Who should pay this extra holiday charge?

[Hobbyholidaydilemma]

Brief background: some members of a hobby group decided to visit an event abroad. It’s also a holiday destination, and it evolved to a 10 days stay because of a second, vaguely related, event.

The group members are friendly, but no close friendships.

It was planned to book 8 rooms, plus flight, with most people sharing the twin rooms.

One man wanted to bring his teenage son and the son’s friend.

Due to needing an adult on each booking the son’s friend was shown on the booking as sharing with an unrelated man from the group, but the intention was that he would actually share a bed with his friend ( hotel didn’t allow 3 people to book into twin room).

All was booked and paid in full months ago.

Unfortunately the man with whom the teenager is shown to share a room suffered a tragic and life altering event, and it is impossible for him to attend. His finances are also badly affected. It’s very sad.

This means that the teenager will on paper be the only occupant of the twin room, and the holiday company requires an adult in each room.

Cancellation charges are around 75%.

It’s possible to change the name on the booking to one of the other adults attending, but it costs a lot: it’s not much less than the full cost at around £600.

There has been much discussion how this should be funded. Legally as it appears that each of the room bookings have been made separately, it is the sole responsibility of the teenager; but that seems so unfair, he saved and paid for this trip and can’t afford to pay more.

The majority of people had to make sacrifices to be able to pay. There are only maybe 3 people within the whole group who are ‘comfortable’.

If everyone contributed ( including the 2 teenagers) it would work out around £50 each; but several people have already said they can’t manage even that.

This teenager is only known to 2 of the people attending, and isn’t part of the hobby group, so some people are simply saying they can’t help.

Along with a couple of others my position is somewhere in the middle, and I would probably try to pay the £50, but currently that won’t solve the problem.

The holiday company is making NO allowances for the circumstances.

I don’t see an easy solution to this and I suppose am asking for any ideas, or at least to gauge what others feel would be a reasonable course of action.

I think there’s an odd number now, and you can’t have three in a room. They could swop teen with another adult, but that will cost a lot as well, although that’s the hotel being awkward.

Maybe they should escalate it at the hotel.

The teen has a flight in his name and can travel. The man who can't go gets his room refunded by travel insurance. Could the father and son book an upgrade to a family room or book an extra bed for their room?

The teenager and his friend were going to bunk in together anyway, so the fact the other man’s room is no longer available is irrelevant.

OP I assume none of the other rooms have a spare space, if not just check in the legit guests and teenagers pal can saunter in later. No biggie.

According to OP his insurance will cover him. But the issue is the teenager. There is no reason for the man to pay for the unrelated teenager.

But if the insurance pays for his share of the room, the teenager's costs are unchanged.

As I understand it from OPs posts.The hotel policy is that teenagers can't have a booking to themselves an adult has to be on the booking so he can't have the room to himself. Which means the named people in a couple of the rooms on the booking have to be switched around. The hotel are charging substantial amounts to do that.
The man who cancelled has no relationship with the boy and wasn't actually going to share a room with him anyway it waa only for the paperwork. There is no reason why he should pay the additional charge.

Only unofficially. Officially the teen has to share with an adult.

I'm going to ask some stupid questions.

You say the teen friend is sharing a bed with his friend whose dad is coming. Does that mean the plan is for the 3 of them to share a room? Normally in Europe a twin room just has 2 singles not 2 doubles, so you can't just squeeze a third person in. Ofc you never said you were in Europe, but just checking we understand the set up.

Has anyone costed up adding the teen to a different booking rather than moving the adult into the teen's room? Probably stupid of me but it's not obvious to me that the price of adding a child will be the same as changing an adult IYSWIM.

I don't think it is reasonable for the extra cost of this unrelated teen to be borne by the rest of the group. Any difference needs to be paid by the teen's family or his friend's family. The group have done enough by including him thus far.

