It's always a good idea to get a cancellation reference number - and you should recieve cancellation notice in writing.

HOWEVER - many operators insist that cancellation is given in writing... did you only phone?

In summary though... they don't have your money... all they can do is start court proceedings to get it... it's unlikely - but if they do you can then put your side to the court.

As you booked another holiday with the same company to replace the cancelled one (was this at the same time?) it's most likely the court will believe your version of events.

(As the saying goes - possession is 9/10 of the law - you possess the money that they want....)

Let's be practical - the brochure was printed ages ago - no doubt they intended to offer all the facilities listed, but things change, delays occur etc.

It's not deliberate. The hotel tells First Choice what they will have. First Choice print a brochure and build a web site. The hotel then amends their plans for whatever reason.

However, if the holiday turns out to be substantially inferior - claim.

Your insurance may pay a sum if you are delayed - talk to the insurer.

You may also be entitled to compensation for the delay - who did you pay for the flights? That's who you ask for compensation.

Until you have seen the finished article, it is difficult to complain. Having worked alongside joiners as an electrician, certainly some jobs look rough right until the final day. Let me try to address some of your points.

He removed the old wardrobe satisfactorily but this damaged plaster and left layers of torn wallpaper which now forms the back of the new wardrobes. Plaster can be repaired with polyfilla, and wallpaper can be renewed.

Some of the visible screws are proud of the wood surface. That's wrong, if they are countersunk heads.

The two top pieces of wood don't meet each other and neither are they level. That may be due to an uneven ceiling and there may be trim pieces to cover them.

The vertical side frame has been packed out with small pieces of wood to make it solid but these are all clearly visible and mean the frame is a quarter of an inch from the wall at the top then bows to be over an inch from the wall in the middle. That is almost certainly because your wall isn't plumb.

Some of the shelves aren't level. Hmm. that sounds like poor workmanship.

The strip of wood to hide the runner is twisted. Probably came like that - maybe a replacement is on order?

Theres alot of wood glue dried on the outside of some of the laminate pieces. That cleans off easily.

There's a 1" square piece missing from the top of one of the pieces for no obvious reason. Is there a trim to be fitted to cover this?

The laminate cuts have been left 'ragged' and chipped. A little sanding might be enough - depends - maybe the cuts were made with the wrong saw blade, if so, it could be bad workmanship.

Until the joiner says "there you are, I'm finished" you can't really say "that's unsatisfactory, I won't pay" - but maybe you can outline your concerns. Suppliers are notorious for ordering wrong items - parts have been supplied wrong, damaged or missing on the last 4 fitted kitchens I have worked on.

It's possible that you have already formed an opinion about this tradesman - and consider him to be a cowboy - but I think you need to take your time, give him enough rope to hang himself - but obviously don't hand over any money until you're happy.

Furthermore, you might want to ask yourself why they are so suddenly closing the hotel down for refurbishment during high season? ;-)

I think you might have had a close escape from a badly run-down hotel. If so, be grateful. Few people get 5* for 4* money.

If you really don't like the alternative hotel, maybe First Choice might have another alternative that they can offer. It's worth asking.....

 

I will be making a direct formal complaint against Jo White as she is the rudest person I have ever met.

Not as rude as you were towards Bookworm. Perhaps a formal complaint should be made against you.

Certainly if you spoke to Jo White the way you write, you would hardly have been diplomatic.....

On the Monday of the 2nd week a British guest reported the steep sloped hotel walkways being wet at night when the gardeners water the grass. These are very, very steep, dark due to no lights, and dangerous as they have no hand rails, (see attached pictures to prove the severity of these walkways). He said someone would have an accident and asked to be moved to another room that didn’t involve using that walkway to get around the hotel. At least 4 people fell whilst we were there and on the Thursday it was my turn - I severely damaged my foot and was taken to hospital were I received treatment for damaged tendons, and an allergy to insect bites.

So, after you knew that 4 people fell, you were silly enough not to take enough care and fell yourself. I think you have thrown away any rights you may have for a negligence claim... while you might have been able to claim if you hadn't known the paths were slippy.

