Are online travel agents responsible for the quality of a holiday?

Simon Calder answers your questions on quality control, Italian strikes and tips for a weekend in Madrid

Today’s reader didn’t quite get the hotel he was expecting in Rhodes (Getty/iStock)

Q We spent a week in Rhodes with our two daughters and their families. We booked through an online travel agent and paid more than £8,000. We had a reasonable holiday, but the hotel was advertised as four star and it barely reached three stars. For four days we had no hot or cold water in our room. A cockroach was spotted one night, and there were some hygiene issues.

I made contact with the agent whilst on holiday with no joy and then wrote and complained on our return. But the company has just shrugged its shoulders and passed the buck down the line, saying that it is just a booking agent and has no responsibility to ensure the holiday we booked was up to standard. Is the firm trying it on?

Ed T

A It looks to me that the online agent is simply confident that it will be able to reject any claim you make. Typically online travel firms insist that they are acting only as an agent for you, offering a range of options for flights and accommodation and allowing you to pick and mix what you want. Your contract is with the airline and hotelier, they insist, and if you have a problem with either, take it up with them.

This is the opposite of what a traditional package holiday firm such as Tui or Jet2 does: they take full responsibility for the quality of the overall trip. There may be some hope of a successful claim, though. Since last year, online travel agents have become subject to the package travel regulations. When you make a flight-plus-accommodation booking, the agent has some responsibilities for delivering the holiday as booked.

So while there may be a statement in the agent’s terms to the effect that “we accept no responsibility for the acts or omissions of the suppliers”, this is not the case when you book a package. The firm becomes responsible for the proper provision of the travel arrangements, and is legally obliged to compensate you for unresolved deficiencies.

One possible avenue for compensation is if you were told that, under the official Greek hotel classification scheme, your hotel was four stars. If it turned out only to have been awarded three stars, you can ask for some money back. But if you simply felt the property was more three stars than four, I fear there is little scope for a successful claim.

The other issues you mention should, of course, have been swiftly addressed and rectified. But unlike proper package holiday companies, online travel agents do not have local reps and relationships with the hotels they sell. So consider the hotel star-rating option, but otherwise I fear you will need to put it down to experience and choose a “real” package holiday next time.

The Adige river in Verona, Italy (Getty/iStock)

Q We were booked to fly back from Verona to Gatwick on Friday but our flight was cancelled because of the Italian national strike that day. The airline offered us a flight two days later, from Milan. We needed to get back on Saturday and so booked the only tickets we could find, via Frankfurt, which cost nearly £1,000. Can I claim this from travel insurance – or even the airline? And what about our hotel expenses in Italy?

Brian T

A Start with the airline. If an airline cancels a flight, for whatever reason, and cannot get you to your destination the same day, then it must offer an alternative on a rival airline. Since seats to get you home from Italy were plainly available – because you booked them – you should have been offered them under the European air passengers’ rights rules.The only get-out allowed to the cancelling airline is if it can can offer something very close, within a couple of hours to a rival airline. But evidently if the first flight you were offered was Sunday, then that option would not have applied.

The airline is also obliged to provide your accommodation and meals, and you can claim those back so long as you can demonstrate the airline did not book them for you. But understanding what the airline is supposed to do and actually getting recompense for the money you have laid out are quite a long way apart. The first step is to submit a claim to the airline with all the receipts and a short statement explaining the sequence of events.

If this is rejected or only partially reimbursed, you have a choice. If you have good-quality travel insurance that covers disruption, you can try to make a claim. But it is possible that the insurer will direct you straight back to the airline, on the reasonable grounds that it is the carrier’s liability. If this happens (or if you don’t have classy insurance) then you will have to get legalistic. Write a “letter before action” giving the airline two weeks to reimburse you, and follow it up with a claim through Money Claim Online if there is no positive response.

It’s a good time of year to visit the Spanish capital (iStock)

Q What are your top tips for a weekend in Madrid in November?

Jane S

A November is an excellent month to visit the Spanish capital. The autumn warmth usually lingers late in the year, though given Madrid’s high altitude (2,200 feet) expect evenings to be chilly. A rewarding day might look like this. Start with breakfast at the always-busy Chocolateria San Gines, dunking churros (swirls of deep-fried dough) in thick hot chocolate. Of the string of great art museums, I like the Thyssen-Bornemisza – the smaller one between the ancient might of the Prado and the modern drama of the Reina Sofia. It reveals what happens when a family fortune is lavished with excellent taste. Aim to be there at 10am when the doors open. (On Mondays it doesn’t open until noon, but thanks to Mastercard’s sponsorship you do get in free and avoid the €13 admission fee.)

For lunch, Mercado San Miguel is the most central and historic market and has plenty of appetising places to eat. On a sunny afternoon, wander over to Madrid Rio, the spectacular result of a project to give the city’s river back to the people. The capital’s ring road was buried in a tunnel, opening up the area with a linear park. And nearby, the Temple of Debod is a fragment of upper Egypt rescued from the Nile Valley by the flooding of the Aswan Dam, transplanted to a hilltop.

Back in the centre, for tapas Plaza Santa Ana is an excellent hunting ground. Just wander around the area and join any throng that appeals. I enjoy La Trucha, for a convivial atmosphere, tasty Andalucian morsels and reasonable prices. The Taberna La Bola is about to celebrate 150 years of delivering Madrileno cuisine for dinner in the capital’s historic centre, on the corner of Calle de la Bola and Calle de las Rejas. The prizewinning speciality, cocido, is a chickpea-based stew with pork, chicken and chorizo, served up theatrically. Book in advance: there are four starting times for cena (dinner), on the half-hour from 8.30pm to 10pm.

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