As far as I understand it, Small Claims Court rulings do not establish a precedent, so anyone else would have to take on Thomson/whomever themselves without the previous case being considered.
Finally, the cancellation was unavoidable due to sickness -wonder if the judge took that into consideration when deciding in favour.?
I'm very surprised that Thomson didn't bring up the Insurance angle - the claimant should have had adequate cover for sickness cancellation -he will have ticked a box somewhere during the booking process, to say so!!

Thanks for that Sanji, this man was claiming for a complete holiday refund having cancelled just 6 days before departure
I am asking for a partial refund of my deposit (subtracting the costs incurred by the Agent in making the cancellation) and I am giving 6 months notice!
The Travel Industry can no longer hide behind "Terms & Conditions" if sections of those T&C are unfair-- as was discovered with the Budget Airlines.
Why should the insurance industry pay the costs of a cancelled holiday if the Agent has resold it? Normally the Travel Company are only interested as to whether you have insurance cover whilst you are traveling with them and not for the period from making the booking.
It is immoral for the Travel Industry to make a profit from the misfortunes of the Traveler who needs to cancel, of course neither should he make a loss.
The weekend newspapers are filled with enticing adverts for Holidays of all descriptions and most refer to a phone number that is manned all weekend.
A great many people do book via the phone without seeing the T&C and a Cooling Off period of 24 hours after a recorded delivery receipt of the contract is received would be of great help.

Just to kae my position clearer, I am not suggesting that the OP may have a claim, I very much doubt it.
My point is that the present contracts, which you are compelled to accept to book, are unfair.
Perhaps a clause could be integrated that states if the cancelled holiday is resold then a repayment less expenses/ losses would be made AFTER closure of the holiday/ flight etc.
It's about as unfair as the reissue of tickets at todays price for flights booked previously and needing a name change , yes that is in the terms and cons but it doesn't mean that the TC's are fair.
A friend recently booked two flights to Goa, on receiving e tickets he noticed his wifes' christian name was spelt wrongly. he was adamant that he had spelt it correctly (he daren't admit other!) but it cost him £300 to have the ticket altered. Nobody could possibly claim that was reasonable.