In the interest of disclosure, I do work in the tourism business. Fortunately, my accommodation is strictly Adult Couples Only - so I am unlikely to have the pleasure of catering for you.

If the fan is operated by a thermostat (which seems most likely) you can reduce the fan's run time by-

1) leaving the oven door slightly ajar, to allow the inside of the oven to cool quicker

2) ensuring that there is adequate ventilation in the kitchen units, below and above the oven, to allow the exterior of the oven to cool quicker.

No doubt when your kitchen cabinets were fitted, 16 years ago, this was not an issue that many were aware of, but a hot oven, added to sawdust or fluff behind a fitted oven, leads to quite a few house fires. The fan "over-run" is to cool the oven - but should take about 10 minutes or so - so there is a ventilation problem in your kitchen cabinets.

It's not a fault with the oven - it's a compatibility issue - modern oven with specific installation requirements which the kitchen units into which it has been retro-fitted do not fulfil.

As a (now retired) electrician (ouch, my poor knees!) I have come across this issue on several makes of ovens. A vent plate in the kickspace and an increased gap above the oven has resolved this issue each time.

Chalk it down to experience.

Tour operators will not normally confirm a booking without full passenger details - the travel agent no doubt took your DC details pending a final decision from you on passenger names.

I've just wasted 20 seconds reading your comment and another minute or so replying.

Who do I sue?

How long did you have the caravan?

As you say you bought in 2005 and posted in 2008, it is fair to assume that the caravan was 3 years old when sold.

As caravans depreciate like cars - it is to be expected that the caravan will sell for less than half the purchase price - the remainder of the shortfall may be partly due to the economic slowdown.

Too many people think that buying a caravan is an investment - it is not. It is a way of ensuring comfortable, clean family holiday accommodation (and look on the travel forum for enough horror stories about apartments abroad) for 10 years or more.

You can't really compare the ownership costs with caravan rental - as the rental units almost always have had much more wear and tear.

Considering that it is the hotel who set the room description themselves by clicking on the "room & rates" page of last minute's website (section password protected - hotel owners only) the hotel is trying to avoid responsibility.

It's just like trying to blame eBay for a listing - eBay don't write the descriptions, the seller does. last minute does things the same way.

How does a low-cost airline threaten airport security?

By reducing the costs of terrorism......

:grin:

Why not just get a friend in the first place?

If we had friends we wouldn't be spending our time on internet forums :grin:

No doubt, within the price of the "prestige package" supplement you paid for the taxi transfer - if so you certainly should have this refunded.

There are various web sites that allow you to get quotes for taxi transfers - I would suggest that you price the transfer on one of those and send a LBA for a refund of this amount.

As a hotel operator who takes bookings from Last Minute dotcom, perhaps I can clarify the payment attangements.

To the best of my knowledge, Last Minute do not take payment from customers. Whilst they do take your credit card details, these are not processed, they are merely faxed to the hotel to guarantee your booking - basically so if you do not turn up the hotel will charge your 1st night's stay.

The hotel may have used these details to bill you, but I have never come across Last Minute charging.

The T&C of the Last Minute web site state that they are merely a booking agent and your contract is with the hotel.

No way will the hotel have refunded Last Minute - they are spinning you a yarn.

I used to sell regularly via eBay. Now I don't.

It is a stupid new rule - but it's their loss. I can sell elsewhere, and as a bonus I avoid PayPal charges too.

I also hardly buy anything through eBay anymore - because I haven't the PayPal money to spend.

It's their loss..........

Having used a Guarantor once, many years ago, I recall that the Guarantor had to sign a document called "Form of Guarantee".

Your son saying "my Dad will guarantee the loan" is not sufficient. To be a guarantor it is you who has to say "I will guarantee this loan"

It appears that the credit agreement may well be fraudulent .........

Having seen enough episodes of "Airline" I stand by my advice. I wouldn't want to miss a holiday or be stranded abroad because of a ticketing error.

Others may wish to take the risk.

