After leaving cert holiday mess

Best approach ... be prepared to be pissed off and lower your expectations as to what the outcome will be.

it will be a quick life lesson for your young lad.

by all means talk to the travel agent and see what the best case scenario is ... however they work off razor thin margins so expect them to stick to their terms and conditions so ensure you read them and understand them.

contact the parents if you wish to .. don't expect to make friends and anything they offer be grateful.

I have been in a similar situation for a house share, signing for bills and then people fupping off when I was younger. Dont solve it let him work it out himself and call it a learning experience. It could be a very valuable life lesson. Being responsible for other peoples money aint fun and its stressful when "horses buck at the gate".

So they have all paid a deposit to the travel agent. Has anything else been paid?

Can they not all back out losing €60 each? What's the point of a deposit if you're obligated to pay the rest? I'd also be getting tough with the travel agent to sort it out for the lads who genuinely want to go and give the agent some business.

That's bizarre alright. Don't understand how flights can be non-refundable if they haven't paid for them yet. Presumably he has signed something?

Is cancelling his card an option?

This is not correct. They are legally liable for what they signed up to pay, not the deposit, the whole of the outstanding amount due. I would suggest you try to get as many as possible to pay what they owe and do not suggest to them that they can walk away with a €60 loss if it is your son whose card or name is on the booking.

At the time the contract was entered into was your son one of those who was 17 or was he 18? those who were 17 can escape the contract. It is likely that the T&Cs impose the liability for the full outstanding amount (not just "their fair share") on those others. If a single one of them entered the contract then the legal liability (as opposed to the moral liability) may fall entirely on that person. I don't know what the terms and conditions of the contract are of course or how many entered into it.

Best case scenario : one child entered the contract, that person was 17 at the time, you can all walk away.

They're a great company and it's more of an installment plan than a deposit, they book your flights hotels and transfers so hard for them to back out I'm sure. I doubt Ryanair will refund the company

It's a down payment though, you pay it and you instantly get your flights and hotels , i doubt their partners would refund love holidays

So this is essentially commit upfront to pay for the holiday in full but we’ll help you with easy instalments? ie is a contract now in place, underwritten with a credit card?

You mentioned I think a revolute card somewhere? Would need to see how easy or difficult it is to back out of this deal in terms of the practicalities of cancelling the payment method - you’re either locked in for the full amount or you’re simply booked but with the option of cancelling and losing some or all deposits.

Sorry if mentioned already You really need to see the T&Cs email sent when booking first - that will give you the state of play.

Love holidays are great to deal with tbf. I use them all the time. If you get the login details from the lead booker you can amend the booking although the 70 deposit they all paid is non refundable .

I once had to cancel a booking to Rome. Lost the price of the flights but got the full hotel amount back.

They’ll likely only speak to the person making the original booking so they’ll need to be present also - but yeah if there’s talking to be done I reckon the OP is the person most capable of sorting this out in a cost effective manner.

Id be looking to cancel everything- all deposits gone obviously but that’s the cheaper option as I’d say more people will start backing out- what probably sounded like a good idea at the time obviously isn’t a runner now - I don’t think people will be done out of 100s but that’s reliant on all paying the booking deposit at least

As for notifying parents, you could end up looking stupid if you word the message wrong - I’m assuming this is about honour and word to friends, not about some parent underwriting the cost of the booking and then getting stuck with it?

If they’re real friends, they should just pay up what’s owed to date- however if they weren’t informed on T&Cs, it’s gonna be a tougher ask - if they were all asked for a non refundable deposit of X and some didn’t pay, then they should be chased for that money-

From reading the T&Cs on the website, it’s clear this will be problematic - the original booker is possibly in hoc for 1000s - depending on how the company collects debts owed - speaking to the company directly may help but in terms of the flights it looks like they’re as good as paid for - I think a meeting with the whole group or what’s left of the group along with parents is called for - the parents of the guy who made the booking would be your first port of call as essentially the booking is in his name and he has most to lose (assuming your sons revolute card can’t be used right now)