Buyers beware!
When travel gets tricky
Pushpa Girimaji

About 12 of us from my office made a group booking for a holiday through an online travel portal. Accordingly, we were to spend the New Year’s eve partying at a ‘home stay’ in Kodagu in Karnataka and our air tickets from Delhi to Bangalore were booked. The portal also promised to arrange our transport from the airport to our destination and back by taxi. The bookings were made in November itself and jut two days ago, I contacted the home stay owner for some information and was shocked to find that they have no bookings for us at all. He said most of the bookings for the new year are done well in advance and his place is full. We now find that our entire holiday plan is ruined –can we take any action against the travel portal? He now says that if we cancel the air tickets, we will lose a lot of money.

You booked a package deal, so your air booking was conditional on your getting the accommodation. Since the travel portal failed to do that, it cannot now ask you to pay for cancellation of your air ticket. It has to return the full amount to you. In fact, the travel portal has to pay you compensation for the disappointment caused to you on account of a ruined holiday-ruined by the carelessness of the travel portal. Send the portal a notice –if he is unwilling to return your money and compensate you for his negligence which ruined your holiday plans, go ahead and file a complaint before the consumer court. In Arnab Kr Sarkar vs Seema Travels (RP No 2130 of 2000), the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission held that a consumer is entitled to compensation not only for financial loss and physical hardship caused on account of the negligence of a tour operator , but also for the disappointment suffered on account of a ruined holiday. Said the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission: "If a holiday is ruined by virtue of breach of contract on the part of the tour operator, damages can be recovered in respect of the distress, disappointment and inconvenience suffered by the consumer." You can quote this case in your letter to the travel agent.

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