Am I wrong?? Help

[Clockticking]

Hi,

my daughter and her 2 friends booked a holiday. Unfortunately my daughter is now unable to travel (she has been offered a job)

the holiday company said the holiday could be cancelled but each would lose their deposit of a£60 each OR just my daughter could cancel and then the price would be reworked for the remaining 2.
my daughter said if all 3 cancelled she would cover the other 2 losses.
my daughter is not the lead passenger so holiday co will not speak directly to her.

the friend (!) has now informed her that they have cancelled the holiday BUT instead of asking for a refund they have used the money to rebook something else for just the 2 of them and the small amount that’s being refunded my daughter can have! £150.
she has lost around £800.

we could have accepted this had they just changed the holiday but they didn’t they cancelled and rebooked.
are we right to feel miffed?

Definitely £60 charge per person if whole booking cancelled.

they cancelled and have used the ‘refund’ to rebook.

Why on earth did they cancel and book something else?
If they still wanted to go on holiday they should have gone on the existing booking and asked your DD to cover the difference out of her refund, which it sounds like she offered to do if I’ve understood correctly.

They owe her a chunky refund! It’s theft. As a previous comment mentions, I’d be looking at the small claims court if they cannot sort it between themselves.

OP you’re just focusing on what it would have cost your DD if they’d all cancelled (£180)

But what would the cost have been if they’d chosen to go ahead minus DD? (which is more likely IMO since clearly they still wanted to go away). We don’t know, but it might well be that it would have cost much the same, just split between 2 rather than 3. In which case DD would have got no refund as she was willing (rightly) to cover the difference.

I think you need to find this out TBH before getting angry.

They're definitely not friends. I would never do that to a friend, totally unreasonable. They should have found out the adjusted price and let her know, before taking any action. They've stolen her money.

Yes!! This is exactly my point, thank you

But they didn’t do this! They cancelled - in effect closing the contract between my daughter and them.

i tried to speak with the holiday co but they rightfully wouldn’t speak to us as not lead booker!

my daughter asked to see all the paperwork surrounding the cancellation etc and so far it has not been forthcoming.

she could have potentially lost less if they had just cancelled her - BUT We will never know!!

But they DID all cancel anyway?! So that’s what actually happened, therefore the DD here should owe £180, whatever the other “friends” choose to do after that.

they obviously used your DD's share to pay towards their holiday to either book.something more expensive but not cost them more or something similar/cheaper and save themselves some cash
I second (third?) Small claims court

Sounds like a knee jerk reaction from some very ignorant inexperienced young people. However they’re also behaving appallingly and owe your daughter that money, I’d honestly be inclined to teach them another life lesson with small claims court.

This is outrageous behaviour from her friends - theft basically I agree. I do understand it’s very annoying/upsetting, particularly at that age I think, when a friend suddenly messes up your holiday plans by not coming. And it does potentially also mean they end up having to pay more for their holiday. But it’s very immature and unreasonable of them to be so unfair over money, especially as your daughter’s proposal of paying all 3 cancellation costs or covering the difference if they cancelled just her and rebooked the holiday (I suspect the first would have been the cheaper option) is very reasonable. I would not be friends with these people anymore if I were your daughter. She’s been more than fair to them albeit they are probably annoyed and upset by her no longer coming on the holiday, and they have taken the piss here.

Why on earth didn’t they just go on the holiday without her? They can hardly complain that she made them spend more money by booking a new one, when they could have just stuck with the original. The only reason to cancel the original holiday was to get her money back, which they did not do.

It's possible that recalculating the holiday based on 2 didn't save much.

It was an early booking so possibly cheaper room rates than now.

If they were sharing accommodation the third person often doesn't cost much more, so the saving wouldn't be great either.

But all of this should have been discussed if the new arrangement was going to go beyond your daughter losing out only by the agreed £180.

I'd certainly do small claims court if they think they can ride rough over her. Ask for the new and old calculations and refund/money transfer calculations to work out what the amount involved is and to format an argument. I think I would also try and offer mediation with a trusted friend to avoid action and to try and get them to see sense!

Yes but it’s possible they made that decision having discovered that rejigging the cost for 2 people would save nothing. We just don’t know. Obviously they should have kept her informed during the decision making process. But perhaps a few more questions should be asked before running off to the small claims court.

We have asked for copy of paperwork several times - I hey have not been forthcoming

Ok that’s shitty. Have they not even tried to explain why they ended up booking a different holiday ?

That sounds like theft to me. I would ask them once more for her share less the deposit, if not take them to the small claims court.

Yes I don’t understand why they didn’t just go without her and let her claim in insurance etc about not going becuase of cancelling loses all the deposits that is part of it

once 4 of us booked a holiday and 2 couldn’t go (one - me - had chicken pox at 21 and the other had an issue at uni to sort) 1 got money back (me) becuase insurance had to pay out as not fit to travel the other didn’t as wasn’t covered

But when your daughter paid the full amount, did it not mean that she would then lose the full amount? If she’d only paid a deposit, then at that point, thag is all she would have lost. By paying upfront, she put herself at a disadvantage