I have called them "scams" because the additional charges are well hidden, rather than being clear and transparent.

BA used to charge lower fares on the Manchester - Southampton route than FlyBE now do after the sell-off with the same crew and aircraft, and BA had no charge for baggage, do debit card charge, no charge for re-printing boarding cards and gave a drink and snack on board for free.

FlyBE don't really offer cheap flights at all.

I stand by my use of the word "scams". However, thank you for discouraging me from trying to post information that might be of use to forum members.

Would it matter if it stayed as Mr instead of Miss

As the Mr prefix is male, it would matter a lot! You could easily be denied boarding.

Pay the fee, then claim it back is my advice too.

Just taken a FlyBE flight and would like to warn of a few little scams they run......

1.

They have a substantial surcharge on their web page for paying by Credit Card and a similar surcharge for paying by Debit Card. Of course, there are no other alternative ways to pay.

If you book your flights, then go back and book your baggage or seating afterwards, you will pay the surcharges twice - so if you want to pre-book luggage or seats, do it at the same time as buying the flight.

2.

Even if you pay 2x the baggage fee for 2 cases you don't get double the weight allowance... it's 20kg per passenger. So take 1 big 20kg case, not 2 small 10kg ones.

3.

Don't do on-line check-in unless you've got a good printer... and plenty of ink in it.

Once you've checked in on line - and not before - they warn you that if your printed boarding cards are sub-standard they will charge you £10 per passenger, per flight, to reprint them for you.

I'm not saying don't fly with them - their planes are as clean, safe and punctual as anyone else's - but if you follow these tips, you might save a few £££s.

As FlyBE have taken over a lot of BA regional routes, there may be regular ex-BA passengers who get caught out - I was one! As they say - forewarned is forearmed.

No claim - just part of life.

I had the same experience at the Britannia Hotel in Coventry - but the hotel manager dealt with the problem very well.

The side window was broken to steal my sat-nav (yes, I know, I left it on view, silly fool me) and the hotel taped it over straight away. They also reported the break-in immediately and got a crime number from the police.

I arrived back several days later, and struggled to get a replacement window. The hotel accommodated us overnight and gave us breakfast completely free, the night manager phoned out for pizza for us (as the restaurant had closed) and the manager lent us his office phone the following morning to ring around again for a replacement window.

Full marks to the hotel manager and brownie points to Britannia hotels.

Of course, once bitten-twice shy, I now use security car parks......

CLC do indeed operate high pressure selling - but they are more honest than most companies in their field. That's why they are still around in 2008 - we first visited one of their resorts in 1987....

A 21 year track record in the Timeshare industry is probably pretty rare - and trading under the same name all that time surely means they are more concerned about their reputation than many others.

For instance, you will get the gift they promise for attending the presentation... we attended at St Helens a couple of years ago, we were promised a TV/DVD, after the presentation they said "we have none left",

I thought "here we go" but they gave us Argos vouchers to the same value - it turns out that they had cleaned all the TV/DVD's out of the Argos stores for 20 miles around - so it was cheaper to give us vouchers than to send the TV/DVDs on to us!

(We bought a week in 1987 - gave up around 1995 due to increasing maintenance costs and our week clashing with school (daughter turned 5 that year) - but we enjoyed the years we had - and for £900, including the flights, car hire and maintenance for the first year, it wasn't too bad a deal.)

When a pax with a disability is pre-boarded they are assigned a seat near 2L or an overwing exit door, ...........

You can't put a pax with a disability in a seat on an overwing exit row. All exit row pax must be able bodied and free from any disability that would prevent them from operating the emergency exit. This even includes hearing problems which would prevent their hearing verbal instructions.

I haven't got travel insurance!

You have my sympathy for your sad loss.

As regards not having taken out insurance - it's an expensive lesson to learn.

While you almost certainly have no legal grounds to get anything back from the airline, you might find that they look favourably on your case if you ask for a change of date, rather than money. It depends on the individual airline's goodwill - so it's worth asking nicely, with everything crossed.