Love holidays advice

[Beaumont27]

I booked a holiday with loveholidays, for 3 people to ibiza all inclusive for 5 nights.

 

On receiving the confirmation email my booking had turned to B&B and one room.

 

I immediately contacted loveholidays by chat I explained everything but they were not helpful at all.

 

The holiday I purchased had changed dates, the room and not inclusive. I had no choice but to cancel, 

 

they advised me to contact the airline myself to cancel the flights which I paid £75 to easyjet. The cancel quote from love holidays is £647.00. Which they are charging me flight cancellation.

 

The whole holiday criteria had changed.

 

I have cancelled my card on the account so they do not take it all out.

 

Do I have rights at all?

 

Apologies if I have posted this in the wrong area. TIA

[honeybee13]

Hi.

 

That doesn't sound helpful. Do you have any screenshots of your booking?

 

HB

[Man in the middle]

I think you have a bit of a problem here. "Love Holidays" is not a tour operator and they are not bound by the package holiday regulations, or by ABTA and ATOL members' conditions. This paragraph from their Terms & Conditions explains their role:

 

"We do not own or operate any of the Travel Services. When you search for Travel Services and make a booking on our platform, our service is only to obtain and provide information about those Travel Services, arrange for you to enter into a contract with the individual provider of the Travel Service in question (the "Service Provider") and to agree payment terms between you and that Service Provider. The Service Provider will be the party responsible for supplying the Travel Service to you."

 

Unless you booked a package (via Love Holidays as your agent) where all the services (flight, accommodation, transfers) are provided by one operator, essentially you have no protection under the package holiday regulations or the ABTA members' conditions. Instead you have contracts with the airline (for your travel) and with the hotel provider (for your accommodation). Any cancellations you make will be subject to Terms & Conditions of those individual organisations

 

You may have a case against Love Holidays as the accommodation is clearly, from what you say, not what you booked. But it will depend entirely on what you asked for, what you agreed to and who with. This is not my area of expertise and others will hopefully be along to assist further, but that's your position as far as I see it. 

[Kyosanto]

Agree with Man in the middle as in you won't have the package holiday protection, and technically you might have to pay for the flights on your end.

 

On the other hand it looks like this could be a case of bait and switch. Do you know why your original hotel was no longer available? Were you given any explanation?

 

If the same happened to me I would try and get all of my money back via s75 and then tell them to sue me if they disagree.

 

What is the breakdown of the £647, is that for flights only?

 

[Beaumont27]

Hi,

 

When I booked the holiday it stated a room which takes 3 people , when the confirmation came through it was a twin room B&B and not the dates I put in.

 

I was made to feel like a fool, I told them the holiday was not fit for purpose they are so unhelpful.

 

£150.00 cancellation fee £474.00 cancel flights £75.00 admin fee, and there was something else I had been charged for.

The cancellation quote has been removed,

I have to request another one 

I feel like I've been scammed. Tia

 

Ahhh this is pants, appreciate all your advice

[Kyosanto]

How much did you pay them already? Nothing? A deposit?

If you paid them nothing than this will be very easy for you since you only need to pay them what you agree with.

 

First of all you should flat out refuse to pay any fee whatsoever, since they failed to provide you with the service you purchased, and those fees are legally dubious in the first place. Do not budge an inch on this.

 

Cancelling your flight is a grey area... you don't have the default legal protection since this is not a package holiday.

 

But first let's make sure loveholiday actually did book a ticket for you on EZ Jet.

Did you receive a confirmation for your flight, which comes with a PNR (a 6 letter/digit code), or Ticket Number (usually 13 digits)? (It MUST have one of these somewhere, if it's just flight number and flight dates, this is NOT a confirmation)

If you don't, you must insist that love holiday send you evidence of your confirmation. Do not pay anything until then.

 

If you did have confirmed tickets on EasyJet, then that means you are technically liable for the cancellation, as loveholiday paid them for your flight. Then it's up to you to decide: will you pay or fight?

 

If you are going to pay:

Ask them to invoice you the cost of the flights as it was originally quoted to you, minus the airport and fuel taxes, which you do not need to pay now since you are not flying. Do not pay a penny more including any bogus "admin fees" or "cancellation fees".

 

If you are going to fight:

This depends how much you have already paid them. Either you will need to fight to get your money back, or you will need to take a brazen attitude and refuse to pay and invite them to take you to SCC to obtain anything from you.

The latter would be easier so it's best for you if you didn't pay anything yet. 

You need to make sure that you have a strong and compelling argument for being "scammed" as you put it, including written evidence of what you purchased VS what you received, records of your communications with them etc.. (I hope you saved everything and recorded your calls)

 

You have not provided much info about the above so it's hard to tell how strong your case is, so far we just need to take your word for it.

 

 

P.S: You could also have kept the flights, and paid for another hotel separately, or take loveholiday's offer but demand a discount for the downgrade. But I guess you are too far gone already to go down this route?

[Beaumont27]

Hi

 

They have the deposit of £150, I have not paid the cancellation fees as yet.

 

I've contacted them today. In which they now say that they can change dates in which I am not able to do now.

 

They have no complaints procedure no contact email. I'm only using chat at present. I did receive confirmation from easyjet and ryanair. 

