Thomsons Downgraded our hotel room 8 weeks prior

[kaileyG]

Hello
looking for some advice
got a email from thomsons yesterday, a holiday we booked in August 2016 to go in june and paid £473 to upgrade our room to have a partitioned door for when toddler goes to bed we can close it and sit on balcony or put baby to sleep and not have as much noise going on for them sleeping. now thomsons said yesterday the hotel has informed them that they no longer allow infants in that room, I've spoken to the hotel direct and have transcript of conversation that they are unsure why thomsons have stated this as infants are welcome in all rooms unless stated adults only, room i have booked was family room with partition door and they have placed us in a double room !
thomsons have said they will refund us £50 ! not the £473 we paid for the room and now there are no other rooms left and all other hotels in the area are downgrades, also if i went to book into hotel on 30th June i could still book into my original booked room.

If this is a package holiday the Package Travel Regulations apply. Changing the details of the accommodation is likely to be a change to an essential term of the contact. That means you can withdraw from the contract (i.e. cancel the booking) without penalty and:

• take a substitute package of at least equivalent quality, OR

• take a substitute of lower quality with a partial refund (which must cover the full difference between the cost of the original holiday and the cost of the substitute), OR

• get all your money back

You may also be entitled to compensation for anything you have paid for related to the holiday, e.g. kennel fees.

This is covered by Regulations 12 and 13 of the Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992.

You clearly need to talk to Thomsons and decide what to do but don't let them fob you off with their offer of £50. Your legal rights are as I have set out above.

Today 10:56 kaileyG

We have had to down grade our hotel to get a suitable room for us! It would have been better to cancel whole booking and rebook by about £200 but we had pre booked leg room seats so would have lost these also one girl stated they would refund us the leg room money as well and the second girl then said she is not willing to do we have changed hotel and been refunded money but still lost out as if we would have booked it ourselves 😔 And it seems a complaint can't go in until returning from holiday

Not good enough. They must refund the difference between the amount you have paid for the original holiday and the cost of the holiday you now have. The relevant law is The Package Travel, Package Holidays and Package Tours Regulations 1992, regulation 13(2)(b). You may also be entitled to additional compensation on top of that. It sounds like Thomsons are kicking the can down the road in the hope that you will give up and go away. If it were me I would be on the phone to them demanding to speak to a manager and insisting that they pay up immediately.

Ok,

Couple of questions:

Booked online or in store?
What room type have you Been given now?

Things I think could have happened here:

1. Reason no infants allowed - been a lot of this recently, it's due to the balconies not being deemed safe for little ones i.e. Gaps too big, potential risk of falling through or not high enough.

1. Potentially the room type you have now been allocated has a supplement on it - therefore only the difference has been refunded, but you will need to speak to the programme change department to confirm that.

1. Can't comment on you still being able to book the original room type online. Probably would hit the same issue and have it changed if you booked it now.

And you absolutely can complain before you travel. Contact programme change or pre travel services.

HTH.