Opinions?

Clauric

Looking for Boardies' opinions on the following story (sorry, it is a bit long).

I went for a weeks holiday to Crete a 3 weeks ago, with the other half. Due to complications with my original booking (for the hotel), I had to make alternative arrangements for the hotel and transfer, on the Friday before my Saturday flight.

I booked a transfer from Chania International Airport to a hotel in Kissamos. I booked with an internet based company (that has a name similar to a holiday location and what a kangaroo does). The price of the transfer is based on the town/village that you are travelling to, and not the name of the hotel.

Upon arrival at the airport, we were directed to a waiting coach, which was meant to take us to our hotel. There were others on board the coach, but the driver approached us, and asked us were we going to a particular hotel, and which side our bags were on in the hold of the bus. I confirmed we were going to the hotel in Kissamos, and which side the bags were on. Nothing else was said by the driver, and we promptly drove off.

About 30 minutes later, we were dropped at a hotel. The driver told us that this was our hotel, took our bags off the bus, and promptly drove off. However, it turns out that both the town and hotel that we had been dropped at were not where we were meant to be. The hotel was a similar but differently named hotel (i.e. x & Y Hotel as opposed to X Hotel), while we were in Agia Marina instead of Kissamos, which is about 37km away. Unfortunately, the bus was gone, and there was no public transport between the two towns at that hour of night (nearly 10pm on Saturday). This meant that we had to get a taxi to our hotel, which cost us €42.

I contacted the company that we had booked the transfer with. I asked the company to pay for the cost of the taxi between where we were dropped, and where we were meant to have been dropped. The company agreed to this.

I also asked them to refund half the cost of the transfer, as they had not provided us with the service which we had contracted with them to provide. They have point blank refused to do this, with the following line:

Please be advised that in cases such as this it is our policy that you are refunded any out of pocket expenses to ensure that you do not pay any more than your original transfer cost.

Just to clarify that these monies represent the difference between the cost paid to us for your transfer and the cost of booking local transport. I regret to advise that we cannot agree to any further reimbursement on this occasion.

Based on the above, is this a reasonable answer to my request? Or is it reasonable to insist that I get the partial refund?

All opinions welcome.

killbillvol2

They're covering your out of pocket expenses without quibble. Leave it.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

It seems fair. They covered the cost of getting to your accommodation. I wouldn't expect anything more. Looking for half the initial fare back on top of this is a bit much.

Thoie

I'd agree with the other two.

You had agreed to pay €x to get to your hotel. You ended up paying €x+42.

They're refunding you the €42, so essentially you got to your hotel for €x, which was your initial agreement. It would have been nice of them if they had offered something like a discount on future bookings or something like that, but it would only have been niceness, not an obligation.