Plane Sailing to New York City

I actually sent this letter, with the top and tail of it changed appropriately, and of course I received no reply. That was sad, but not altogether surprising. I simply felt saddened that such a well-known and respected local company was behaving in the same faceless couldn't-care-less manner as their bigger rivals like Thompson or Thomas Cook.


Dear Relatively Small, Family-Owned Travel Agency based in Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset,

I understand that, legally, we are liable for the deposit money that we paid to your for our trip to New York City. Details of how we would have to forfeit that money are printed clearly, if in rather small type, in your Terms And Conditions. There is plenty of precedence for this kind of penalty charge across the whole of your industry. We can appreciate your legal standpoint on this matter, but are having a much bigger problem with your MORAL standpoint.

You say in your letter that "We look forward to being of assistance to you again in the future," and I just wanted to take a moment to explore this concept with you. See, I would never again even vaguely consider the possibility of coming to you again for holiday advice. From my perspective, you are the type of company who charge customers over £400 for having made two phone calls and written one letter on our behalf. I cannot believe that your company was at all inconvenienced - and certainly not to the tune of £400 - by our cancelling our family trip to NYC some thirty eight weeks before we were even due to depart.

It's a shame really. As a family we are committed to trying to support local businesses like yours as much as possible, especially in these stringent economic times. But this kind of behaviour is very off-putting, and is strongly reminiscent of the big faceless corporate travel agents who are your main competitors.

If you cannot show yourselves to be any better than they are, then why should you expect to get repeat business from anyone?

Yours sincerely,

A Pissed Off Person who is still trying to deal with the very real disappointment of having to cancel the trip in the first place, never mind losing 400 f****** quid over it.