To answer a few questions as best I understand:
The only rooms offered/ available at the hotel were twin rooms. A twin room for single use was fine with them, but not 3 people in one room. Yes, the teens planned to top and tail in one bed.
The man who can’t go will get some money back from insurance. It may not be as much as he paid as he had essentially paid a single room supplement to have the room to himself. The teen just paid the balance for his flight and to have a second person in the room.
As far as the holiday company are aware the booking shows 2 people in the room, and the insurance company may just pay out 50%, whereas the split was more like 60/40, or thereabouts.
The holiday company is aware that currently the teen doesn’t have a room he can use. It’s a package holiday and I don’t know if he would be able to access the flight and then sneak into his friend’s room, or what would happen about meals in the hotel, etc. If his friend’s Dad does decide to take this sort of risk as far as I am concerned it will be for him to deal with any consequences.
I do feel sorry for the lad, but I feel much more sorry for the man who can’t attend.

I forgot to say as far as I know all options for moving names and rooms around have been explored.

Op is there some kind of organiser of this hobby group? I don't understand why it was agreed to in the first place. Random strangers coming in a holiday and children at that.

Will the hotel even know the lad is there given he never intended to stay in the house official room? Can’t he just fly out as planned, then stay in whichever room he was going to stay in, given they were already going to break the hotel rules of numbers in a room? He won’t be on the fire register, but then he would have been on it in the wrong room anyway which wasn’t bothering the dad

Surely the man who invited the boy is responsible for paying? Did anyone really want 2 teenagers gatecrashing the trip?

I would not be willing to pay extra for a random tag along. The poor man with the tragedy will be covered by insurance. Was there anyone on the insurance with him? My understanding is that if someone with whom you are travelling has to cancel for reasons like illness or bereavement then others on the same form would also be covered.

It depends on the wording of the policy but usually all parties on the same policy are covered if one is unable to travel for reasons specified in the policy. Serious illness, bereavement etc.

The man unable to travel had annual insurance in place prior to this trip being booked. There were others included on the policy, but not the teenager named on the room booking as there was no connection between them - apart from him doing the teenager a favour.

I agree the Dad needs to sort it out. I wouldn’t want to chip in for a random person

There’s not really an organiser. It’s a loose group of people with a similar hobby. The hobby doesn’t need to be done in a group. The trip started off with a couple of people saying they’d like to go, and just sort of grew.

On a personal note I wasn’t too sure about having random teens along. They are 16/17 so can hopefully occupy themselves when needed.

I agree 💯

Well, the father of the teen has ‘organised’ for the two boys to go, so it’s really on him to find a solution.

Ah I see.
Then it's for him and the teenager's family to sort out.

I have to say I have never seen such rigid guidelines for a separate hotel booking.

But the random teenager wouldn’t be going if it wasn’t that the man had facilitated that. The other people in the group had nothing to do with it.

Yup it sounds like the teens' parents need to put their heads together and scope out the options. I think it would also be cheeky of them to put on the group an attempt to take an underage stowaway all week. You'd all be unrelated adults travelling with him - you'd potentially be just as liable as he is if/when they get caught.

I'm sorry about your friend's situation, the one who has had to pull out.

It’s an unfortunate situation but I can’t imagine why you’d think the whole group should pitch in a pay for the teen. His parents and/or the dad who invited him need to sort it out- either an adult comes with him, a different room is booked that allows more than 2 people, or he doesn’t go.

Having re-read a few times I think I understand now.

Its the father of the teen and friend who needs to sort it and pay. Are there adjoining rooms with a common door in-between? Have they asked if that or a family room is an option? Another hotel nearby? What would the teens be doing whilst everyone is at the hobby? Utterly odd to invite them along unless they also share the hobby and also weird that young men of that age/size would top and tail a single bed! 😕

That’s not strictly accurate. It was the father of the teenager who organised his son’s friend going. The man who is now unable to go only agreed to him being shown as in his room as a favour. I don’t think he’s ever met the lad.
It looks like he will lose out financially because of this, although hopefully most of his expenditure will be reimbursed via insurance. No one is going to try to claim anything from him.