Lowcostholidays.ie cancelled booking and refuses refund.

GarIT

I booked a holiday with lowcostholidays.ie last month. This morning they emailed me telling me that the reservation in the hotel has been cancelled due to 'late openings' they refuse to explain what late openings means or explain what happened. They are no saying they can move us to a much inferior hotel or refund the cost of the hotel. They insist the flights and transfers have been paid for and cannot be refunded. Anyone have any idea what to do now?

dudara

They're probably right. In my experience with lowcostholidays.ie, they pass your details to the airline and make the booking in your name, with all your details, i.e. it's like you booked it yourself. Thus the normal non-refundable airline ticket thing applies.

I really don't know what their T&Cs cover, but I would expect them to provide an equivalent hotel. However, if you are due to go on holidays soon, that could be a challenge.

GarIT

Maybe the flights aren't refundable to them but as far as I can tell I booked a holiday, If they don't provide the holiday paid for or a better one I should get a refund for the holiday.

Is it a SCC issue?

Another thing that P**ses me off is that they have some better hotels on their site with plenty of rooms available for €20 extra, but they decided to stick us in one for €45 less and refuse to even refund the difference. IMO this stinks of a scam and it seems how they make their money.

LowKeyReturn

Did you book a CAR protected holiday or just use the site to book individual components?

dudara

GarIT wrote: »

Another thing that P**ses me off is that they have some better hotels on their site with plenty of rooms available for €20 extra

Have you made this offer to them? What was their reaction?

GarIT

LowKeyReturn wrote: »

Did you book a CAR protected holiday or just use the site to book individual components?

I honestly don't know, It was one of their 2013 summer deals, all the components were together already, and I don't know what CAR protected is. I have travel insurance though so that may be useful somehow.

dudara wrote: »

Have you made this offer to them? What was their reaction?

Yeah I did, I sent an email with a few questions and suggestions, they ignored it and just replied with "The flights have already been booked with Ryanair therefore they cannot be refunded"

LowKeyReturn

GarIT wrote: »

I honestly don't know, It was one of their 2013 summer deals, all the components were together already, and I don't know what CAR protected is. I have travel insurance though so that may be useful somehow.

CAR protection means they are bound by self-regulating body. I'd be threatening a complaint to ITAA. Can you find out? If it's not CAR/ITAA assured explain you will be making a complaint about false advertising as I've just been through their website and I can't see how something is or is not covered; the average punter would just assume it is.

EDIT: I'd ring them tbh.

dudara

GarIT wrote: »

Yeah I did, I sent an email with a few questions and suggestions, they ignored it and just replied with "The flights have already been booked with Ryanair therefore they cannot be refunded"

TBH, it sounds like the rep didn't bother reading the email and replied with a standard response. I'd get on the phone to them and talk to them.

xpletiv

This is one wher eyou should probably call them. If the rep cant help, get onto supervisor/etc. Just cause you shouldnt get less than the value of your holiday. Otherwise yeah, Id say probably SCC.

GarIT

dudara wrote: »

TBH, it sounds like the rep didn't bother reading the email and replied with a standard response. I'd get on the phone to them and talk to them.

I think they did, unless their standard responses don't use punctuation.

The GF rang them there and they seemed a lot more reasonable over the phone. We offered to stay in another hotel, that was the same price as the original, as was also suggested by us in an email, but they agreed to it over the phone. They said the request to change hotel has to go to the transfers department and we're just waiting to hear back from them. Thanks guys.

Apparently 'late opening' means the hotel decided it wasn't opening in May which would have meant we would have nowhere to stay for the first 4 days of the holiday.

Crisis averted I think.

LowKeyReturn

Nice one man, probably just got someone on a bad day in the e-mail department.

Let us know how the holiday pans out - one of the only contracts you can sue for emotional distress on is holidays; bit of useless trivia for you there.

Have a great time.

endofrainbow

Hmmm I'd actually be more worried about the flights tbh as Ryanair don't accept 3rd party bookings.

dudara

I've booked with LCH before - they pass your details to Ryanair and you receive all the normal Ryanair emails etc. It's as if you booked yourself