Cancellation fees

[shellvnatwest]

I'm looking into cancelling my holiday with First Choice. We have already paid 480 pounds (deposit). I have read the T&Cs of our booking, if I cancelled 56 days before departure date (June 2007) we would lose all our deposit. They say: These charges reflect our estimated loss as a result of dealing with your booking to the point of cancellation and any other losses we may have to pay.

I dont believe for one mintue it has cost 480 pounds to deal with my booking so far. Arent these charges, and the description of them, the same as the unjustified bank charges that people are successfully claiming back. I am interested to know if anyone has ever challenged this or the company.

[sinon]

have a look at a thread further down this page, titled " Cancellation Charges".

[rosiecotton]

Yes, it's a similar case.

 

It does differ from bank charges in that the holiday company can claim for loss of profit.

 

However they should mitigate those losses, i.e. if they manage to sell the same holiday to someone else at the same price, they will not have any loss of profit and their costs would just be administrative,

 

However if this is not the case and they do not mitigate their losses, they are entitled to claim for loss of profit as well as any administrative charges they may occur.

 

The main problem with this, though, is the difficulty in proving they have sold the same holiday at the same price, which appears to be almost impossible to do unless they admit to it.

 

So in theory you would have rights to challenge this provided the company has re-sold the holiday and mitigated their losses, but in practice it might be very hard to do.