Thomas Cook

[marvin02]

Hi Everyone

Just stumbled upon your Forum By Chance and would like some advice, if anyone has any to offer.

I am in the process of taking Thomas Crook to Small Claims court ( 27th April 2007 )
To cut a long story short, because of the terrorist activity in Turkey, and the inability of them to offer me another holiday at the correct price, etc I had no option but to cancel the Holiday and lost £780 Deposit.
They are citing the foreign office advice as the reason that they can keep my money, because they say that they seek their advice on whether to give you your money back or not.
My argument amongst others is that nowhere in my contract does it say that they will seek Foreign office in the event of terrorist activity
If they are allowed to seek foreign office advice for information, then the contract has to give me the same choice as to who i seek advice from
I have also asked them for a Breakdown of their cancellation charges and the true cost of the cancellation, which they have refused to show me, saying that they DO NOT have to show anyone this information.

Has anyone had any similar experiences and what was the income.
This is my second hearing in Court and I would also like to know, whether Thomas Crook are likely to defend the action or Fold at the Door.

Advice, If anyone has any, Appreciated



Kenny

[rosiecotton]

AFAIK The Foreign Office provide advice to travel companies on whether they believe it is safe to travel to certain countries at certain times. Therefore if the Foreign Office advise that it is safe to travel and you choose not to, I would imagine you would have little chance of winning the case as your decision to travel was yours based on your own fears (possibly understandable) but Thomas Cook would be able to provide evidence in court that they have been professionally advised that it would have been safe to travel.

They don't have to have this in their contract with you, as far as I am aware this is standard industry practice.

I think you are on sticky ground here, to be honest with you.

When did you cancel the holiday, how long before you were due to depart?

If you can prove that Thomas Cook resold your exact holiday at the same price you may have a chance at claiming as they will have mitigated their losses, but proving this would be exceptionally difficult and unless you can do this they can claim for loss of profit on the holiday as well as their administration costs.

[Bookworm]

Rosie is totally correct.

If you have cancelled your holiday because you got suddenly concerned about terrorist activities in turkey, but the FO recommendation at the time hadn't changed and they weren't recommending not to travel, then it is your choice and liability.

For information, terrorist activities in Turley have been ongoing for years. I organised the repatriation of both survivors and bodies as far back as 1995 when bombs exploded in tourist resorts. Yet, apart from those "pockets" of activities, the tourism industry in Turkey is thriving.

It is indeed standard practice to get the information from the FO, and I doubt very much any judge would accept your "alternative advice source" as a valid argument.

If you're lucky, they will cave in rather than bother defending, but if they do hold their ground, you're in a precarious position, IMO.

Do let us know, though, it will be interestign either way.

[marvin02]

Hi

Thanks for the reply, But dont totally agree with what you say.
Foreign office gets it advice from would you believe, Travel agents amongst others, so obviously they are not going to advice against travel to countries that rely heavily on tourists.
Foreign office stopped short of making Turkey a no go area, instead saying that it is not a safe country to travel to becasue of terrorist activity.
Then the foreign office aslo have a disclaimer saying that they accept no responsibilty for any information contained in there website. Strange ?
Secondly, it might be common knowledge to travel companies, But it is not common knowledge to the layman, ie ME
Also a Contract must offer by definition the Consumer, the same choices as the Provider, in this case they take advice from an outside organistaion, that is mentioned nowhere in there contract, yet i am not allowed to take advice from anyone, concerning the safey and wellbeing of my Family.
This is illegal.
Also under the section CANCELLATION in thomas cooks contract, on word makes a difference.
There expected loss if you cancel.

I expected to win the lottery on saturday Night, but i didn't .
It clearly says that a company is not allowed to profit from a cancellation, they are only allowed to reclaim what it costs them, if anything, to cancel and resell your holiday.
Because thomas cook are not allowing me to see there contract between the airline and the hotel, How am i supposed to know that they actaully paid for the tickets and rooms in advance.
Am i to take thomas cooks word for It, Think not.

Btw i cancelled within the 8 week limit, so only lost my deposit.

Theres a few other things that I hope to get them on,

1. Not offering me my money back, when they changed my holiday destination in the first holiday, because of the wording of there letter, they duped me into believing that i had to take there choice of holiday.
They broke there contract.Because of this i had to take this holiday and then all the terrorist activity started.

2. they then offered me £50.00 compensation and admitted that there shop had got it wrong and should have made available to me ALL my choices, when i asked about changing holiday.


Kenny

[marvin02]

One other thing

Everyone seems hell bent on taking all the banks to court for there exuberent charges, yet no-one seems in the slightest bit interested in the rip off travel agents.
No-one can tell me that travel agents book all the flights and hotels in advance, if so who foots the bill when thomas cook changes your holiday 2-3 days before you are due to travel, them, I think not.
They are in the business of making profits, nothing else.
I have had my holiday changed at less than a weeks notice for the past 3 years.
Also why is the Oft Investigating Travel agents cancellation fees if they are all above Board.

