Shropshire holidaymaker in compensation battle urges others to follow him
A Shropshire pensioner who won a legal victory over a travel giant is urging other out-of-pocket holidaymakers to follow his example.
Bruce Crawcour, from Clive, near Shrewsbury, won a court battle against TUI, which owns Thomson Holidays, after he was charged the full cost of a trip to Majorca despite having to cancel it because of illness.
The 66-year-old took to the company's website to find that the flights and hotel room he had returned to Thomson vanished before the departure date – proving TUI had not made a significant loss and was unjustified in keeping all of his money.
Mr Crawcour represented himself at the Small Claims Court in Telford in February, where a judge ruled in his favour and ordered TUI to pay back the full amount of the holiday – some £2,200 – as well as paying all the court costs.
TUI was given granted leave to appeal the ruling, but has today revealed that it will not do so.
See also: Shropshire pensioner wins victory over cancelled holiday
Now Mr Crawcour's court triumph will go down in case law and could see other wronged holidaymakers following in his footsteps.
Mr Crawcour, a retired assistant chief executive of Shropshire County Council said: "I'm not altogether surprised that they didn't appeal the case. It put them in a very difficult position.
"They could appeal to the High Court and potentially lose again or they could change their cancellation clause so they are fairer to people.
"It does now mean that anybody who has had to cancel their holiday in the 14 days before they were due to travel could make a claim against TUI and it could go back up to six years because that's the statutory limitation. I am pleased we have got to a position that TUI has accepted they were seen not to be reasonable."
Mr Crawcour argued the cancellation clause was in breach of the Unfair Terms Consumer Contract Regulations 1999 and the guidance from the Office of Fair Trading on Unfair Contract Terms in Package Holiday Contracts published in 2004. He said an arbitrary 100 per cent charge for cancellations two weeks before a holiday was "unfair" as it could never be a genuine pre-estimate now that most travel business was done on the internet. TUI declined to comment.
