dear all,

am sorry if my conversation with the person in question has caused a stir, i assure you that there were no bad intentions.

i totally agree with you fwh for saying that we should not expect everyone to encourage me to sue (i think this is the first time i use this word), and that has not been my intention from the start you all can read my posts but on the other hand equally important the that when you ask for advice and being told to put up with as it is all your fault is not exactly useful and constructive advice, isnt it? and if we have to put up with things as they are then as you said whats the point of this website?

now let me expand on the subject as to why we were mad at them (TA)or(TO) for that matter,

i heard quite a lot of advice about the package holiday laws especially the piece from MikeCunliffe, and i was intrigued that it says that the TO should inform the customer "in writing" (correct me if am worng mike as you used this twice) about the cancellation (this did not happen) which was in fact one of the issues that "annoyed" us as there was no written communication, and when we asked for a written letter from the TA for the reason of cancellation (for all i know it could have been overbooking, but they said "verbally" its underbooking, so am none the wiser!) they refused and asked us to contact customer services! and believe it or not all these issues were dealt with by vague messages left on my answer machine asking us to contact the TA, and when we got there all we were told your holiday is cancelled look for another holiday of the same price, nothing mentioned about "same, better or lesser value"!

the other issue, same as travel insurance (which is quite a hit these days) is that customers should be "told" while booking that in some instances your holiday can be cancelled, not just leave it to the small print, now how can we achieve that? and how people manage to push the travel insurance issue to the forefront?

now this is a country of laws, if you do not like something you have two options,

(1)the obvious, to put up with it, in which case there is no point in asking for anybodys advice as thats that, just put up with it customer is wrong and TO is right, end of story, there is no need to read any further.

(2)the other option is to do somthing about it, which is my desire, and the first step is to come to this website and ask for advice and i know some people think that there is little chance of anything being done about it (point number 1), okay, but the only way to find out is by doing something, and make sure it doesnt happen to anyone else, and thats my aim, so please share these positive and constructive thoughts with me, i do appreciate it.

now i have been told by fiona and a number of other members to contact ros, unfortunately because of work constraints and the weekend i was not able to contact ros but i will, having said that apart from compansation claims and i might be wrong i dont think that ros can deal with the above issues, do you? please correct me if am wrong.

i am grateful to everybody who gave me useful advice.

i might be just a person, but sometimes it takes just one person................... i leave the story to yourselves.