Anyone used ABTA to resolve a dispute?
 

Looks like I'm gonna have to take legal action against one of our larger and more reputable tour companies - long story.

They've been dicking me about and generally taking the max amount of time to respond to correspondence, so my instinct is to take them straight to the small claims court.

Can't believe any organisation funded by the travel industry will be truly impartial, hence my reluctance to involve ABTA.

Anyone care to pass on their experience?

Yeti, the only reason I'd go to ABTA is so that you have it on record in case the Tour Operator uses "we could have sorted this out through ABTA" as an argument in a subsequent small claims court hearing. In all probability you won't get much joy out of ABTA, and it will probably delay things quite a bit.

Regarding the small claims court, definitely the best approach if you have a good case. I have acted as representative for a couple of tour operators in these disputes , and the solution has always been very fair. Only thing to be aware of is, if the operator offers you compensation to try and avoid going to court and you refuse it, if the small claims court decides in your favour but for the same or a smaller amount, you will get feck-all, so weigh up any offer they make carefully.

Let me know if you need any information about the labyrinth workings of our worryingly dodgy tour operator industry!

U2U Ian

Only experience I've had of using ABTA to resolve a dispute is by quoting their code of conduct in a letter. The moment I did this I the booking agency in question was suddenly very keen to resolve the case and I got everything I was owed within a week of posting that letter!

It was a pretty straight-forward arguement tho.

Mmmm, maybe I need to read their CofC a bit more diligently. Thankx peeps

resolving disputes
 

I find that one of these usually does the trick ;)

[Edited on 4-11-2005 by uncle porry]