cancelling holiday forfeiting deposit?

[evedawn]

We booked a fab holiday to South africa and Zambia.

Due to various (financial) reasons we now need to cancel but have been told we forfeit our entire deposit (deposit roughly equates to one third of whole holiday amount)

Are there any ways around this? (without medical letters etc- cos i doubt my gp will "make up" a reason and we are in good health.

Also - if we only cancelled PART of the hol (ie: still wne tto Cape town but DID not do Zambia ) we've been old that we still stand to lose the entire deposit. Why is this when it is only part of the hol being cancelled.

Really hoping someone can help (or that we win the lottery)

[dzug]

I would suspect you have maybe cancelled the whole holiday and rebooked the shorter version - in the eyes of the tour operator anyway.

[evedawn]

we've only made telephone enquiries so far....

so not YET cancelled (but we will need to)

I'd like to know if we KEEP to flight to Cape Town (no accom booked) but CANCEL flights to Zambia, accom in Zambia, and car hire then why we'd lose the full deposit? I hoped we would only lose the deposit for that part of the holiday.

OUr dep and arrival dates(from UK to CT and vice versa) would stay the same.

Your advice much appreciated Dzug

[evedawn]

PS - it is still 84 days till our dep date (mid june)

Surely we should not lose our enitre deposit? PErhaps only a portion?

(It is booked with Thompson Travel by the way)

[Buenchico]

Term 11 of Thomson's conditions states that major changes (rather than, say, just changing a hotel or flight) will be regarded as cancelling the original holiday and booking a new one.

Term 12 states that cancellation, prior to 56 days before the scheduled departure date, results in the loss of your deposit. (That's a fairly standard term. You've entered in a contract and provided the deposit as a bond that you'll complete the contract. If you pull out of the contract, you forfeit the bond).

http://www.thomson.co.uk/thomson/page/common/t andc/tandc.page?accommInvSys=TPP&flightInvSys= TPP&lang=en

Sorry, but I can't see any way out of your position.

Chris

[evedawn]

Buenchico that was very helpful thanks

[evedawn]

PS i wonder why if we cancel PRIOR to 56 days we forfeit all deposit whilst 55 - 36 days it's only 50% (??) would it be an idea for us to cancel closerr to the time?

[Buenchico]

Thanks for the reply.

Sorry, it doesn't work like that. The 50% cancellation fee is 50% of the full price, not 50% of the deposit. If you left it until within the 56 day period, Thomson would have the right to bill you for the extra money to bring the total that you'd paid up to half of the full price.

Chris

[evedawn]

ok - ta for clearing that up....

looks like we out out almost �1000.00 by losing deposit but nowt we can do about it ay?

[Dee Sa]

dont go to Zambia, they charge you $100 us dollars to enter and the same to depart, even if its just for 24 hrs !!!

[evedawn]

yup deesa - I know (it's �70 for single entry and �240 for multiple entry (even if out the country for half n hour to cross the bridge and see the fall from other side!)