My wife and son went on a cheap weeks holiday to Majorca a couple of weeks ago. She booked the airport transfer through Resort Hoppa, we’ve used them before and they were a bit slow to leave the airport but okay. When wife and son arrived there was a bus strike on the island so Resort Hoppa were not running their service (which I don’t really understand), anyway the guy at the desk said if they got a taxi and a receipt they could claim the fare back from Resort Hoppa. Taxi cost 77eoros.

When my wife got home she emailed Resort Hoppa and got the response of ‘We don’t refund this you can claim through your travel insurance’, pretty pointelss with a £50 excess. Al subsequent emails to them have been ignored.

So resport hoppa charge for a service, fail to deliver it, don’t refund the customer for the extra cost incurred, then ignore any communication.

Other buses were running and my thoughts are that they used the bus strike as an excuse not to run their service, still paid their drivers and saved on the cost of running their ‘service’ for the day.

Any ideas where I could from here to recover the costs?

Oh and my advice is ‘avoid Resort Hoppa at all costs’.

Item 11.8 in the t&c’s:

11.8 The following are examples of circumstances which are not within our reasonable control (“Force Majeure Event”):

accidents causing delays to the vehicle
exceptional or severe weather conditions
compliance with requests of the police
deaths and accidents on the road
vandalism and terrorism
unforeseen traffic delays
industrial action by third parties[/u]
problems caused by other customers
other circumstances affecting passenger safety
road closures due to local fiestas or other events
properties that are not accessible to type of service booked
acts of God, flood, earthquake, avalanche or any other natural disaster
epidemic or pandemic
war, threat of war or similar
fire or explosion
terrorist attack or riots.

11.9 Resorthoppa (UK) Limited shall not be in breach of these administrative terms and conditions, nor liable for any failure or delay in the performance of any of our obligations under these administrative terms and conditions arising from a Force Majeure Event.

So basically they can do what they want then with no comeback?

I don’t know mate, but it’s there in black and white as they say. They’re just a booking agent by the looks of it – did you contact the actual service provider?

No use to you now, but in future it would be best to get something in writing from the desk bloke to the effect that you’d be able to reclaim taxi fares.

As pointed out, it is in their Ts&Cs, so you are knackered, but having it in writing *might* have helped.

Dave

Yeh I wasn’t there and would have asked for something in writing. It’s more the fact that my wife was told she could get the money back which was clearly a blatant lie.

Did you book with a debit card perchance?

if so, do a chargeback

Mmm my wife probably did, how would she do a chargebak? Through the bank?

Yes – through the bank

read the bottom of this page
I’ve done successfully a couple of times now, once when a company went bust and another when they plain ripped me off

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/section75-protect-your-purchases

When wife and son arrived there was a bus strike on the island so Resort Hoppa were not running their service (which I don’t really understand)

Seems like it wasn’t (just?) public transport buses but also city coaches: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/1312888/Thousands-stranded-by-airport-coach-strike.html

(assuming it was the same time)

Sent the link to my wife, certainly worth a go.

Thanks very much.

My wife did say that she saw buses doing hotel drop offs all day.