To not refund this £2k

[RefundOrNot]

NC for this as it’s identifying.

I organise women’s retreats. The next one is abroad at the end of September (Mediterranean).

The retreat sold out 6 months ago and I had a big waiting list with lots of women contacting me saying to get in touch if there is a cancellation.

One of the guests has cancelled - she had one of the biggest private en-suite rooms so her place was expensive (£2k). Her reason for cancelling isn’t an emergency and something she will have known about for a while.

I thought I’d be able to fill her place quite easily and have contacted everyone on the waiting list but nobody can make it now.

The cancellation policy is no refund within a month of the retreat. She cancelled 29 days before the retreat starts.

She wants a full refund but I am going to really struggle to fill her place at such short notice.

The retreat is organised by a not-for-profit women’s org. Everything is priced to break even so the org will have to make a £2k loss. It is a tiny org funded by donations and run by volunteers so this is a huge loss for the org.

On the other hand I feel dreadful not offering a refund.

AIBU not to refund it?

You are absolutely correct to not offer her a refund. The terms are crystal clear to anyone apart from the hard of thinking.

If this event is on the 25th September, she needed to be cancelling by the 24th August at the latest.

If she's got a genuinely earth shattering reason for not attending, that's what holiday insurance is for. If it was more a case of "just don't fancy it any more", then tough titties. You might even find that when you go back to her and say "no refund", that she's miraculously able to attend again...

I'm more interested in a charity organising a "retreat", going to a lot of time and effort, but seemingly making no profit... I get, "therapy and all that", but there's no need to go to the Med for it, when you can go to literally anywhere in the UK and do the therapy without the holiday... But I also do appreciate that perhaps I'm not the intended demographic for this.

Your Ts and Cs were clear. You don’t have to refund the fee. You could authorise her to see if she can sell it on.

Not in September.

“The cancellation policy is no refund within a month of the retreat. She cancelled 29 days before the retreat starts.“

Seems fairly clear to me.

I think you need to check the exact wording of the contract. The wording here is very important. Hopefully the contract is says the number of days/weeks rather than a month which can be unclear. For example in the pharmacy I attend give you a 28 day supply for a month.

Refuse the refund explaining why and ask her to claim off her travel insurance. However do not be surprised if she goes to the small claim court.

She can afford a £2k retreat so she can afford to lose her money

Perhaps you can re-sell the place at a discount or offer other people an upgrade for a price to recoup some of it?

Well unless the retreat is in February on a leap year it really doesn’t matter. All other times, 29 days is less than a month.

Not-for-profit makes it clear that potentially losing the money is a much bigger deal and far less sustainable for them than it would if it were, say, Tesco or Amazon.

Also, I suppose by saying that it's a women's org, that shows that 49% of the population instantly wouldn't be eligible to buy the ticket on a resale basis, so that makes it twice as hard to find a new buyer as if it were available/suitable for everybody.

Who has a sofa in the kitchen?

But how could you possibly argue that a month is 28 days, unless you're talking about 3 out of every 4 Februarys?

I would also like to know why she cancelled. OP says it wasn't an emergency or anything, so it's seriously cheeky of her to expect a NFP to bear a £2K loss on a ticket that she reserved and held on to for 9 months if she's just changed her mind.

But she hasn’t said any of those things.

she said a month.

It can because in UK contract law a ‘month’ is a calendar month. However, it would be best practice to state a clear specific number of days.

I’d explain that she missed the month deadline and so it’s dependent on selling the room and explain no one wants it at £2k. Explain it will be a loss for the charity. Ask she’s like to find someone or you can ask the waiting list people if they will pay for a smaller room and she can have a partial refund. Can also also existing participants if they would like to upgrade for a fee.

Which is open to interpretation by the guest which is why leisure contracts generally state the number of days as it’s clearer.

This!

Re-advertise that a place has become available but not at what price point. Match a room to the budget that the new person enquiries at. Everyone above that gets an upgrade, releasing the space for the new person.

Cancelee gets a refund of the difference minus admin costs (because of all the faff, and as a gesture of goodwill)

I work at a non-profit. Remember that you can’t continue your mission and serve the people you want to serve if you don’t have the money.

Except that it’s not.

Just to note - ime when people cancel last minute for not very strong reasons - when they find out they won’t get a refund they often decide to go after all or offer it to a friend.

If the law of the country in which the contract applies state a month = a calendar month, then that applies.

But cancellations can be contentious, so it’s best to have the number of days absolutely clear to the client, so at least there’s no arguing about that.

To be even more pedantic, we're not in February 😀

Nah - it's a calendar month. Forget common law, it's the Interpretation Act 1978 where it's all at (one of my favourite pieces of legislation, saddo geek that I am)

I think because it's unclear and could be interpreted as 28 days you'll need to give her the refund. I suspect she would be able to challenge it legally if not.

Yes, this. She's painting herself as the poor victim, but in reality, she may have just booked it on a whim all that time ago, as a vague possibility if she still fancied it at the time, and set herself a reminder to cancel it if not, but then got her dates a bit out.

If she hadn't booked it for herself, other people who were serious could have had 10 months to come forward for it, and save up for it.

Contractually she isn’t entitled to a refund. I’d reply to confirm this, but say you are trying to come up with ways to mitigate her loss so any help she can give would be appreciated? The free upgrade - perhaps to anyone already coming who can get someone to take their cheaper room/package? - is a great idea as posted above.

Exactly. One couple told me they couldn’t take their holiday as they were getting divorced. When they discovered they were outside the cancellation window, suddenly the marriage was back on and so was the holiday!