[rosiecotton]

Originally Posted by marvin02

Also a Contract must offer by definition the Consumer, the same choices as the Provider, in this case they take advice from an outside organistaion, that is mentioned nowhere in there contract, yet i am not allowed to take advice from anyone, concerning the safey and wellbeing of my Family.
This is illegal.

Sorry, this is industry practice and not something that would be covered by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations.

Also under the section CANCELLATION in thomas cooks contract, on word makes a difference.
There expected loss if you cancel.

I expected to win the lottery on saturday Night, but i didn't .
It clearly says that a company is not allowed to profit from a cancellation, they are only allowed to reclaim what it costs them, if anything, to cancel and resell your holiday.

They are able to claim for loss of profit.

They do need to mitigate their losses where possible but it is very difficult to prove they have been able to do this.

It can't be compared to the lottery at all, that is something over which you have no control. That sort of comment is rather unhelpful.

[rosiecotton]

Originally Posted by marvin02

One other thing

Everyone seems hell bent on taking all the banks to court for there exuberent charges, yet no-one seems in the slightest bit interested in the rip off travel agents.
No-one can tell me that travel agents book all the flights and hotels in advance, if so who foots the bill when thomas cook changes your holiday 2-3 days before you are due to travel, them, I think not.
They are in the business of making profits, nothing else.
I have had my holiday changed at less than a weeks notice for the past 3 years.
Also why is the Oft Investigating Travel agents cancellation fees if they are all above Board.

The trouble is, you are in breach of contract here and the difference between this and the bank's charges is that the company CAN reasonably claim a reasonable amount for loss of profit unless you can prove they have mitigated this.

Loss of profit is not a penalty charge.

Also, not being funny but I'm unsure where you get the info about the OFT, the last work they did on this to my knowledge was this report: The Office of Fair Trading: Holiday cancellation charges not shown to be unfair

[marvin02]

The information is printed in the Dti website, under Package travel fact sheet, that the Oft are again investigation cancellation charges.

Also Thomas cook has a Duty of Care, they never informed me that they would take secondary advice, regarding Terrorist activity.
They obviously knew about terrorsits activity in turkey, yet i was unaware of it.
Why did they not tell me or make me aware of it.
I never booked my holiday with the FO so why should there input have any impact on my holiday

[rosiecotton]

They don't need to tell you about it, it's general industry practice.

You only have your own personal concerns to fall back on, and in court that is unlikely to be enough. They will tend to use the FO as the experts in this sort of situation. I doubt very much they would accept "advice" from any other party.

I would tend to suspect that the DTI fact sheet is out of date also, I am not aware of any current OFT action.

I know it's not what you want to hear, but I would suspect that if Thomas Cook did defend in court that you would be in a very sticky situation, based on the information you have given here.

[Bookworm]

Originally Posted by marvin02

Also Thomas cook has a Duty of Care, they never informed me that they would take secondary advice, regarding Terrorist activity.
They obviously knew about terrorsits activity in turkey, yet i was unaware of it.
Why did they not tell me or make me aware of it.
I never booked my holiday with the FO so why should there input have any impact on my holiday

I think you misunderstand them taking "secondary advice". If you'd gone on holiday, there would be no need or reason for them to do so.

However, when you cancelled because of the "terrorist activity", they would have then checked with the FO to see whether the FO had raised the level of alarm. The FO would have at that point -presumably- said no, they hadn't changed their advice towards travel between you booking and you cancelling, and TC would then decide not to refund.

As for making you aware of it, anyone vaguely within reach of TVs, newspapers etc... would find it hard to convince a judge they had no idea that Turkey had terrorist issues. Come to think of it, how did you become aware of it? What made you change your mind between booking and cancelling? Presumably, you must have found out at some point since you then decided to cancel. Again, you are going to have to convince a judge that whatever knowledge became available to you when you cancelled was not available to you when you booked.

Look, I know this is not what you want to hear, but both Rosie and I are giving you responses based, between the 2 of us, on an awful lot of experience. You don't have to like the answers, but it would be foolish of us to encourage you when we both feel differently from you about the potential outcome.

[heidi1]

Hi, sorry to butt in here!!

Can I just add that based on advice available to you, you are at free will to seek advice from the foreign office ( a govrnment body if I'm not mistaken).

If the FO says you cannot go to a country, your not going, they can advise against travel to a certain country, and only go at your own risk if its absolutely essential to do so, so on and so forth.

Tour ops have nowhere else to go for this sort of information, where else do you expect them to get that sort of advice from??

