Haven nightmare!

[Parva]

Hi folks, I'm posting on behalf of my girlfriend. Herself, her mum and family had a bit of a bad time with Haven Holidays recently, mainly due to the problems accomodating her disabled brother. I wrote an outline letter for my girlfriends mum to ammend where necessary (as she booked and paid for the holiday). I'll post the outline I wrote below but can't furnish you with the figures that are blank as I don't currently have them but should give you some idea of the problems and their response (posted at bottom).

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Letter Before Action



Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing with regard to a holiday that myself and my family recently took with your company. The holiday was far from satisfactory and I feel that we deserve recompense. I have detailed the issues below.

I booked a family holiday for this year in September 2006 direct with haven.
The booking consisted of 2 weeks in total for 6 adults and 1 child from 14/7/07. One of those adults is disabled and I informed Haven of this at the time of booking. I also booked a hire wheelchair with your company in February 2007. The total cost was £

My family arrived at the holiday park at approx 5.40pm and upon arrival I was told the wheelchair was ready and waiting at the chalet. After spending some time trying to find the chalet I then discovered that not only did the keys I had been given not work, there was no wheelchair waiting either.
The chalet was also situated in a bad location down at the bottom of a steep hill away from the car park. I then rang reception at 6.40pm to speak to someone and was told they would look into moving my family and sort out the missing wheelchair.

7.20pm and we were still sat in the car park waiting for someone to sort out the keys and wheelchair. Eventually I decided to go to reception to find it closed, so I went to security to try and sort the problems out. Two more keys were then brought but found that only one of them worked. Unfortunately my family still had to sit in the car park until 8.20pm because my son who is the disabled person could not get down to the chalet as they were still waiting for the wheelchair to arrive. It finally arrived at 8.20pm

The following day (Sunday 15/7/07) I went to reception to explain that the location of our chalet was unsuitable. I was told I could have either a 2 bed caravan or upstairs flat. With a disabled son who has to use a wheelchair and can only walk with the aid of a walker, neither of the alternatives were of any use whatsoever. A young lady (Kerry on the reception desk) noted my complaint, took a mobile number and was told the manager (Nigel) would be in contact.
I was given some vouchers for a free meal at the sites restaurant which I reluctantly accepted. I was told at the time that Nigel would ring first to make sure that we were available. It appears that Nigel came to see me on Monday at 14.45 but unfortunately we had gone out for the day, there was no phone call beforehand either. He left a message saying he would call again, he never did.

After one day of having the wheelchair it had to be changed as a wheel broke. The replacement wheelchair was no better as both tyres had to be pumped up as they were flat. I had to take the wheelchair to a local garage to get the tyres pumped up as there was no pump at the site.

When I originally booked the holiday the person taking the call (Sam) was told that my son had to walk around in the chalet with the aid of a walker.
The bathroom was so small that the walker wasn’t able to enter so my brother had to be helped in and out of the bathroom for the duration of the holiday. I’m sure that you can appreciate the problems that this caused for the duration of the holiday.

Given the failings detailed above I am requesting recompense of £ which I feel is a fair figure. Failure to respond in a satisfactory manner within 14 days will result in me issuing a Small Claims Court summons without further notice.
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Ok, they have now phoned my girlfriends mum and said they need 28 days in which to respond. She has not agreed or disagreed to this. Do we give them 28 days to respond or reassert the intention to seek legal redress at the expiry of 14 days?

As I explained, I don't currently know what the figures are but can find out if these have a bearing on matters. Many thanks for looking.

[j.barton1]

Letter seems fine, phone them when the 14 days are nearly up and see what they say. I have a disabled son and did have a bit of trouble with their accomodation last year, i had a full refund

jenny

[missmoneypenny1]

hi

i work in travel. under ABTA (assosiation of british travel agents) who they are licensed by, they do have 28 days to respond to you.

they should defo reimburse you some costs here, thats terrible.

