Good point Simon about consumers becoming much more internet saavy.

Only this week I received an email from a consumer complaining that the company wouldn’t refund his cancellation, but she had not read the T&Cs which stated that if the holiday was cancelled within 31 days of the departure no refund would take place.

If she had read this, she may have used another company to book her holiday and could possibly be not in this situation.

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If a company was forced to read you a concise version they would get the point across to you but they would not be covering their behind legally.

Of course there is the occasional company that takes advantage of this conundrum where we are unable to understand “properly worded” legalese and that is cannot read to us concisely where we would understand and the company would still be covering their butts. These companies should be heavily fined, but I guess the best we can do is report them to the BBB.

Anyways its a tough spot, with all the lawsuits flying at big companies these days they really have to cover themselves as much as possible, in the long run the solution should be to simplify law all together…but in the end that cannot be solved by a simplified reading or having someone cram the law down our throats. This especially does not work if you are booking online where most people just click “I Agree” on any contract they see.

So sorry for the thoughts with no solution I just thought it was an interesting topic…

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The trouble is, people soon learn to simply scroll all the way to the bottom to activate the “Continue” button, especially as time goes on, people are becoming more and more computer and internet savvy.

Certainly from the web’s point of view it’s one of those “grey” areas which it’s hard to please everyone. I think so long as the terms and conditions are clearly presented and easy to navigate through, in case you only want to read about cancellations, then unltimately it is on the consumers head to take the initiative to read them.

From a Travel Agent Shop’s point of view – I wouldn’t want to sit there and be read through all of the conditions! I’d expect to be given a copy, and personally I would ask about cancellation charges, what happens if a hurricane decides it wants to ruin my holiday etc.

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We always point clients to the Booking Conditions especially the parts regarding the Clients responsibility to cancellation Charges, name changes etc, and the Tour Operators Liabilities when they can make changes etc and what compensation to expect.

Customers should always make sure, if they have a complaint, that in the first instance they report it to The Local representative in resort, Area or local Office or local agent and Hotel Manager etc. Always ask for a written acknowledgement.
In most cases a complaint can be sorted locally.
If However you don’t do this and wait till you get home, then you are unlikely to succeed in a complaint.

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We have to take more responsibility.

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