The Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018 say the company that sold you the holiday — not the hotel a thousand miles away — is responsible for putting it right. They also say you must report the problem while it is still happening, without undue delay, rather than six weeks later in a strongly worded email. That second part is where most claims quietly die.
You are standing on a balcony sold to you as “sea view.” Below is a car park; beyond the car park, a crane. The pool — the reason the children stopped asking about the flight — is drained, fenced, and wearing a laminated sign bearing the one word you can translate: renovation. The air-conditioning makes a sound but not cold air. There is a rep, in theory. The number in the welcome pack rings out.
Here is what the brochure never explains. The operator that bundled the flight and the hotel and took your money is, in the language of the Regulations, the “organiser.” Under Regulation 15 the organiser is responsible for the proper performance of every service in the package. It does not matter that the pool belongs to the hotel and the crane to the municipality. You do not have to pursue a hotel abroad in a language you do not have. You complain to the organiser. Their name is on the contract; their name is on the hook.
But you must say so, and you must say so now. Report it in writing while you are still there — the app, an email, the front desk complaints book, anything with a timestamp — and get a reference. Photograph the drained pool, the crane, the thermostat reading. Keep every receipt for the taxi to the other pool, the fan you bought, the dinner you were promised was included. The Regulations reward the traveller who flagged it early and papered it. They are quietly merciless to the one who suffered in dignified silence and complained at the airport.
What are you actually owed? Regulation 16 gives you two things. A price reduction for every period the holiday failed to match what was sold — the days without a pool, the room that wasn’t the room. And compensation for the damage beyond the money: the ruined week, the point of the trip. Not a fortune. Something appropriate to what went wrong and for how long. If the operator had cancelled the whole holiday rather than degrade it, a different clock starts — a full refund within 14 days.
None of this arrives by itself. It arrives because you ask, in writing, in terms the complaints department cannot pretend not to understand.
Before you draft anything, the free routes exist and cost nothing. Citizens Advice runs a consumer service that will talk you through it. If your operator is an ABTA member, there is an alternative dispute resolution scheme that sits between you and a courtroom. And if the holiday was flight-inclusive, ATOL protection stands behind it should the operator fail entirely. Try these first; a letter that shows you know they exist tends to be read more carefully.
If it still comes to a letter — and with a stonewalling complaints portal, it usually does — the letter is not a rant. It is a claim. It names the booking reference and the dates. It states, flatly, that the package did not conform to the contract. It cites the organiser’s responsibility under Regulation 15 and your right to a price reduction and compensation under Regulation 16. It attaches the photographs and the receipts. It sets out a figure. It gives a deadline — fourteen days is reasonable — and it says, without threat, what you will do next if the deadline passes: ADR, or a claim in the small claims court, which in England and Wales handles most consumer disputes under £10,000.
It reads something like this:
*”Dear Sir or Madam — Re: booking [reference], [dates]. The accommodation supplied did not conform to the package I purchased. The advertised pool was closed for renovation for the whole stay, and the room described as sea view faced a car park and active building works. I reported this on [date], reference [number]. Under the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018 the organiser is responsible for the performance of the package, and I am entitled to a price reduction and compensation. I enclose photographs and receipts, and I request [amount] within 14 days…”*
That is the whole art of it. Calm, dated, evidenced, and immovable.
Chris is where the blank page stops being the obstacle. Tell it what was promised, what you found, and what it cost you, and it helps you assemble that letter — the reference, the dates, the right Regulations, the enclosures list, the deadline — in your own words, on paper you can send. Not a template with your name dropped in. Your complaint, built to a professional standard, ready to go in an envelope or an email.
Come back when the reply lands, or doesn’t — the next letter is a shorter one.
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