[missmoneypenny1]

p.s i would tell them you will report them to ABTA go under The Association of British Travel Agents Ltd. have a look, they will soon back down as abta are very stirct and can cease them from trading. if you dont get anywhere with them get abta to investigate this matter for you.

[Parva]

Many thanks for the replies, I have passed these onto my girlfriend and advised that she waits to see what they have to say at 28 day expiry. Cheers.

[gizmo111]

Originally Posted by missmoneypenny1

hi

i work in travel. under ABTA (assosiation of british travel agents) who they are licensed by, they do have 28 days to respond to you.

they should defo reimburse you some costs here, thats terrible.

This is ABTA regs if the OP is taking legal action then the usual 14 + 14 days is sufficient. It will depend on what what was writte in the letter - time scales should be made clear.

[missmoneypenny1]

to be fair, i would give haven 28 days to allow them to fully investigate this matter, this is why ABTA allow 28 days. Haven will need to investigate as to why this happened, they will need to investigate this with the holiday park that the customers stayed at.

Haven will then be able to explain to the customer exactly what happened and how, also hopefully offer them some sort of compensation.

if they havent replied within 28 days (which they must have done) then report them to ABTA and take any legal action if you wish to do this.

[Parva]

Girlfriend (or her Mum rather) is going to wait the 28 days for a response and we'll take it from there. Given the fact that for two weeks my girlfriends mum was having to push her 13 stone wheelchair bound son up steep hills to simply get to the car park to get him into the car on a daily basis as the chalet was so far away and the other problems listed above she is aiming for a 50% refund. I'll keep you informed.

[sunshine71]

hi all well we got a reply fromhaven today, to say my mum is livid at the reply is an understatment!!
the reply letter we had sent is below.

dated 30th august 2007

dear mrs ....

naturally, i am very sorry to have received your letter, as you certainly donot seem to have see the best of haven holidays in your recent visit.

upon looking in to the history on your reservation, there was no mention of any of your party being disabled and there is no request for a wheelchair. thi is why the wheelchair was not immediatleyavailable for you.

we do advise guests that any hired goods should be collected from the reception, which is were you would have been require to go under normal circumstances.

i am sorry for the delay in obtaining the correct keys for the chalet and for being presented ith the wheelchair. however after speaking to rception at the site directlythey have informed me that they were expecting you to collect the keys from reception this is why they were not brought to you.
this then caused the time you were waiting in the carpark.

after receiving your inital complaint on the site, you were offered aternatie accommodation, which was refused. unfortunatly there was little else which could be offered to you at the time. nigel wassked to call and see you on 16th july, he called at 10.50 with no response, and he then left a compliment slip. he also called again at 4pm to no avail.

unfortuntly i am unable to offer any compensation on tis occasion as i feel that all efforts wre made to accommodate you whilst at hafan y mor. i am very sorry for any disapointment or inconvenince caused during your stay.

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im sorry but when my mum origionally booked this holiday with haven, she made a point of telling them that there would be a disabled person in the party.
my brother cannot walk without the aid of a special walker so i would think as anyone would have the common sence to make that part clear at the time of booking.

as for the request of the wheelchair there was one made at the time of the origional booking and was not only told to ring about the wheelchair jan-feb time she was also given a direct number to call!!
we have proof that all this was given as we have a load of different slips of paper that my mum wrote notes on.

the nigel business is also wrong in part.
there was no sign of nigel at 10.50 as trying to get 5 adults, 1 disabled adult n a child ready to go anywere the family were still in the chalet that time.
my mum however did decide not to it in all day long waiting for someone to go and see them.
lucky as he never actually turned up till 4pm.

the alternative accommodation that was offered to be honest was a joke.
a 2 bedroom caravan that on the second week would end up having 6 adults, 1 child and a dog!
so that wasnt any better than what accommodation my family was given. the second alternative was an upstairs flat, again no good with a disabled person.

so the question we need to ak is were do wego from here?
we would like toget an answer back to haven asap.

thanks.

[Parva]

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Advice please.