 

How I prove that the dates I entered are not the same as the confirmation email, is a difficult one.

 

I would like to fight, but its scary if they take me to court. 

 

I've saved what I could when I realised that they would not change dates, accommodation.

 

I dont have a leg to stand on..such a horrid company 

TIA

[honeybee13]

In case it's relevant, is it these people?

 

loveholidays.com

WWW.LOVEHOLIDAYS.COM

 

HB

[Kyosanto]

37 minutes ago, Beaumont27 said:

How I prove that the dates I entered are not the same as the confirmation email, is a difficult one.

 

Hmm sorry I think I have been a bit confused all this time. I had assumed that you had initially received a confirmation for ABC, but it had be changed to XYZ some time before departure.

But what actually happened is that you thought you were booking ABC when browsing the website, but after you pressed buy you noticed that you had actually bought XYZ, is that correct?

 

Do you have any evidence whatsoever that you ever purchased ABC? Screen captures of confirmation screen etc..? If not it will probably be very difficult to prove that the mistake was not from your part.

There's no cooling off period for flights or hotels, but if you noticed the mistake and reported it immediately after purchase you should be able to negotiate something reasonable with the business.
Exactly how long after you made the purchase did you contact them?

 

You say they've offered for you to change your dates/hotel? That seems like a reasonable offer to me in this case and you should take it for when you next go on holiday.

Sorry if I misunderstood anything, it's sometimes hard to interpret post when they are so short, and don't contain dates etc.

Edited December 20, 2022 by Kyosanto

[Beaumont27]

Hi,

 

I contacted them mmediately I saw the confirmation email. They would not help regarding change of room and dates. They only offered the change yesterday.

Looks like I'm going to have to pay the fee. 

Thanks for your help 

[Kyosanto]

Hmmm, that seems an extremely steep price to pay for a mistake you noticed and reported immediately... I'm really sorry as this is a bit outside my area so can't give you concrete advice, but I'd recommend you don't pay until you get someone else to chime in, maybe @uncle bulgaria can help?

 

Just a few thoughts from me:

• Do you have a copy of their terms and conditions? There might be something like "If you notice your confirmation does not look right you must report it to us immediately blah blah blah" try and see if you can use this to your advantage
• Worse case scenario pay back the flights, but:
  • do NOT pay the "admin fees" (someone here will advise you but I'm pretty sure those are bogus and not legally enforceable)
  • Get your taxes refunded
• It might be worth trying to negotiate something with the company, seeing as you have leverage (you did not pay them in full yet). You could try something like: "Hello, as purchasing these flights was the result of an unexplainable mistake, that it was not what I intended to purchase, and considering I reported this to you in good faith immediately after noticing the mistake, note that I do consider your demands to pay the full fee unreasonable. As a gesture of good will from me to you,
  • I will accept to part with my deposit £150 to cover for any inconvenience on your end, but I do not intend to pay further fees. I trust this will settle the matter?"
  • I will be more than happy to pay you the sum in full - including a reasonable change fee - if you allow me to keep the credit with you to spend on a future holiday. I trust this will settle the matter?"
• Another thing you can try: do not cancel the flights. You may try to get in touch with Ryanair and Easyjet and explain the situation to them and see if they will let you change your flights for another date (for a fee). This will be better than losing £400
• In general, and unless you are sure you can get a refund, never cancel flights or tell an OTA you are cancelling flights until the very last minute, as should the flight be cancelled or have a big schedule change, you would then be able to get a full refund.

 

When Travel Agents are being useless (as often) it is often effective to try and deal with the airline yourself and see if they will negotiate something more favorable to you.

 

I once had a (very slightly) similar experience to yours. Booked a ticket with error in my name (thanks google autocomplete!) and I noticed immediately and reported it back to Lastminute.

Lastminute were utter garbage and refused to change the ticket and told me I was at a loss (for close to a grand!). 

I called the airline (air france) instead and after some explaining they authorized the change.

Lastminute still took 5 weeks to reissue my wretched ticket, even after I had done all their work for them.

I have also managed to change flight dates before by calling airline instead of OTA.

 

[honeybee13]

Kyosanto, I've flagged this for the site team in case they can help with the contract side of this.

 

HB

[Manxman in exile]

On 19/12/2022 at 14:06, Beaumont27 said:

I booked a holiday with loveholidays, for 3 people to ibiza all inclusive for 5 nights.

 

On receiving the confirmation email my booking had turned to B&B and one room.

 

I immediately contacted loveholidays by chat I explained everything but they were not helpful at all...

 

So just to clarify:  you booked an all-inclusive 5 night holiday for three people but when your booking confirmation arrived it was only for one room and B&B.  Is that right?

 

How many rooms did you originally book?  You didn't say in your first post, but presumably more than one.*

 

How many people is the confirmation for?  You don't say, but presumably it isn't for three people.*

 

And you have nothing to show (eg screenshots of what you booked) that this is Love Holidays' error and not yours?

 

*[Edit: on reading again I see that you booked one room for three people but the confirmation turned it into a twin room for two presumably.  And the dates were wrong too?  Again, have you got screenshots of what you booked?]

Edited December 21, 2022 by Manxman in exile