Eg: The Egypt Sharm el Sheikh bombings, assuming you heard about these numerous occasions on the news, the news reporters and national press state continually about what the Foreign Office advice is on travel to these countries. Basically what they say goes, whether we like it or not, ant ultimatley their decision determines what the tour operators does with your bookings. If the FO had said it was unsafe to travel then of course they would have had to cancel your holiday and either offer you something else that was suitable or offer you a refund.

I have to agree with everything that Rosiecotton and bookworm have to say on the matter. I think you are skating on very thin ice if you take this further, but best of luck all the same.

Heidi1

[blacksheep1979]

again another case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing - I don't think you stand much chance of this.

[marvin02]

Hi

Thanks for all the Replies, some utter nonsense and some with good info.
I booked my Holiday in December 2005, before all the terrorist activity kicked of in August/September 06.
I have already passed my case notes on Holiday Travelwatch, who as it happens agrees with me, that I have an extremely Good case.
Who do you think it is that advises the FO, which countries are safe to travel to--Travel agents.
Why does the FO put a Disclaimer on there website about the info it provides ?
Why does the Travel Insurance company recommends in all it's brochures not insure you against Terrorist activity---Because they acknowledge the fact that it is a Problem.

They have a Duty of care to provide you with Safe Travel and Accomodation under various European Laws.
Also the Oft in 2006/2007 is investigating cancellation charges for Travel Agents.

Why as well, from various internal emails that i have from thomas cooks lawyers for my case, acknowledge the fact that me taking them to court is a problem, and they are taking a hard stand with me, to do otherwise would open the flood gates?
Why also will they not provide me with there cancellation contracts that exist between hotel/Airline and Thomas cook.
I'll take them to a small claim court as a matter of principle.

A contract must by law, give the consumer the same rights as the Provider.

This case is no different to Bank charges, EVERYONE signed the contract when you joined the bank, YOU all knew the charges, YOU all agreed to them.
So keeping your cancellation money IS no different to keeping your bank charges when they provide a service.
Has anyone actually taken a Travel agents to court to see how much it actually costs.
Can anyone on here tell me how much it costs in Real money to cancel your Holiday.
Can anyone prove that the Travel agents pay in advance for Hotel/Flights, because if no-one booked to go to that Hotel or use that airline, the travel agents, who exist only to make profit, would be out of pocket, quite a considerable amount of Money.
Why wont Thomas cook let me see the Contract that they are using to keep cancellation money, the contract between the Airline and the Hotels

Kenny

[heidi1]

What exactly do you call nonsense Kenny?

With all due respect, you posted your original thread to ask for opinions and advice, of which we have given you, not to cause offence but to give you an honest opinion of the outcome of your case.

You may think I speak nonsense, but for your information I am 10+ years in the Travel industry and have known no different practice than the one you are complaining about, ie: taking the advice from the foreign office.

At the end of the day, whether you like it or not, that IS what happens with every travel company where there is a risk. Not just of terrorism, but of disease, so on and so forth. You have no case in my proffessional opinion. I am not a lawyer by any means, and on the day I suppose anything can happen. Like one of the other posters said, we give advice based on experience, we wont always tell you what you want to hear, we wont lead anyone up the proverbial garden path.

You have obviously made up your mind about this claim and what anyone says is not going to matter, so why bother asking in the first place?

[rosiecotton]

Originally Posted by marvin02

They have a Duty of care to provide you with Safe Travel and Accomodation under various European Laws.

And the way they find out whether it is safe is by asking the Foreign Office. Any court will find this manner totally acceptable, I would bet on it.

Also the Oft in 2006/2007 is investigating cancellation charges for Travel Agents.

Where do you get this information from?

Why as well, from various internal emails that i have from thomas cooks lawyers for my case, acknowledge the fact that me taking them to court is a problem, and they are taking a hard stand with me, to do otherwise would open the flood gates?

They are probably taking a stand as they know they have a good case.

Why also will they not provide me with there cancellation contracts that exist between hotel/Airline and Thomas cook.

None of your business who they contract with. Their contracts are separate legal entities and you have no right to this information. Only the contract between you and Thomas Cook matters.

I'll take them to a small claim court as a matter of principle.

A contract must by law, give the consumer the same rights as the Provider.

Argh, the word "principle" again. Probably the cause of most lost court cases. I think you are misunderstanding the UTCCRs with regard to your case here.

This case is no different to Bank charges, EVERYONE signed the contract when you joined the bank, YOU all knew the charges, YOU all agreed to them.
So keeping your cancellation money IS no different to keeping your bank charges when they provide a service.

As I have already explained, it IS different as there is an element of loss of profit here, which would not apply to bank charges.

Has anyone actually taken a Travel agents to court to see how much it actually costs.

Not as far as I am aware, but the OFT have produced a report to say that they investigated holiday cancellation charges and were satisfied that the companies concerned (including Thomas Cook) were charging only to cover their actual costs.

Why wont Thomas cook let me see the Contract that they are using to keep cancellation money, the contract between the Airline and the Hotels

Because they don't have to.