Holiday mess ups!!! and legal action!!

[toecrusher]

Me and my 3 friends all aged 18 booked a 2 week holiday to Zante for the 1st July. Today my friend received a letter informing her that the hotel had over booked and that we are being moved to a Kalamina (a family resort). Thomas cook said we can either go ahead with the move or get a full refund of �400 and book another holiday however we are not going to find another holiday at this price, at this time of year in the type of resort we want to go to! They aso said that because of the time of year we are booking we will not receive a early booking discount like we did when we originally booked the holiday in November! Plus If I wanted to go to a family resort I would of booked one, but we are a group of 18 year old girls looking for good nightlife. Also me and my friend are planning to go to Malia from Zante to try and get work for the summer, on Thursday we booked the flights from Zante to Malia at a extra cost of �260, and we also paid for a weeks accommodation in Malia (where we are going to stay while we try and find a job). Can anybody help us to make a stand!! Has anyone had a similar situation? Can we take legal action against Thomas cook or the hotel?? This has all come around, 4 weeks before my holiday, right in the middle of my trying to juggle 2 jobs and studying for my A levels. I'm very stressed and upset that my holiday (the only thing motivating me to revise) has been completely messed up!!!
Thank you for any help!!

[jammiedodger]

sorry to hear of ur holiday mess up, I feel ur pain in revising at the mo, im currently revising for my 3rd yr law degree exams! not nice! i am also looking forward to my holiday!!! I've looked on the thomas cook website (dunno if u already have) and it seems every hotel i click on, the flights have sold out for 1st july! however i did say there was 6 of you, as u didnt say how many were going, so this may reduce chances of a flight! im going to malia for my holiday, well just down the road, so why dont u just go there for the 2 weeks and try and get ur money back for the flights?? its a fab place, been 3 years in a row...... hope iv been of some help, maybe!!!

[enilorac]

www.holidaytruths.co.uk
someone on there will hopefully help you - they have experience in this type of mess up.

[Keeprockin]

Funny how they always leave it to the last minute to inform cusomers of changes. Obviously under the assumption that it's too late for you to find another alternative.
Before accepting anything,see a travel agent if they can find another Holiday in Zante at a reasonable price,then contact C.A.B or similar advice center and see if you can sue them,or at least get them to make up any extra cash an alternative holiday will cost.
Personally,I'd see them in hell before I accepted an alternative resort from them. Would be as booked,or money back

[toecrusher]

Thank you for everyone�s comments and help!
There was 4 of us going to answer jammiedodgers question and 3 of the 4 went to Malia last year so we fancied somewhere different this year, also we can get the money back on the flights for a charge of 30 euros which isn�t to drastic, it could have been a lot worse. We�ve looked on the internet at other options and holidays in Laganas at that time of year are limited!! However some cheaper ones have come up but not at the same standard of our original holiday so it may be slightly cheaper but not the same value for money! Which isn�t fair!! We booked early so that there was a lot of choice for us and so that we could benefit from early booking discounts, it just seems now that all this has been taken away from us because of the hotels mistake!! I like the way nobody wants to take the blame though! The travel agents say it isn�t there fault, which I can understand but we pay them to sort mess�s like this out and its there responsibility to satisfy the customer and at the minute were not satisfied.
Tomorrow the travel agents are going to contact my friend and tell us weather or not the hotel have agreed to take somebody else off the holiday which I think is unlikely but with our situation I.e going straight to Malia from Zante, they might re consider (hopefully), slight bit of a contradiction from me but I�m really not bothered at the minute, I�m sure there�s someone less desperate then myself to go to that exact hotel or someone who booked later then myself.
I will contact the C.A.B tomorrow to find out where we stand in terms of legal action so that if the news is bad from the travel agents I no where I stand before I start threatening them and probably embarrassing myself!
Thanks again for everyone�s advise! I will keep you informed